What’s your potential?  Are you living up to it?  How do you know when you are or you aren’t?  What can you do about it . . . either way? Do you use your potential only as a means of motivating you, or have you used it in the past as a way of punishing yourself when you’ve focused on not living up to it? Is your perception of your potential a moving target that has mirage-like qualities?

Potential means “the inherent capacity for coming into being.” Potential from an engineering perspective roughly means the capacity – or the ability – of a structure to bear a specific load.

For human beings, our potential is probably less a fixed number than a range of possibilities that can be impacted – positively or negatively – by a tremendous range of variables.

How much do you access or consult the idea of your potential with the intention of being motivated and inspired by it?  Less pleasantly, how frequently have you consulted your potential – and the difference between where you are and where you could be – as a means of beating yourself up?  What is the optimal relationship to potential?

Any sincere discussion about an open mind will ultimately lead to consideration of having an open heart because, after all, what we are really talking about is *being* open.

Dan Millman, one of my favorite authors and teachers, wrote:

“You haven’t opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. The peaceful warrior’s way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability – to the world, to life, and to the Presence you felt.  All along, I have shown you by example that a warrior’s life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love. Love is a warrior’s sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death.” (Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives – buy it; you’ll love it!)

Are you living with your heart wide open?  How do you feel when both your mind and your heart are wide open?  How have you felt when one or both have been shut down?  How have you opened up when you have been unavailable?

The term “best practices” has become a management buzzword, and it means a specific approach toward a particular field – for example, software development – that is thought of as the best way to do something.

In the rest of life, we are exposed to lots of ideas about what are the best ways to do things, but most often, there is significant variation in what constitutes “best.”  What’s the “best” way to raise a child, for example, or to govern a country?  Lots of different opinions; aren’t there?

Raising fruits and vegetables might be less controversial because horticulture is more scientific, but, no doubt, there are gardeners who have individual ideas about what is “best.”

How do you choose from among differing points of view that hold themselves out to be “the best”?  Since we have to decide what is “best” from a myriad of choices, what are the “best” criteria or processes by which we make those determinations?  What degree of usefulness do you consider the notion of best practices to have?

Thanks to Vince, in our monthly men’s group, for choosing to facilitate last Saturday’s session on “doing your best” – now a great topic for Study Hall this week. “Best” is a powerful (and sometimes loaded) term which means different things to different people.  The word means “superior” and we think of “best” in words like “as good as it gets.”

Yet, there may well be flaws even in anything that may up to that point be the best.  Churchill famously said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.”  He acknowledges its flaws, but asserts that democracy is the best form of government compared to other forms.

The concept of “doing your best” does not mean perfection, but it does imply an advance intention of taking action as “well” as you can.  There’s “best” for the individual and “best” for the group, so how do you reconcile that often different points of view?  How do you feel about doing your best?  What is the appropriate role of comparison in doing your best?

It’s been said that without integrity, we don’t exist. Why? Because for one to pretend to be true when one isn’t true simply invalidates * being * itself.

Dishonesty exists for one primary purpose: to mislead. To mislead others – but, ultimately, to mislead oneself. If all we have is our word, then to utter false words is to, in effect, cease to exist.

Yet, no one of us is perfect. All humans, by definition, are flawed vessels. So how do we reconcile our imperfection with our hunger for integrity?

How do you feel when someone lies to you? How do you feel when you know that someone is not operating from integrity – especially if they are trying to imply or assure you that they are? What are the implications for the health of that relationship? How can we, as humans, do better?

Consider a few quotations on perfection:

Voltaire: “Perfection is the enemy of the good.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer: “Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.”

General George Patton: “A good plan implemented today is better than a perfect plan implemented tomorrow.”

How do you feel about perfection? Are you genuinely willing to settle for the good, or have you been hooked on a vision of perfection? When you settle for the good, how do you feel?

Have you won, or have you compromised? What is the most perfect thing you have ever done or experienced?

How does one renew exactly? Three key steps:

One: Realize that every moment is new. We can choose to drag in the baggage of the past, but we don’t have to. It’s renewing to learn and apply life’s lessons, but to leave out looking at the past with regret.

Two: Ground yourself in what you really care about deep in your soul. Values like honor, integrity, joy, freedom, love. Promise yourself that you’ll be vigilant in living in ways that are consistent with those values.

Three: Take action on your values . . . . knowing that you’ll make mistakes, but that being “perfectly imperfect” is the nature of the human condition.

Accelerate the renewal with hope and optimism for the future.

Copyright 2009. E. B. Hutt Bush and Coaching for Results, Inc.

This is Valentine’s Week, and we are drawn to thinking about hearts and chocolates and romance. A good time to consider our topic for this week: LOVING YOURSELF.

It’s been said that you can’t truly love another until you love yourself. We live in a culture that constantly engages us in comparison to images of perfect people living perfect lives. In a way, self-loathing is an integral part of consumer marketing.

The message is something like: “You can only be loved / lovable if you are like these perfect people . . . and you can fix what’s wrong with you and your life by buying our products.”

Living in that environment of conditional love, we have found it tough to be tender, kind and forgiving to ourselves. We often hear people say that they are extremely hard on themselves.

Karl Jung said, “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”
This year, how about a Valentine’s Day for you, too, as well as your loved ones?

What would that day look like? How could you make a clear expression of love for yourself this February 14th? What would you do? What would you not do?

Copyright 2009. E. B. Hutt Bush and Coaching for Results, Inc.