Living Your Potential

(Photo by Philippe Schell)

“Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.” Erich Fromm

As I was sitting out on the vineyard patio revelling in the fragrance of the jasmine vine next to me and watching the wild parakeets tending to their young in the nest above me, I thought about this charmed life I am leading and what really, a charmed life means to me. Everyone’s idea of what a charmed life should be is different. This is of course natural because everyone is unique and has different ideas of what life is about. If this were not the case then the world would indeed be a very boring place. :)

Generally, a charmed life means living a life of privilege and luck. But this then boils down to, how do you define privilege? How do you define luck? Privilege to one person may mean being born with more money than you know what to do with, whereas to another it may mean having the opportunity to live a simple lifestyle and slow down the pace of life. As for luck, well, we can go down a whole debate on the meaning of this word and whether luck exists or not. However I won’t do that to you now and save that for another post. :)

In my opinion, leading a charmed life doesn’t mean being born into a life of money and want of nothing. To me, leading a charmed life is about living your potential. So. what then, does this exactly mean?

Potential is defined as the following:

• Capable of being or becoming
• A latent excellence or ability that may or may not be developed

Our potential is great. Magnificent really. The discovery that each one of us possesses unique abilities and gifts to be used in this lifetime is a beautiful thing. Just the thought that we can benefit the world in some special way through a unique capability that only we possess is inspiring. The trick then is to actually discover what these gifts are.

Many of us have been encouraged to develop aspects of ourselves that are not necessarily in sync with who we are and what we really can do in this world. We get caught up in what the world expects us to be that we forget who we were actually born to be. However once we are able to peel away years of conditioning and build the belief that we are capable of great things, we can then begin to discover the beautiful gifts that we possess.


I know from my own experience that it took me a long time to begin to discover my own potential and actually live it. Throughout childhood and into young adulthood I had never really explored who I was and what I was capable of. Aside from a few things here and there, I always lived my life based on what others expected of me. I allowed others to tell me what I could and could not do, or what I was good and not good at. And then one day at 26 and a half I changed my life around. And finally I started exploring who I really was and the beautiful gifts that come with me as a person. Once I did this I started to make new decisions based on who I was and wanted to be. I started down a road of self discovery that lead me to new places within myself and also revisiting old aspects of myself from a new perspective.

I became amazed at the things that I was suddenly capable of doing. I uncovered new talents that I never thought existed within myself, I re-ignited old passions, dusted them off and integrated them back into my life again, I took the time to get to know myself all over again, spend time with the “me” that had been holed up for so long. A whole new person evolved out of this process, a new self confidence in myself and what I could do, what I wanted out of life, and what I was and was not willing to accept in my life. I discovered that I had some pretty damn cool gifts to share with the world. :)

Once we discover our capabilities and gifts, a new concept of self develops. We suddenly become aware of who we are capable of being or becoming. The dawning of this new realization then opens up a myriad of opportunities in the world to us that we had never contemplated before. The Universe all of sudden aligns itself into helping us fulfill this potential that we have just discovered. It is as if the heavens suddenly opened and we are in the presence of a sky full of stars, shining as brightly as possible. And each star represents part of our potential that we are now ready to fulfill and live. And as we move through life new stars are born and we continue to be presented with new gifts and choices along our path.

The minute I began to discover new passions and interests and had faith in my abilities, my charmed life began to take shape. I now work with wine and chocolate, spend my days on a beautiful vineyard, and meet fascinating new people everyday from all over the world. I wake up every morning invigorated and excited to start the day. I have a firm faith in who I am and what I can do. I am finally living my potential.

Living your potential is a process. And as you move through this process you continue discovering new and beautiful things about yourself, and the Universe will continue to provide you with the opportunities to share them with the world. Situations will change, people will come and go, and we will change. The most important thing is that we keep choosing to live this potential, on a daily basis. In doing so our life begins to lose the hum drum feeling that it had before, and starts to have meaning and purpose. We begin to shine that light, just like the stars up above, with a brilliance and strength that becomes an inspiration to others to do the same.

So how does one go about discovering the potential within? I am sure there are many ways, however the following is what worked for me:

• What are you passionate about? Make a list. How are you integrating these into your life now?
• What things have always interested you or that you have always wanted to do? Again, make a list, then go out and start doing these things.
• Keep a journal of new things that you have learned about yourself.
• Start keeping a gratitude journal of everything that you are grateful for each day.
• Push yourself past your current boundaries. Do things you wouldn’t have dared to do before. No matter how small.
• Learn new things, and keep learning. Don’t let your brain go to waste.
• Start visualizing the type of life that you want to live. Create a vision board, with pictures, sayings etc that depict this new life
• For every excuse that you come up with for not living this new life or sharing your gifts, come up with a reason to do it or way of doing it. Be creative, think outside of the box.

So what is the charmed life to me then? It is about discovering yourself and who you are capable of becoming; it is about sharing these gifts with the world; it is about constantly striving to become more because you know you can; it is about taking risks and having faith in the unknkown; it is about finding happiness in the authentic self. Once on this path life then becomes nothing short of enchanted. So I would like to raise a toast (okay so I drink a lot of wine in this charmed life….) to those out there who are finally letting your light shine. And never forget that the sky is your limit. :)