The link between Performance and Potential..

How often have we heard it being said or ourselves said about someone, “He/She has immense potential, but somehow it doesn’t come across in his/her performance”.

Growing up, I often heard my teachers talk about my potential. But somehow, as I inched to the finishing line, I lost interest, or gave up, or stopped short.
And even today, I work on myself every day. I need to remind myself that I have to cross that finishing line, and live upto my potential. I don’t want to spend my dying day wondering, “Did I live up to my true potential?

I have always wondered:





I learnt the answer in my Executive Coach Training program held by Results Coaching Systems. Our Master Coach told us of a simple quote given by Tim Gallwey in his book “Inner Game of Tennis”





I let that statement sink in. I tried to absorb the true meaning of it.
And my mind flashed back to all those times that I hadn’t lived up to my potential.

What was the interference I had felt? Was it external? Was it some distraction? Was it someone else telling me I couldn’t do it? Yes, sometimes.

However, as I dug deeper, I realized, it was mostly internal. There were certain thoughts that I was thinking that were leading to the interference.




It was my self-talk which was leading to the interference. If I could minimize this interference, could I bridge the gap between my potential and performance?




Of course, external interference can also come in, in the form of detractors, disturbances etc, but most of us can handle those, and control them.

How can we control the interferences caused by our thoughts and beliefs?
And that’s when I realized that Affirmations and Powerful Visualizations can help us tune out the interference.

An Affirmation is a positive statement that is powerful and puts our focus back on the outcome.



I have worked with Affirmations for many years now, and found it an excellent tool to change my thinking and focus on the result.

Visualizations are all about picturing the outcome that you want, and painting a wonderful image of it in your head. The mind thinks in pictures, and there are many experiments conducted which show that visualizing the outcome in great detail, and living it as though it has already happened has a great impact on the actual outcome itself.

I first learnt about this tool from my father at age 16. When I was working hard to get into a prestigious college, he told me to spend 5 minutes every day, visualizing that I was already in the college. How would I feel then? How would I behave?

I took it a step further, and changed my daily route to pass that college. I would spend time watching from the other side; observe the uniform of the students. I would imagine myself waving to myself from inside the college.

I lived my dream, and walked into that college as a student three months later.



The simplicity and power of this equation, and the tools that I can use, has given me clarity on how I can maximize use of my potential.

Some questions below to make you think, and reflect…








And needless to say, we must always have faith in the immense potential within us..that is just waiting to be unleased…