MAXIMUM POTENTIAL

ARE YOU MAKING THE MOST OF YOU?

Maximum Potential is one of my favorite topics.  I gave a keynote a couple years ago and it was called Maximum Potential: Making the most of your time, talents & money.  It is still those things but it is so much more.

Maximum Potential is making the most of you.  This doesn’t mean cramming more hours in the day (which is impossible) or trying to do more things and trying to be more things, maximum potential means making the most of you.  Being the best version of you both in your business life and your personal life.

As a former Industrial Engineer, efficiency was something grilled into me at a young age.  But my gifts and talent lead me to this career as well.  Industrial engineering simply lined up with my talents (some of my talents).  But I learned very quickly that you can only improve efficiency to a certain point and then it was diminishing returns.  The same in the accounting world. As a controller I can only cut costs so much, sooner or later you need to increase sales if you want to make more money.

How does this apply to your life and your business?  Making the most of you means using your resources in the best way possible but it also means developing your self to the fullest and sharing that with the world.

So, how do you make the most of you?

KNOW WHO YOU ARE

First, you need to know who you are.  You are a being before you do anything, you exist.  Just be.  One of the hardest things to do in this crazy world is to take time to just be.  When you ask people who they are what do they say?  They tell you what they do for a living (I’m a chef or I’m an attorney) or they tell you their sexual orientation (I’m gay or I’m this or I’m that), no you’re not.  That may be a part of your life but it is not who you are.

You are you.  Just be you. 

Because no one else can be you.  If you try to be someone else you are setting yourself up for failure.

Find your purpose

Part of developing yourself and your talents is to fulfill your purpose.  Can your purpose change over time?  Yes, absolutely.  It might not be until you in your 50’s and 60’s that you can look back and see a pattern in your life and realize that a lot of things lined up for a purpose.

If you are a new parent, especially Mom’s your number one purpose is to take care of that baby.  You have many roles to fill (spouse, parent, business owner, employee, friend, sister or bother, daughter or son) but your purpose at that point in time is to get that infant to toddler stage and then the toddler to child and eventually adult hood.

Your purpose is going to be related to your talents.  God gave you clues when he made you.  Some of you are social butterflies.  Sitting in a room all day with computer would drive you nuts.  I can be social when I want to be but it’s not my given nature.  If I had to talk to people all day long I would go nuts.  Put me in a day care center and I would last about 30 minutes, okay, maybe 60 minutes on a good day.  But I know women that love this line of work and they are made for it.  So, line up your life and career to make the most of your talents, whatever those talents are.

Then figure out where your talents are best put to use.  A graphics designer can do all kinds of things.  They can create logos or brochures or ad campaigns.  They can specialize in drawing or painting or graphics.  They can use their skills for businesses or for non-profits or create artwork to sell to the consumer.  Their talent can be used for many things, many products, many industries and many purposes.  It is up to the designer to discover which area suits him or her best.

If you aren’t sure what you purpose is, you need to take time every day and sit down in a quiet place and meditate & pray.  The world cannot tell you who you are supposed to be, only God can do that.  Get in your quiet place and listen.

Making the most of your resources.

Time management and money management are two incredibly important topics.  There are entire industries built on these two things.  Making the most of your resources becomes so much easier when you know who you are and what your purpose is.

Money management: Making the most of your money

I can teach you how to manage your money better.  In fact, I do in my Financial Fitness class (personal finance) and in my CFO in a Day workshop (business finance).  But the reality is, without dealing with your mindset and specifically your money mindset, your finances won’t change much.

If you really want to be at peace, you do need to manage your money well.  You should know where all your money goes each month, what your assets are and what your liabilities are.  You can’t make the most of your assets if you don’t know what they are.  Not just the obvious assets but the not so obvious ones such as your IP or intellectual property.  Some of you are not using this to fullest.  That alone could completely change your financial picture.

Time Management:

This is so Vitaly Important.  You can’t make more time but you sure as heck can make the most of it.  How do you do that?

1. Know where your time goes.  I have a time tracker that all my financial students use to analyze where their times goes.  Then we can make the adjustments to use their time on the projects & tasks that will make them the most money.
2. Know what you want to accomplish.  If you aren’t settings goals, then that is an immediate problem that you need to fix.  Without goals you will flounder.
3. Purpose: when you know your purpose is in this season.  It makes it much easier to focus your time into the things that will fulfill this purpose.  It tells you what to say yes to and what to say no to.

The 5th and often overlooked resource: Your Energy.

With all the talk about time management and money management and personal development, there is one resource that affects them all but is unseen: Your energy.

Your energy is a KEY resource that fuels your life.

Have you noticed when you are doing something you love, your energy level goes up?  When you are doing something that you really don’t like, your energy level drops?  This is why knowing who you are and developing your talents & skill sets is so important.

The other issue is, if you are trying to do too many different things, or you have too many goals that don’t align with each other, your energy is not focused and gets depleted quicker.

This is why you need to set goals.  To focus not just your time & money but also your energy.  When all of these things become aligned together to serve your purpose, you will reach your goals and you will be successful.

If you need help determining where you are right now or need help getting to where you want to be, please come join me in my “Design My Life and Design my Biz” challenge on October 5th-9th.  The sign up link is below.

Until next time,

Peace, Love & Prosperity,

Deborah