Home of Dustin Taylor

Recognizing Potential

// March 8th, 2010 // Comments // Motivation, Quotes

I’ve been thinking a lot about potential lately and how much it can either point us in the right direction or make us feel like there are 100 bricks in a backpack and that we can never let go.  So how can we really take hold of our potential and actually achieve a sliver of it?

I sincerely believe this is important because once we recognize our potential and begin to realize that potential, a funny thing happens… we begin to see the potential in others.  What others can and ought to do.  Once we have realized our potential and found out the “trick” to doing so, we unconsciously help those around us to do the same.  Sometimes all you need is a helping (invisible) hand from those around us to help “lift us up to where we belong.”  I think this is best done by you and I recognizing potential in others and treating them as if they have already reached that potential.  This, in effect, pulls them up to their potential.

When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Focus on your potential, not your (or those around you) limitations.The hard part is recognizing that your potential is even greater than where you are currently at and always will be.  But at the same time, being happy with where you’re at so that you can push for greater heights.

How have you done this?

Making your Max the Min

// April 26th, 2009 // Comments // Motivation, Productivity

I recently went to a lecture series where I got some sound advice for personal development and growth in general.  I love lectures like this because I love to be motivated to do what no one else has ever done before.  I love having someone finally tell me that my dreams are within reach if I but go to work to achieve them and believe.  I live that type of belief system every day of my life.

For a reason I didn’t know when I was growing up, I always LOVED when somebody told me I couldn’t do something because it was too hard, nobody else had done it, or that I wouldn’t be good at it.  I especially loved it when I was playing basketball because it would make me play harder and better as I was out to “prove” something.  All throughout our lives, there are those who tell us we can’t do things because those things are too hard, nobody has done them before or that we just weren’t meant to do those things.  BALONEY!    That kind of talk just fuels my fire even more to succeed!

Back to this lecture series, one thing they mentioned really stood out to me and has stuck with me ever since.  This simple phrase, “Don’t make your minimums your maximums.”  In almost everything we do in our lives, there is a minimum bar, a standard, that we must meet.  How often do each of us set that minimum standard as our goal, even our limit.  For example, how often do we set our limit to succeed in our occupation as “enough to cover my basic, basic needs” and we are comfortable with that?  Making your minimum also your maximum negates all potential and drive to succeed in not only you, but those who are around you.

Many are good, but few are great.  I believe that the difference lies between where your personal limits are set.  Are they set at the minimums?  Or are they higher than you can reach at the moment…you must stretch yourselves?  Your only limit to your dreams in life, whether it’s financial freedom, more time with family, better at basketball, learning how to play the piano, or whatever else it may be, the only limit is yourself and your own belief system.  Everything within that is reachable — so why not expand that limit, and enlarge your belief system?

Joan of Arc once said,

“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it.  But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.”

You only live once — what are you doing today to make the most of it?

Life is about…

// April 16th, 2009 // Comments // Motivation

Cool little story…take a look and let me know what you think in your comments!

Life isn’t about keeping score.  It’s not about how many people call you and it’s not about who you’ve dated, are dating, or haven’t dated at all.  It isn’t about who you’ve kissed, what sport you play, or which guy or girl likes you.  It’s not about your shoes or your hair or the color of your skin or where you live or go to school.  In fact, it’s not about grades, money, clothes, or colleges that accept you or not.  Life isn’t about if you have lots of friends, or if you are alone, and it’s not about how accepted or unaccepted you are.  Life just isn’t about that.

BUT life is about who you love and who you hurt.  It’s about how you feel about yourself.  It’s about trust, happiness, and compassion.  It’s about sticking up for your friends and replacing inner hate with love.  Life is about avoiding jealousy, overcoming ignorance, and building confidence.  It’s about what you say and what you mean.  It’s about seeing people for who they are and not for what they have.  Most of all, it is about choosing to use your life to touch someone else’s in a way that could never been achieved otherwise.  These choices are what life is about!!