The 5 Everyday Influences Costing Your Potential

Can you say with absolute certainty that you are achieving everything you are capable of? Do you know for sure you are doing the very best you can with the resources you have? And even if you think the answer is a resounding “yes”, why risk it?

Every day there are happenings that keep you toeing the line and playing small. Chances are they are now so normal to you, so ingrained in your daily habits, that you don’t even notice their effect. The answer might not be working more, the answer might be subtracting those elements of your life that don’t need to be there. The ones that are silently stealing your potential while you remain oblivious.

Here are the five everyday influences costing your potential.

Breaking news

The urgency of flashing red banners and hurried information catches your attention. Thrown off guard, you stop whatever you are doing to find out the story. You react, you reflect, you form an opinion. The opinions are discussed with friends soon after the event. The television, app or radio is telling you this matters, telling you to pay attention, so you go along without questioning.

Not only is breaking news breaking your flow, ruining your concentration and halting your habits of producing, creating or working on the essential, its messages instil fear into your subconscious. Fear, left unattended, creeps into your mind and changes how you act. Believing there is danger nearby, your disposition becomes guarded and tight. Believing there isn’t enough to go around, you act from a place of scarcity. When believing there are so many problems nearby, you might struggle to find the solutions you seek and the progress you so keenly want. Breaking news is a massive waste of time and brain space.

Commentary

What’s the harm in a bit of commentary? Whether it’s finding out what the ex-player thinks about the match, the YouTuber thinks about the event, or the cooking expert thinks about the cream cake, subscribing to commentary grants it undue importance in our mind.

The credit goes to the man in the arena, to paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, not the critic. The critic doesn’t count. The critic has no skin in the game. But listening to the words of onlookers as part of your everyday places undue weight on opinion and judgment. Inflated importance on what other people think. Rather than dancing like no one is looking, singing like no one is listening and creating from the heart, you keep one eye on the commentary that your work might attract. The commentary does not matter, but its influence on your life could cost your next move.

Gossip

Friendships based on gossip are shallow at best. Rather than taking an active interest in each other’s lives, sharing experiences and creating memories, gossiping friends put other people down and take delight in the practice. Not only does this bad energy result in withdrawals from the karma bank, the judgment leads to nothing but separation.

Separating from others by putting them down is not conducive to a happy life or business. The spokesperson or the spreader of malice only serves to tarnish their own reputation. Your acquaintances know they aren’t exempt from a seasoned gossiper’s conversations, so they keep you at a distance and don’t trust you with introductions.

Hero-worshipping

As with bringing people down, putting them on a pedestal could be costing your potential. Rather than being intrigued about how someone got to where they did, you write them off as superhuman, gifted, weird or lucky. But doing this misses the opportunity to learn. It misses the opportunity to emulate their process.

Comparing yourself unfavourably to others creates feelings of inadequacy and helplessness, which are not the traits of a strong entrepreneur. Assuming a zero-sum game in which they win and you lose isn’t going to give you the motivation you need to conquer the day and achieve your goals. Swap comparison for appreciation. Swap envy for fascination. Probe a bit deeper, ask all the questions. You might find the breakthrough that changes everything.

Scrolling social media

Not only is scrolling social media wasting hours of your time, but paying disproportionate attention to the lives of vague connections might be throwing you off track. Perhaps you’re sure of your goals and your route to achieving them but compulsively intrigued by the success of those you follow. They seem to have it so good, so you question your path.

Straddling strategies ensues as you flit about copying the last person to pop up on your timeline. Gone is the concerted effort that your dream life requires, and in its place a mountain of dormant domain names, half-baked ideas and excitable conversations that never gain traction. The insecurity compounds and you feel like you’re back to square one, every single day. Scrolling social media is costing your potential in more ways than one.

Success on the level you want is no easy feat. You don’t get there without questioning every element of your life to ensure it has earned your time and attention. Breaking news, commentary, gossip, comparison and scrolling might be eating away at the best version of you, without you even realising what’s happening. Awareness and subtraction will let you regain your power.