What is your next evolution?

𝐀𝐧 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞: Let’s look at a metaphor for our potential. Imagine you are sitting at a table, where every seat at the table is taken – except one. Who is seated in every seat around the table? You – at different defining moments of your life. Maybe one of the seats is taken by the young girl or boy you were at the first moment you knew you could balance on your bike, or realized you had learned to read, or the first time you had the experience of having helped someone in need, or when you stood up in class no matter how nervous you were and read aloud the poem or story you’d written, or found out, after studying hard, that you passed something important with flying colors. Maybe you see yourself having accepted a job after graduate school where you knew you’d made the wrong choice for yourself and had to courage to regroup and move on, or took on a promotion, not certain they’d chosen the right person – but surpassed your own fears and low expectations of yourself. Keep looking around the table and see if you can note the different moments that mark your development as a person. The reason I say all, but one chair is filled is because each time we step into our potential, each time we evolve and expand, our more fully developed self fills the seat that was empty and then – another empty seat appears. It reminds us to keep going, keep learning, keep reaching for the person, the leader, the parent, the professional, the friend, the partner, the wiser, more accomplished, more at peace, more fulfilled person we have yet to become.

Potential is a vital part of us: Potential refers to the dynamic, vital, phenomenon of our capacity to evolve; it is given to each of us to acquire, deepen, and expand, skills, talents, and abilities; to become wiser, better problem solvers, better leaders, better partners, better communicators. Potential is about the person we have yet to become – and once we are “there”, it is about our potential to evolve even further.

Next time we’ll look at how our potential doesn’t take its shape until we harness it, until we trust it, until we earn it. Both our aspirations and our problems can lead us there.