Why some people never reach their full potential.

In this episode of The Reset Series, we explore why so many people stay stuck beneath their true potential. From fear, self-doubt, people pleasing and survival mode, we unpack the hidden patterns and messages that keep us playing small - and how awareness, healing, and mindset shifts can help us finally move forward, and rise into the life we're capable of living. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome to the Reset and Rise podcast series. And this is a space where we're going to talk about mindset, growth, discipline, and basically just becoming the best version of you and the person that you know you're capable of being. And today I want to talk about why people never reach their full potential. And there's various reasons why that happens, but ultimately there's one kind of overarching factor, and that is fear. And that can be a physical fear, it can be you know an emotional fear, but ultimately, fear fear starts for a number of different reasons. It can be an experience, it can be, you know, an emotional reason. But really, once fear starts and you feed into that fear, well, then you start living a life that's very small, and you start living a life that isn't really true to who you can be, and you start achieving things that are only within the parameters of that small little world that you're living in, and ultimately, then what you're achieving is it's not going to be anything amazing, and it's not going to be any of the things that you you know hoped and thought that you were going to achieve at one stage in your life, and like that might be just applying for a job, it might be joining a gym, it could be going for a coffee with friends, it could be anything as simple as anything, but ultimately, once you feed into that fear and you accept that that's the life you have, well, then that becomes the life that you're living, and that's a really sad place to be. Um, and I'm gonna speak about my own experience, I suppose, because I think people might understand better where I'm coming from. But basically, I for a very long time did not reach my full potential, and the reason for that is because I didn't believe in myself, I didn't believe that one I was capable of doing all these things that I aspired to do, but that two I was also worthy of um doing all these things that I wanted to do, you know. And we live in a world now where we're we're surrounded by social media and everybody's living their best life, and everybody's just tick-tick-ticking all those boxes, um, and look, they might be um they're portraying their life as what they want you to see. I always say that to people, you know, be very mindful what you see on social media is what that person wants you to see. You know, they've they've decided what they're going to post online, it's not like a live stream of their life, so I think it's really important that people remember that. But for me, I suppose, yeah, I was looking at other people and I was just wondering, like, what was I doing wrong? You know, I'd worked really hard, I was working really hard, and I was committed, I was going to work every day, I was being a ma'am, I was training, you know, and ultimately what it was was I would get to a point in my life, but then I would stop. And why I stopped was I was afraid, and what I was afraid of was I was actually afraid of what would happen if I went any further. So if I went for a promotion, what if I didn't get it? If I went to college to do something, what if I looked stupid? What if everybody there was smarter than me? What if everybody there knew what they were talking about? What if everybody there knew this big secret that I had? And I let you in on what the big secret was. It wasn't a big secret, but to me it was. Um, I um I suffered some um childhood trauma, and that gave me the belief system growing up that I wasn't good enough, and that I wasn't the same as everybody else, and that everybody else knew this about me. Just to be clear, they didn't, and but in my mind um that everybody knew this about me, and everybody knew that I wasn't good enough to be where I was I wanted to be. So, what happened then was that was the message I told myself every single day. So I didn't tell myself I could do all these things, I didn't tell myself that I was amazing. The message I told myself hundreds of times a day, sometimes subconsciously and sometimes knowingly, was that I wasn't good enough and that I didn't deserve this job, and that everybody would laugh at me. And I lived this life for a very long time. Over probably um, I'm going to say probably over 30 years of my life I lived like that. And a few years ago, I had a revelation and I decided I don't want to live my life like this anymore. I don't want to get to a point in my life where I don't have any more options and there is no more time left. And I wanted to do all those things and I didn't do them, so I didn't just wake up one day and apply for the job and say that's it, it's all gonna be sorted because it doesn't work like that. If you've told yourself that message for a very long time, you can't just flick a switch overnight. But what you can do is you can start really small and start to rebuild and reset that thought process. That once you start telling yourself a different message, well, then that becomes the norm. So the negative messages do still come, they do, but you replace them with a positive thought process, and little by little the nervous system starts to calm. And secondly, what you have to do is you have to step out of your comfort zone, you have to step into those environments that are going to make you feel uncomfortable because that's where the growth happens, that is where the most beautiful thing will happen in your life. You won't always succeed, like that is just a fact. But even on the days you don't win, or the days you don't get the job, you will have grown as