How To Be One of The Few Who Actually Reach Their Potential
Don’t just sit and watch others do it — conquer your self-limiting beliefs and become the best version of yourself
This week’s newsletter is a day late.
I’m writing this from a humble apartment in Fuggerstraße, Berlin — the first stop on my 4-month backpacking expedition through Europe.
Berlin is a beautiful place, I love it here. The people are out on the streets walking. Life feels very simple, like I’ve been transported back in time. Nature is preserved (relatively) and it feels wholesome (during the day).
———
The last few topics have been about selflessness, mostly because it was the relevant challenge I was working through.
Now, I feel it’s important to talk about ourselves too. To talk about how we slowly fade into the background over time, instead of blossoming into the flowers we’re supposed to be.
If you feel like there’s more to you that you haven’t actualised yet — keep reading.
How To Be One of The Few Who Actually Reach Their Potential
Every single person out there has the potential to achieve their wildest dreams — but there are few who actually do.
Why?
Why are there only some people who make it? There doesn’t seem to be anything special about them.
Meanwhile, you’re stuck. The kid with potential.
But potential means nothing if it isn’t fulfilled.
Self-actualisation has become taboo and distant, but you can be one of the few who break through.
Labels — undo the shackles
Labels put people in boxes, and those boxes are shaped like coffins.
Chirlane McCray
Self-limiting beliefs, or labels, are what keeps your great potential at bay. Calling yourself a ‘lazy person’, and trying to do hard work, is like trying to swim with an anchor tethered to your ankle.
Labels are your ego trying to tell you that it’s not your fault. Your ego is finding a way to detach from blame and put it elsewhere.
I used to be fat — I jumped to every possible conclusion that would explain it and none of them made any sense.
“I have fat genetics” (neither of my parents were fat)
“I’m producing too much estrogen” (got a hormone test that showed normal levels — and even then I was suspicious of the test quality)
It’s all a masquerade — you’re just convincing yourself it’s out of your control.
Until you take ownership, nothing will change. Until I admitted to myself that I ate too much, nothing changed. Until I admitted to myself that I did have time for the gym, and I was just being lazy, nothing changed. Until I admitted to myself that I didn’t know anything about nutrition, nothing changed.
I remember a girl in school once said to me:
You’re good at math — I suck, I just don’t get it.
I was confused because I didn’t get it at first either, not many people do. But then I asked questions, learned and repeated until I really understood the concepts.
You’re not bad at anything. You’re not some useless grain of rice on the earth, whilst everyone else is diamonds — you haven’t gone and done your due diligence to improve.
Don’t repress your soul’s calling
The little trick about protecting your ego with labels doesn’t help for long. You can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to your subconscious.
Your soul knows when it’s being repressed — you know the little voice in your head telling you the real truth? Attaching yourself to a label is like sticking a cork in a volcano — it’ll buy you a little time, but beneath the cork, there’s a bigger eruption bubbling up.
One label I hear a lot is “I’m an anxious person” when deep down they know they can do it. It’s admitting defeat before you’ve even started.
I’m not saying you weren’t an anxious person (and I’m definitely not discrediting all the reasons you may have experienced the symptoms), I’m saying you don’t have to be that moving forward.
You’re not ‘an anxious person’, you've just been experiencing anxiety because of several factors in your life. It could be serious childhood circumstances, current stresses or even lifestyle issues. But it doesn't define who you are.
When a car breaks down, it’s not a broken, worthless and terrible car — it just needs a little fixing.
Why are you any different?
The sugar pill effect (and how to use it)
Our brains are plastic, they can be moulded over time. You can overcome anything with enough belief — the placebo effect.
40 years ago, in 1955, Henry K. Beecher published “The Powerful Placebo”, where in 15 trials with different diseases, 35% of 1082 patients were “satisfactorily relieved” by placebo alone.
Basically, they ate a sugar pill and it fixed them. How powerful your mind’s beliefs are. I mean, how can you not be amazed at that? This means you can overcome (nearly) anything — as long as you believe that you can overcome it.
Use this effect.
Switch your thinking from “I am this way” to “I have been this way in the past — I won’t be any longer”.
That one change alone will change your life. You’ll see yourself drastically change, and if you think about it, it makes perfect sense why.
Your attachment to labels is you putting up a big wall and then trying to walk through it.
How I changed my life (and how you can change yours)
I walked out of the doctor’s office after being clinically diagnosed with ADHD in my adult life.
It was a strange feeling — it explained why I got my mouth taped shut in school, why I lost every item I owned, why I couldn’t keep a space tidy and why I was late for everything.
They recommended medication.
I thought back — everyone knew me as the late guy. I was always late to absolutely every event — except when it was urgent. I was never late for a job interview or an important occasion.
At that moment, I knew I could change my mind, even with a clinical diagnosis. If I could make it on time when it mattered, I could make it on time, all the time.
I began applying mental shifts to my life. When I was getting ready to leave, I would plan the times I had to leave by, then add another 10 minutes. I behaved as if I was a punctual person. And guess what happened? I was on time.
I’ve improved so much that it’s hard to explain to you with words on a page. All I did was decide that I’m not going to limit myself. All I did was believe I can change, find strategies to fix my issues and implement them.
I changed my mind from identifying as a late person to leaving it in the past and creating a new version of myself. I discarded the loud class clown label, and I took on a new personality, one that I believed was true to me deep down.
This changed everything for me, and you should be excited too.
You’re telling me you can be medically diagnosed with something, something that doctors think you need medication for, and you can fix it with only your mind? You’re telling me I can be whatever I want by just changing my mindset?
Be delusional — you’re the writer of the story
We’re not just words — we’re complicated beings. Don’t disrespect the magic of your personality by boxing it up and filing it away.
You get to decide what, and who, you are. Nobody else. They might see you and assume you’re a certain way, describe you using a set of labels — but whether or not you identify with that description is up to you.
The people who make it to their dreams are the ones delusional enough to not believe anyone except their inner soul. They don’t listen to the teacher who told them they couldn’t be anything, or the parents who told them their dreams were too unrealistic. They don’t stick with the labels they acquired at a young age. The move through life frivolously. They are so delusional they only see one thing — and make it happen.
I’ll leave you with this piece of advice:
Next time you’re given a white flag to surrender with — use it as a sail.
As always, thank you all for reading. Without you reading, the message I’m passionate about flows into the ether. I just want to share what I learned with more people
If you liked this newsletter, please subscribe if you haven’t already by typing your email below.
I wish I could’ve given past me these kinds of mindset shifts, so I’m trying to reach as far and wide as I possibly can. Please share this post with someone who you think might enjoy it too.
Until next week,
Eren
