Living Your Fullest Potential

Jonathan Mead from Zen Habits has written a great article about reaching your fullest potential in life.

"7 Essential for Living Your Fullest Potential" lists in a great and simple language useful ways to help you re-charge your potential to the max. Here is number 1 of the list:

1. Have an open mind. Everyone talks about how important having an open mind is. But what they don’t say is how much having an open mind can affect your potential. A lot of opportunities pass us by because we’re stuck in a limited pattern of thinking, or we’re afraid to take a risk. If there’s no actual real (or perceived) danger, take the risk. The worse that can happen is you’ll look silly. Having an open mind is the first step to reaching your potential, because it gives you the willingness to take risks. We’ll never be the best we can be by playing it safe. As the saying goes: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always be where you’ve always been.”

As a musician, when I make a mistake, I’ll cringe and think I sounded terrible. After I’m done playing and ask someone if they heard my mistake they usually say “What mistake?” There’s a good chance you see yourself more critically than other people do.

This had me thinking a lot about the way I perceive things, and the way I make choices. I want to toy with new ideas, and try new things, but I stumble out of fear or hesitancy most of the time. This needs to change.