a person from that job interview, or you will have grown as a person through going to that course, and little by little, the more things that you do, it just really you know it reaffirms that you are enough. So, for me, that's what I did. I first stepped into coaching and working with a really, really good coach, and she's just been phenomenal, she's changed my life. But I started really small with that, so I started working on the habits for me. I committed to the process, I stopped starting and then quitting a few weeks later. I decided I'm not looking for a quick fix here. I actually want to reevaluate my life, I actually want to change this forever, I want to be done with this, I don't want to feel like this anymore because the reality was I was an amazing person, I was an amazing mother, I was amazing at my job, but I was not living my life to a full potential because I was staying in this little small world, so afraid of everything that could go wrong. But ultimately, I couldn't stop anything from going wrong either way. So, yeah, I thought I had all this control over the external factors, but ultimately something happened a few years ago, and it was like someone swept the carpet from underneath me, and it showed me that well, I didn't I had no control over that situation, and I was still living in this really small world. So I decided to take the step forward and sign into this process for myself, and I was fully committed for the long game, and I'm still playing that long game with that same coach, and it's been the best thing I've ever done for myself. But ultimately, that's where I started, and little by little I started to feel good in myself. I started to tell myself better messages every day that I was enough, and that I was enough as I was, and that I was loved, and that I was cared for, and that I was a wonderful person, and people might listen to this now and think, Oh, she's really full of herself, but I'm not. Why would you not want to tell yourself that you're a wonderful person? That doesn't make you cocky, or it doesn't make you think you're amazing, you know, full of yourself. It just means that you have enough self-love for yourself to acknowledge the person that you are, and if you don't have that love for yourself, and if you don't feel that way about yourself, well, how can you expect anyone else in the world to feel that way about you? And that's just a fact. So the love starts from you. So that's where I started. I started really with the basics with myself, speaking much more positively to myself and accepting that what happened in my life in my past was not my fault, and that just because I was living a life filled with these thoughts that I'd been left with, they weren't true, they were actual lies that I had told myself for decades, and that had resulted in me living a life that was not equal to who I was as a person. So I started there, and then as time moved on, and as you know, I started to get fitter, I started to feel really good in myself, that gave me the the the splur to apply for a job and promotion, and that's something I never would have done before. And it was outside of my department, I'd worked in the department for nearly 19 years, and I went for the interview, and like I I nearly didn't go in, that's being really honest, but something in me that day said, This is the biggest step you're ever going to take in your life, and you have to do it, and it was just walking into an interview, that's what it looked like, but it wasn't just walking into an interview, it was the very first time I had really stepped outside my comfort zone into a position that was going to push me to something that I didn't know, I didn't know what questions they were gonna ask me, I didn't know who they were. I actually, if I'm perfectly honest, I didn't really even want the job, um, but I applied for it and it ignited a fire inside me. So I went for the interview and I thought it went okay. I answered all the questions, and ultimately I was just myself. I said, I'm gonna be myself, and if I get it, I get it, and if I don't, I don't. That's the attitude I went in with, and I actually scored number one on the panel. They phoned me a few weeks later to say I got the job. Fast forward, I left the department I'd known everything about for 19 years and moved to a different organisation. And in the mix of all of that, COVID happened, so it couldn't have come at a more challenging time. I'd left a job that I knew and I'd moved into a role that I didn't know, and then I was thrown into this like scenario of working at home. It was when I think back about what all that was, it was mad. But anyway, so it couldn't have been more challenging, and like there were times where I thought, what have I done? Like, why did I step outside my comfort zone? It would have just been so much easier had I stayed where I was, everything would have been convenient, everything would have been what I knew. But fast forward a year, another promotion came up and there, and I'd grown in confidence because I'd stepped outside my comfort zone and I've I saw, you know, well, this isn't that bad. Like, I've actually learned a new job, I've actually excelling in this job. So I applied for the promotion and I got it. Um, I scored number one on that panel, and I got the job, and then that really ignited something inside me that was the first time I realized, well, the first time I kind of thought the belief system I told myself was, Well, you just got lucky, you just got lucky, because I couldn't physically tell myself you scored really high on that because you deserved it. The old thought process immediately said, Well, you just got lucky, the other candidates mustn't have been that good. That wasn't the truth. I scored that high because I performed really well. So I got the second one, and then I started to think, Well, maybe I am really good. Maybe these people see something in me that I don't