(un)limited potential within you

Every human being on the planet has already within them all the potential to do great things.

The question is, do you believe this about yourself? This is something that I ask myself quite often because there’s enough messages out there in the world telling you that you can’t. There’s also plenty of that inner voice saying the same thing.

I’ve recently heard this statement who was encouraging the listeners to take action — “It’s not that you can’t. It’s that you won’t”

Our lives up to this moment in time is the sum-total of all the decisions we’ve made so far, decisions about what we choose to believe, what actions we take, what we think about and what habits we have created for ourselves. Yes, whether you consciously or unconsciously decided these things, at the end of the day, the responsibility lies with you.

There have been many times in my life where I chose to take go the easy way, I very much enjoyed to play in the form of video games and hanging with my mates. These were choices that I made not knowing the consequences that would be a result of my actions. I didn’t do well in high school — at all… except for one thing which was Music and Art, and that’s because of the investment my parents made in the private lessons over many years and the discipline of practicing daily. Apart from that, I was pretty bad. Reflecting upon this now I can see in hindsight, what we choose today matters. I once heard John C Maxwell share a story from his childhood that he learnt from his father, “either you pay now and play later or you play now and pay severely later” as he watched his family leave on a Saturday afternoon to go swimming with him watching from the window inside the house because he failed to do the chore in the week before. I can relate to this because of my entire high school years, I chose to play now, over and over again until it was too late, it was exam time for the HSC and I had not prepared for it at all — the results speak for themselves, I scored in the low 50s.

Fortunately, I had an accident that forced me to reconsider my choices — when I was 17, right after the HSC exams, I decided to put my last efforts into becoming a Musician and audition for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, I couldn’t think of anything else that I could do. It was the weekend before the audition when I attended my friend’s 18th birthday party. As the night came to a close, we were helping clean up and I found myself standing before a friend, about to make another stupid choice — my friend indicated to give me a boost to jump higher and reach some helium balloons that had escaped further up the ceiling, instead of jumping higher, I was flipped 2 metres in the air and came crashing down with my entire weight on my left arm which snapped both bones. That was the accident that forced me to rethink my choices — I could either keep on making stupid choices that satisfied my desire to play now, or get it together and focus on what’s more important.

That was almost about 14 years ago — I can say that the journey since then has had many ups and downs, but I have learnt a lot along the way.

This is what I discovered that’s helped me and I hope to inspire and encourage you to take the necessary steps to tap into that unlimited potential that already is within you and break free from the limitations that you have placed on yourself.

Every day, I encourage you to take a BATH — not a literal one (although you probably should… you know, shower, stay clean and fresh!). Start making a choice daily to:

• Believe that you have unlimited potential within you to achieve great things. Surround yourself with people who believe in you more than you believe in yourself. Know your why and what’s most important to you.
• Act now with what you have. Don’t wait for the ‘perfect’ scenario. Every step you take is progress towards your destination.
• Think differently. Get another perspective. Ask others for their thoughts.
• Habituate the things that help you instead of the things that could hinder you or hurt you. Example of a habit I’ve formed — every day, take a moment to write down what you’re grateful for.

“People often say motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily”. — Zig Ziglar

I love stories from people who were able to do things that most people would give up on — one I’ll share with you is a well known icon, the Colonel Harland Sanders, founder of KFC. Colonel Sanders was in his 60s when he was broke with nothing but his “secret recipe” for fried chicken as he was forced to close down his restaurant. His goal was to franchise this recipe with restaurants and this lead him to sleeping in his car, knocking on doors and being rejected over 1000 times before someone finally said yes. Had the Colonel given up, KFC would not have existed and neither would all the people like me get to enjoy the deep fried goodness of chicken with his mates from time to time.

You never know what you could possibly achieve, unless you change what you believe from today onwards.

James Zhang

My why is to help and inspire other people to live a full life through unconditional love.