The Surprising Reason Most People Achieve Less than Their Potential

It used to bother me why most people achieve less than they have the potential for.

In my class, for instance, out of 70+ students, just less than 20 percent are making waves and attracting a lot of attention from the other classes.

They are the ones who stand the class out as one of the most intelligent classes in the department of Medicine, Ambrose Alli University.

I lived with one of the brightest for about 2 years. In those years, we stayed together in a 3 bedroom duplex. It was easy to watch him closely and figure out what made him so exceptional.

Do you know what I found out?

The young man does nothing more than read actively, take notes, summarize a few concepts, and teach others what he learned.

He is the only one with two distinctions in the entire class. He has one in Human Physiology and the other in Pathology.

There is no hidden secret to success. None.

Everyone knows the secret, but only a few of them make the most of the secret. And that sets them apart from the crowd.

There is one common reason most people fail, even with every reason to succeed.

It is the reason they wind up as failures, even when they have all it takes to succeed.

• Good Health;

• High Energy;

• Living in one of the best countries;

• A supportive family;

• A college education;…

... every reason to do well, but still, they end up poor and blame it on external circumstances. Whereas they are the ones responsible for those outcomes.

The reason?

Because of an insatiable desire to uncover more secrets of success. Rather than working with the ones they already have and know to work.

In the words of the self-made merchant,

"It isn't so much knowing a whole lot, as knowing a little and how to use it that counts."

What you are yet to know won't do any good if you did nothing with what you already know.

Action is the beginning of all miracles.

There is a group of the school of thought which states that you can think your way to success.

You know what?

It is not true. It is a wrong notion. It only holds in thought - not in reality.

Thinking alone won't do it. Without work, anything no matter how simple becomes impossible.

The absence of work is the beginning of impossibility.

On the other hand, you don't have to know all is to know or do all that is required before you become successful. All you need is to put what you already know to work.

The self-made millionaire, Shaun Rawls, said something about the percentage of information it takes to decide to take any action:

According to him,

"If you can apply the 40/70 rule, you'll be successful at whatever you choose to do. Years ago, I learned a valuable principle from General Colin Powell: You only need 40% to 70% of the information to make a decision.

If you require total certainty, you'll miss opportunities. So how do you make a call while leaving potential data on the table? Trust your gut, pull the trigger and move on.

Effective leadership is a blend of knowledge and experience. Often, your ability to make decisions in the absence of information can be your ultimate value proposition."

Some things will always be left out. No matter how much and how hard you try to have it all, you can't. And the good news is, it is not even necessary.

You already have what it takes to succeed. The challenge is your inaction and constantly seeking other secrets in other to take action that is keeping you back.

Another is the popular 20/80 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle. In application, only 20% of the success secret in any activity accounts for 80% of success.

As a writer, for instance, 2 out of 10 secrets of writing is enough to make you exceptional in your niche.

It is wisdom to identify those two and tirelessly put them to work.

It is not knowledge that makes success; it is action. Such that even if you do it the wrong way, you can use the feedback to course-correct your way to success and mastery.

In the book, Art and Fear David Bayles wrote,

"Admittedly, artmaking probably does require something special, but just what that something might be has remained remarkably elusive - elusive enough to suggest that it may be something particular to each artist, rather than universal to them all.

But the important point here is not that you have - or don't have - what others have, but rather that it doesn't matter.

Whatever they have is something needed to do their work - it wouldn't help you in your work even if you had it. Their magic is theirs. You don't lack it. You don't need it. It has nothing to do with you. Period."

Final thought

If you had put to work what you already knew about success, by now have been more successful.

The best time to plant a mango tree was 20 years ago, and the second-best time is today. Now.

If you haven't started applying what you already know, you can start today.

Soon, you will realize that there is no special secret to your success than you already knew.

Now is the best time to start.

See you at the top!!!