see in myself. And I moved up a grade and I worked that job for two years, and then an opportunity came back to go back to my own department, which I jumped at. Um, I'd always loved working in a bigger department, and I got to go back, so I did that, and I was only back in that department a couple of months, and an opportunity came up to move up to a really senior position. And just reminder, four years earlier, I was the lowest grade you could be, and this is one of the highest grades you could be. So, in four years I had made those moves, and my whole whole thought process moved from feeling like I wasn't enough to be that grade to thinking I might apply for that. So I did apply for it, and again I went along to the interview that morning, and it was a nightmare. My son had COVID that morning, and I felt like all the stars were lining up telling me not to go for the interview, he was so sick, um, and I just kept saying I'm not gonna go, um, but I did go, and I'm really glad I went, and of I think I can't remember the amount of people that were interviewed, it was over 80 anyway. I was placed on a panel and I was appointed to that role within six months of being um put on the panel. And when I received my notification to be told that I was successful, I cannot express the feelings that I felt um in that moment because my whole life I had felt like I wasn't enough and I shouldn't bother going for anything because what have I failed? But what I say to you is in those four years, my whole life changed in a way I could have only ever dreamt dreamt of, and receiving that email was a reminder to me that you have to go for these things in life, and had I stayed in that mindset that I was in in you know, the four years earlier, well, I still would have been doing the same job, I still would have been living the same life, I still would have been afraid of taking those risks, and I wouldn't have been living a life that was true and aligned with my full potential. So I am so glad that I did that, and the work didn't finish there, you know. I signed up then the following year to do a photo shoot, which is something I never ever would have wanted to do, ever. Um, you know, and I did it not because I wanted, you know, the photo shoot and all, I wanted to prove to myself that I could feel amazing, and not only how I felt, but that I looked amazing, and not in a cocky way again, but that I was worth it and I was loved and I was just everything that I ever dreamed that I could be. And I did that photo shoot last year, and I cannot express to you how I felt that day leaving. Um I flew to Manchester to do it from Dublin. I flew on my own actually, which is something I never ever would have done before either. And when I left that studio, I left the old me behind, and it's not because I did a photo shoot, but it was because all the work I did leave leading up to that that day was a pinch point for me where I fully accepted who I was as a person, and I now live the life that I was meant to live. We're not meant to live in boxes, we're not meant to live at home afraid of what might happen, we're not meant to live a life where we worry about other people and what their opinions are of us. I am fully aware that there are people who will judge me, who do judge me, and I am fully aware that people talk negatively about me. I am honestly telling you this now. I don't care, I really don't care because anybody who is talking negatively about you is not doing better than where you are. They are just not, they are not in a better position than you financially, in happiness, in their family situation. They are talking about you because they are sad in themselves and it's a reflection of who they are as people. And I'll talk more about this as the series goes on about you know my past and all the things that led me into believing that about myself because I'd like to go into it in more detail. But ultimately, the message I wanted to get across today is just because you've thought a certain way your whole life, just because someone else might have told you that message your whole life, that is not your end point. Don't let that be your end point. Do not sit there for the rest of your life and not take those risks because you're afraid, because the time will come in your life where you will not be able to take those chances, you might not be fit enough to join the gym, you might not be in a position where you can apply for the job. Seize the day today, take the chance to go out there and reset your life, to reset those habits, to reset that thought process and replace it with something positive. And why I'm telling you to do that is because you're bloody worth it, you're absolutely worth it. Every single one of us should be living a life to the fullest, and that's not about money, and that's not about cars and fancy houses. I mean to the fullest with the love and the love for yourself. That love has to start with yourself. So if you can do one thing from today forward, when you wake up tomorrow, tell yourself that I am enough and I am amazing, and you are amazing, and that's what you need to start with. I hope you found some of this interesting today. Um, as I said, as the recess series moves forward, I will talk about different things, but today I really just wanted people to focus on why we don't reach our full potential, and that's just a little overview about why I wasn't reaching my full potential and the changes that I made, and they were quite subtle, I'll be perfectly honest. There was no big overhaul, but it was a full process that I went through that enabled me to make those significant changes in my life that have now enabled me to live a life that I am just free. I feel really free, I feel really happy, and I feel really loved. And that love starts from me. I love myself. Um, so I hope you've enjoyed and I look forward to sharing some more reset um series podcasts with you as the time goes on.