One focus of my work is helping organizations, communities and events discover and achieve their greatest potential. But potential is one of those tricky, nebulous concepts.
To help make it less nebulous, let’s head over to the on-line Merriam-Webster dictionary to see what they have to say about it:
po·ten·tial adjective pə-ˈten(t)-shəl
1: existing in possibility: capable of development into actuality <potential benefits>
2: expressing possibility; specifically: of, relating to, or constituting a verb phrase expressing possibility, liberty, or power by the use of an auxiliary with the infinitive of the verb (as in “it may rain”)
You’ll note that the definition doesn’t assume that potential is always positive. There’s always the “potential for things to go sideways”. However, we’ve come to commonly perceive it as a positive – an intangible worth achieving. So many of us saw this sort of thing on our report card: “Maureen’s average is within the class norms, but she shows much greater potential.” Arghh. Potential. It was teacher code for “not working hard enough”.
The good news is that realizing potential is not as hard as it seems. All you need to do is ask a few key questions to discover the potential in any situation. Once you see what’s possible, you’ll find that you can harness your own potential by applying these basic discovery questions to yourself as well as to specific situations:
By building a habit of inquiry, you’ll start to explore the potential of opportunities and of yourself in any situation. Instead of walking the path of least resistance or working to the lowest common denominator, you’ll naturally ask the questions that can turn average into good and good into great.
So this week, take time to find the potential in an idea, an opportunity or in yourself. Because that’s one of the nice things about potential — it’s always there, just patiently waiting to be discovered.
~ Maureen Douglas, CPF-IAF
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