How to Coach Yourself and Others Happiness Is No Accident | Page 15

DOING OUR FULL POTENTIAL
by Scott H Young
http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2006/03/24/living-up-to-our-full-potential/

An idea I am constantly referred to is that of “living up to our full potential.” I don’t agree with
this concept. It might seem odd that someone who runs a personal development blog would
disagree with the concept of living up to our full potential, an idea that is often used as the
fundamental of personal development, so let me explain.
I personally believe that the idea of “living up to our full potential” illustrates a flaw in our
thinking about how we define “success”. Our full potential seems to imply that there is an arbitrary
point of maximum achievement for each of us in this life time. I think this type of thinking can be
inspiring, but also limit us in a way.
Thinking about “living up to our full potential” can often inspire or push us to make
improvements. In this sense, having a full potential to live up to is a good concept in order to get
us to make the improvements we need to make to live a great life. However, I believe that the
concept of “full potential” makes some inaccurate assumptions about success.
In order to see what these inaccurate assumptions are, we need to define success. So what is
success?
I personally would consider success to be the measure of happiness, fulfilment and impact we have
with our lives. Success is the sense that we are fulfilled with our contribution to the world and are
doing our best. Think about it. Everything we do in life is pretty much to directly or indirectly
influence these factors. We want to be happy and fulfilled in our life and our life’s purpose. Once
we have that we want to increase the positive impact we can have on the world. That is how I
would define success.
So where does happiness and fulfilment come from? Happiness and fulfilment come from growth.
When we feel we are growing, improving and experiencing life to the best of our abilities is when
we are the most fulfilled and contented. Therefore I would say that the measure of success we have
in life is the level of growth we are currently experiencing.
So why does this conflict with the concept of “living up to our full potential”?
I believe this conflict arises because this implies that the true measure of success is in achieving a
certain point or position in the continuum of personal development. But based on our definition of
success, the position is not really what creates success. Success instead is based on the rate of
growth or velocity.
So instead of our past concept of “living up to our full potential.” I would say it more accurately as
“doing our full potential.” This may seem like semantics but the difference is crucial.
Living up to our true potential, that is the arbitrary point of maximum achievement in our lives is
daunting and rarely inspiring. How can one possibly live up to their “full” potential without the

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