I took up golf later in life. Yet, it was a game that I had always been attracted to--a sport that when I was in my 20’s I attempted to learn, but my wallet wasn’t fat enough to allow it to happen. But I never lost sight of seeing myself playing the game well, competing against other women who likely had been playing a good portion of the lives.

In my short 3 years at the sport, I am not yet competing, but I am playing...my confidence building with each visit to the driving range and course. I don’t see myself as a novice, I see myself as a woman golfer who can hold her own in any golf match. My current-self overlaps with my future self. My husband often lovingly laughs at me when he hears me say...which I frequently do, “I have the potential of being really good at this sport.” -- I say that about a lot of things -- including be a successful businesswoman and entrepreneur.

But what if you are stuck and see your current self far from your future ideal self? What can you do?

First, acknowledge where you are starting from. We can only begin where we are. By honoring the present without attachment to the past and all the “should, would, could’s” that come along with it, frees us to rediscover our passion and purpose and imagine our potential.

Second, be honest with yourself. Honesty reveals the “space between” that we’ve been hiding from, overlooking or simply ignoring because we got caught up in the drift of our own stories and narratives likely because we have been too busy pleasing and impressing others and not ourselves.

Third, be deliberate in the practice of ongoing self-discovery in developing personal intelligence. Learning to navigate the matrix while challenging our conventional thinking and way of being is a cornerstone of igniting our own human potential as well as that of others.

So, we know the WHY it is critically important to Imagine Your OWN Potential and not live into someone else’s dream for us, right? If you are unsure, re-read part I of Imagine your Potential again.

You may even have a sense for what Imagining a New Future might be and that’s great! More often than not, even with the dream in hand, I am asked, “How do I do this?” – “Where do I BEGIN?”

What follows is a proven framework that I discovered myself and I now use with my clients ranging from large organizations and PE firms to C-suite leaders and Entrepreneurs to our current generation of leaders -- Millennials and Gen Zs.

And here is my promise...this will--if you are willing to do the work--WILL MAKE you unstoppable in your quest to live your best life.

Step 1: Reflect & Remember.

Recall a time in your life where you had a safe space to IMAGINE YOUR POTENTIAL. Take your time here and bring this special memory forward.

When I was a kid, it was the wheat fields on my family’s farm.  As I got older, I confessed my secret hopes to my journal...and sometimes my friends, and then ultimately to my coach.

I invite you--right now--to consider “this” as your safe space. Right now, is a perfect time to jump into reflecting and remembering a moment when you had a big audacious dream that within it you saw, maybe for the first time, your potential!  Don’t worry, I am not going to ask you to share this with anyone, I am simply inviting you “step into your matrix” where you can discovery your potential self.

To fully reflect, reconnect and remember, you must be CURIOUS about what you might be lurking in the “space between”. In your curiosity, allow your entire body to do most of the work, not your head. 

Curiosity brings excitement which is a full body experience. It is fundamental in opening ourselves to new worlds and new possibilities. It makes our minds active instead of passive. And it makes our minds observant of new ideas.

Bring both your emotional as well as your intellectual curiosity!

Step 2: Release.

This is where it gets a bit more challenging... so grab some Compassion for yourself and some Courage to stay with it. This step isn’t for the faint of heart. 

Releasing the chatter that is in our heads... you and I both know those voices -- the voices that tell us “We aren’t good enough. We aren’t smart enough. We should have done it sooner, and so on”.

These voices known affectionately as our inner critics can be our best friend or worst enemies depending on how we engage with them.

The seven primary critics that sit on our shoulders and whisper include:

1.    Perfectionist

2.    Controller

3.    Taskmaster

4.    Underminer

5.    Destroyer

6.    Guilt Tripper

7.    Moulder

Did you notice one that resonates as your enemy? The one who is preventing you from Imagining Your Potential?

As we face these critics, we have a choice to remain constricted by fear with our bodies hunched and curled OR we  can choose to sit straight and confident, taking the critic in our hands and flicking it across the room while saying, “Thank you... not today”. 

In the practice of Releasing, we must have COMPASSION for ourselves (just as we do for others).

We are human and finding the COURAGE--the courage to find our inner compass and discover the invisible force that lives inside; the force that informs our thoughts, narratives, and actions every single day can be scary.

Finding our sense of direction and equilibrium is our sought-after chalice.  Without it, we will always be pointing south when we believe we are pointing north. Step 3 is where we receive the hidden messages contained within the matrix.

Know this: You will ebb and flow between Step 2 and Step 3... Releasing and Receiving. It’s not a stumbling backwards, it is a spiraling process that readies us to receive.

Step 3: Receive.

Receiving is the spark of inspiration that signals you to look in a particular direction for your passion and purpose.

Receiving is where we find our inner compass. We move the needle toward the north. It invites us to notice how far we’ve come and CELEBRATE our accomplishments, be humbled by them, and now in this moment to WONDER AND IMAGINE our potential from this spot.

For me, I always drift back and see myself standing in the center of the wheat fields with the wind blowing all around me. Feeling free to imagine well beyond what I knew from my Appalachian upbringing.

In fact, I took these same three steps when I made the decision to leave my corporate job after 25 years. I was an accomplished executive with a great deal to be proud of, but I was dissatisfied. After waking up from my own Wink Van Winkle moment, I asked myself, “Where did that 20-year-old go? What about her hopes and dreams?”

It was then I had to wrestle my own inner critics as spoken about in the poem Beowulf written in 700 a.d. When I stood up to my inner voices, I developed the courage to walk away with only a loose plan and a lot of trust in my experiences, accomplishments, and most importantly in my passion and belief in my abilities to Ignite Success in others.

A lofty goal, but one I am living and doing every day.

If I can do it. YOU can too!

Step 4: Reclaim.

The final step picks up here. It’s time to RECLAIM YOUR POTENTIAL...the one that got lost in doing more, being more, and living less of who you truly are! Once you claim, as I did, as 1000’s of executives, entrepreneurs, and teams have...you too will not only CRAFT a plan to imagine your potential, you will step fully into it!

And once you do, there is no turning back! The genie is out of the bottle!

As we progress in life, our dreams will evolve. We might realize that an aspiration we once had is no longer realistic, or we may question the things we previously wanted. These changes are a normal part of getting older. Our perceptions shift. Our potential yearns to grow in new ways.

An important point I need to make:

There is a big difference between growing up and giving up.

It is true, we all have our limits, but it doesn’t mean we have to settle for the status quo.

It also doesn’t mean staying still in one place simply because it’s the safest course.

You have a responsibility to yourself, to those you love, to those you work alongside, to this world, to imagine your potential and move in that direction.

If you allow the limits, they will limit you, and you’ll never achieve peak performance.

So what are your  limits?

What is the highest you can reach?

These are questions that only you can figure out.

My advice for imagining your potential and Igniting your Success:

•       Dream BIG.

•       Believe DEEPLY in yourself and your potential.

•       Fail FORWARD and Catch yourself.

•       CELEBRATE often.

•       And MAKE the MAGIC you are meant to make!

Here’s to Igniting Success (yours and ours) and living a life less ordinary every day!

To learn more, go to the “The Book” on Igniting Success website and sign up for an advanced signed copy of my debut book Discover the Matrix: Integrity is the Hallmark of Leadership due out in early 2023.