Chapter 5 Play to your potential
Live every day as if it is your last, because one day it will be!
In this chapter, we will focus on just how much potential you really have. This will help you make the most of all future opportunities and ensure that you never waste another minute. Most of us follow a similar pattern through life. We step through one stage after another in a fairly predictable sequence. Falling into this pattern does not necessarily allow us to reach our potential and get the most out of everything we do.
Live every day as if it's your last, because one day it will be.
The model shown in figure 5.1, overleaf, which tracks potential versus time, will help us visualise these patterns and how they affect us. Line A on the graph represents the predictable pattern we follow. We are born, learn to walk, feed ourselves, ride a bike and turn a cartwheel. We are then sent off to school, where we learn mathematics, English, sports and drama. We leave school, get a job, buy a car, find a partner and settle down. Before we know it we have kids, a mortgage and credit card debt, and we are so busy we struggle to fit everything in.
At this point we start to put things off: I'll take that holiday when the kids are a bit older. I'll start that new business once the mortgage is settled. I'll learn another language when the kids leave school. We'll go on that big adventure after the kids leave home. This is what some people describe as a mid-life crisis, my definition of which ...
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