Why Don't Most People Reach Their Potential?

When the most successful people were interviewed in the 1990s, they all shared one commonality: They were incredibly complex people. They were both differentiated and integrated.

They were differentiated because they took it on themselves to get exposed to the world. They were integrated because they learned to make sense of this diverse absorption.

Many people are integrated but not differentiated. They haven't done the work to expose themselves to complexities. They find it easy to ignore the excess noise in the world. But deep down, they know they aren't really living a life that's true to who they are.

Then some people are differentiated but not integrated. They have exposed themselves to lots of information, picked out the values that are true to them, but they don't know how to make it all cohere. They can't act on what they know. They follow after every distraction. And it doesn't help that this complex, abundant world demands so much of them.

We can develop our potential by cultivating awareness - by looking for ways we get in our own way and advising ourselves to a course of action.

Awareness is about observing our emotional experience, to see it clearly and objectively, to accept it, and then to decide how to deal with it. This will slowly build a fertile ground for our ability to thrive.