Maximizing Your Potential

a serious enemy of potential. It eats away at the very core of our time and motivation. To maximize your life you must destroy procrastination by eliminating all excuses and reasons for not taking action. Just do it! Procrastination eats away at the very core of our time and motivation. 6. Past Failures Too often we are unwilling to take risks in the present because we have failed in the past. Perhaps the first story you sent to a magazine wasn’t published, so you never wrote another story. Perhaps your first garden didn’t produce many vegetables, so you never planted another garden. Perhaps your first business proposal didn’t win the bank’s approval, so you never started your own business, and you’re still working for someone else. Failure is never a reason to stop trying. Indeed, failure provides another opportunity to enjoy success . The apostle Paul discovered the truth of this when he met Jesus and turned from persecuting Christ to preaching the good news of God’s salvation in Him. ...I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things... Only let us live up to what we have already attained (Philippians 3:12-16). Paul was not unaware of his failures, but he refused to allow them to keep him from doing what he knew he could do. He believed that the God who had called him to serve Him would accomplish within and through him all that He had purposed. He trusted in a power higher than himself. ...I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith (Philippians 3:8-9). Paul had messed up, but in Christ he found the reason and the strength to pick himself up and move on. You must do the same or you will never see your full potential. Refuse to be a loser no matter how many times you lose. It is better to try and fail than never to try at all. Remember, you cannot make progress by looking in the rearview mirror. To maximize your life you must let the past be past and leave it there. 7. The Opinions of Others Most of us have had the experience of sharing a great idea with friends only