Lost Human Potential Can Be Rediscovered.

By: Dr. Bill Anton

It’s a fact that all human beings use only a fraction of their potential.

The difference between our functional ability and innate potential can be thought of as a measure of how much of our capacity we are using to function. Aside from conditions affecting the physical functioning of our body-mind, the greatest restriction to accessing our larger potential is prior learning.

Prior learning often consists of overdevelopment of the parts of us that align with parental imperatives and transformation of the unaligned parts of ourselves in some way that makes them seem to disappear. Although the hidden parts of us can remain silent for decades, they continue to signal us, sometimes faintly, in unexpected ways, often presenting as unwelcome emotions at inconvenient times.

Eventually, and after many rehearsals, we begin to “write” a subjective narrative of who we believe ourselves to be and what we can expect from our lives. Essentially, we are told a story of who we are (often in childhood), then we repeat this story to ourselves and believe the story, until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Much of this occurs at the subconscious level without us being aware.

Depending on the degree to which individual self-expression was encouraged in our early development, our own perspectives of who we are can range from fairly accurate to almost completely false.
We take this enduring self-definition with us everywhere, and we assess our changing surroundings by how “at home” we feel in the situation. In other words, we seek environments and experiences that validate our self-definition, and we avoid or fail to put energy into those environments that disconfirm that definition—even if it is self-limiting and false. This is how we unconsciously resist change and create self-fulfilling prophecies that prevent us from achieving more of our potential.
The paradox is that our compromises often propel us to excel in narrow ways while simultaneously restricting us from accessing our creative best.

Example : A gifted Olympic athlete who trains for sport and neglects the rest of their development, may win championships but suffer poor relationships and never explore other parts of their potential. We overdevelop the parts of us that we believe are valuable. Business leaders, will often use financial and professional success as the overdeveloped part of the self to validate their beliefs in themselves.

Since we contribute to what we see, we can choose to remain unchanged simply by pursuing those experiences and relationships that validate what we already believe. We all sense that we have more potential than we can access, and all are invited at times to either stimulate or suppress our curiosity about these unknown parts of themselves.