Unlocking Your Full Potential
| Published date | 01 July 1990 |
| Date | 01 July 1990 |
| Pages | 16-17 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635579010001416 |
| Author | Andrew Lothian |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
16 INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT
&
DATA SYSTEMS
90,7
Unlocking
Your Full
Potential!
Andrew
J.
Lothian
P
eople with positive mental attitudes tend
to advance more rapidly, earn more
money and get
much
more life satisfaction
than negative people.
What accounts
for the
huge differences
in
results
and
performance between one person and another?
Is a
person
who
is
making £100,000
a
year
ten
times better than
a
person who
is
making £10,000
a
year?
No... Is
someone
who makes £1 million
per
annum
a
hundred times better
than the person making £10,000
a
year? Of course not!
But
why then
the ten
times difference
in
income?
A random
IQ
testing
of one
thousand
men and
women
found that
the
top person in the selection was only two-and-
a-half
times cleverer, when classified
by IQs,
than
the
bottom person
and the
disparity
of
two-and-a-half times
is probably true over
the
whole population.
So
what
accounts
for the
great difference
in
individual performance?
Canadian Brian Tracy,
the
renowned personal development
strategist,
has
developed
a
very simple formula
to
help
explain
the
difference:
(IA
+ AA) A = IHP
The first constituent
is
IA
—
"Inborn Attributes". These
are
the
qualities
— the
intelligence,
the
ability
and the
temperament that you are born with which you cannot really
change. Plus
the
constituent AA
—
"Acquired Attributes".
Acquired Attributes
are
education, training, skill, experi-
ence,
knowledge
and
wisdom.
If
these
two
constituents
are multiplied
by the
factor
A
which
is
your 'Attitude",
then
the
result generated
by
this equation is what we term
Individual Human Potential.
Our
Inborn Attributes
are
largely fixed
at
birth. Our Acquired Attributes can only
be
changed slowly.
But our
Attitude,
the
great multiplying
factor,
can be
changed immediately!
One valuable piece of information can change
our
effective-
ness,
and our
attitudes
can be
increased
or
decreased
dramatically
in
seconds. Every single time
we
improve
our
attitude we multiply all
of
our capabilities. Attitude has been
rightly called
the
most important word
in the
human
language. Everything
we do in
life, according
to a
Harvard
study, will
be 85 per
cent attitudinal. Eighty-five
per
cent
of your success will
be
determined
by
your attitude.
People with positive mental attitudes tend
to
advance more
rapidly, earn more money,
and get
much more life
satisfaction than negative people. A positive mental attitude
of course does
not
mean that
you
have
to
dance around
in the street, throwing flowers
at
everyone.
It
simply means
you must take
a
generally constructive attitude
or
approach
towards your work, life
and
relationships.
Where do your attitudes come from? They come from your
expectations. A very powerful way to improve your attitude
instantaneously
is to
say,
"I
believe something wonderful
is going to happen to me today!" That
is,
expectations about
outcomes determine attitudes.
If
you
expect things
to
turn
out well,
you are
going
to
have
a
positive attitude.
If
you
expect things
to
turn
out
negatively you
are
going
to
have
a negative
or
poor attitude.
The
wonderful thing
is
that
you
can
expect whatever
you
want. Whether
you
expect
good things
or
negative things
the
chances
are
you will not
be disappointed. So where
do
our expectations come from?
Expectations come from
our
beliefs
and our
values, which
are
the
core
of our
personality.
With regard
to
beliefs, each
of us has
beliefs deep down
inside which psychologists call
the
"Self-concept".
The
discovery
of
this
is
considered
by
many
to be the
single
most important breakthrough in the understanding of human
performance.
The
self-concept
is the
command centre
or
the central program of your human computer.
It
comprises
beliefs, values, attitudes, feelings,
and
ideas, stored away
inside, which
are a
result
of
virtually every experience you
have ever
had in
your life. Some researchers
say the self-
concept begins to form even before birth.
The
self-concept
precedes, predicts
and
determines what
you
will say,
do,
act, feel
and
react. All improvements
in
external life begin
with
a
change
in the
self concept.
According
to
research,
the
average person uses much less
than 10
per
cent
of
their potential. Stanford Brain Institute
estimates
it is
probably
2 per
cent.
The
average person
has
90 per
cent
of
his/her potential untapped.
The
tragedy
is they
go to
their grave with their potential still trapped
inside them.
There
is a
direct relationship between potential
and self-
concept.
If our
self-concept
is
lower than necessary then
© 1990 Andrew Lothian
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