The Secret to Reaching Your Potential

Be fearless, be brave, be bold, love yourself. – Haruki Murakami

2018 is a year to live this motto, to decide to color outside of your own lines and think about your own possibilities without the fear of failure. It’s time to appreciate and love who you are right now while challenging yourself to discover the next level of your potential. The key to reaching your potential?

Be fearless, be brave, be bold, and love yourself.

I believe no one knows his/her own potential until they are forced to meet it. I was at a fitness conference a year ago when I experienced a most personal challenge to be fearless, brave, bold and love myself and to do so in a public way. Walking into my first workshop of the day, I opened the door to a huge black barrier. I closed the door. A few minutes later and 50 more people in line, I re-opened the door to see the huge black barrier once more (to my dismay). Then I hear a voice, “That is a wall. That wall is your entrance exam into this session.” I look behind me to see fifty of the fittest 20-something men and women I have seen. In that moment, I had to decide. Was this 41-year-old mom going to be fearless, brave and bold? Did I love myself enough to have the confidence to be the first person to try to conquer the wall? Did I have the emotional strength to be okay if I failed in front of these 50 fit, young athletes? I became fearless, brave and bold. I loved myself enough to admit I may fail, but that didn’t mean my sense of self-worth would suffer. It was crazy exhilarating! And so I conquered the wall, and then did it again and again and again. And in the next minutes, my mind began to expand. What other things have I not done because of that random thought that it was too hard or uncomfortable?

How do you tap into your biggest potential? Focus on embracing the following four things to start from within.

Be fearless. At Fly, this can be as simple as trying a new class or new instructor. It can be comfortable to stick with what you know and avoid new challenges. But being fearless boosts your confidence and exposes you to new experiences you might not have otherwise tried. So, put on your workout gear and get outside of that comfort zone!

Be brave. Get to class early and let the instructor know you may have some limitations or may need some modifications. If you don’t get to class early, no worries! If you don’t hear or see the modification, ask during class. Believe me, you will rarely be the only one who takes a modification. If the move feels too easy, ask aloud how to intensify the exercise. The key to improvement is consistency and you can’t be consistent if you are too sore/injured or aren’t feeling challenged or motivated.

Be bold. Being bold at Fly starts with understanding where you are now. Start paying attention to your mind, body and spirit connection. Be bold enough to acknowledge the intensity of your workout with the intent of the drill. If the instructor says “are your legs burning?”, take note of how you are feeling. Can you be bold enough to make that difference in your own workout? Instructors are the navigators of your workout, but only YOU have control of your physical and mental response.

Love yourself. Love yourself enough to know that working out is a gift you are able to give yourself that no one else can. It is a gift of stress relief, a mental release, an increase in endorphins (those feel-good neurotransmitters), an increase in lean muscle mass and an increase in self-confidence. Exercise creates neuro-regeneration. We can think more clearly, be more creative, learn new things and retain that knowledge, which makes us more fun, productive people. Love yourself enough so that it is okay to fail, because you realize that practice makes better.

These steps are sometimes a pretty steep uphill battle. Reaching your potential gets easier when you surround yourself with a community that embraces you and lifts you up. Fly provides more than just a location to workout. We are a community that celebrates being internal – being aware of, content with and confident in our own beginning. Our instructors invite you in, no matter what your fitness level is, and will help you start where you are and help you to draw an individual path of where you want to be in the near future.

2018 has good stuff in store for us… so get to Fly and be fearless, be brave, be bold, and love yourself.

-Kimberly Barrett, M.Ed. ACE. Kim teaches flyride, flyhigh, and flyfusion. Check her out on the schedule here.