What’s Holding You Back From Reaching Your Full Potential?



Wondering about the things that are holding you back from reaching your full potential?

Be honest: when you think about your dreams and wishes for the future, do you honestly feel that you’ve put in everything you can to make them happen?

The truth is most of us don’t. While we want certain things in life, we’re also really good at talking ourselves out of actually going out there and getting them.

Most of us have a hard time stepping into our true potential! On a deep subconscious level, we’re afraid of our own power. We know that we’re capable of amazing things. But then we let ourselves get freaked out about the details: the amount of work, the effort, the passion and the possibility of failure.

Instead of trying to do what we really want, we talk ourselves out of it.



Yeah sure I’d love to be an international wellness speaker. But public speaking? Ugh too scary for me!

When these defeatist thoughts arise, it’s good to try to remind yourself of a bigger perspective. No child is born a great public speaker! Or writer or influencer or designer. Sure we all have natural aptitudes and talents, but you get better at certain things in life simply because you decide to. The Public Speaking Fairy won’t float down from the sky one day and give you the gift to motivate a crowd! But you can become your own Public Speaking Fairy with enough practice and time.

So what do you really want to do with your life?



This is just a reminder that you really can have your dreams–whatever they might happen be! But if you’re serious about getting there, then keep reading to make sure nothing’s holding you back!


5 Things That Are Holding You Back From Reaching Your Full Potential


Things That Are Holding You Back From Reaching Your Full Potential Reason #1:

Giving Into Your Fears



Fear is the number ONE reason you’re not achieving the things you want in life! But despite the fact that it’s so common, a lot of people still don’t realize this.

Why? That’s because fear is exceptionally good at disguising itself. Few of us want to admit that we’re too AFRAID to do what we want! So instead we make up some convenient excuses:


I’m too old.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
I’ll get around to it later.

Behind all those “reasonable” excuses is the real reason you’re not moving forward: you’re too afraid. Those stories are just excuses and they’re only as real as you say they are!

But when you can get real about what’s actually going on, it’s a lot easier to bust through those fears and get back to the business of creating an awesome life!


Things That Are Holding You Back From Reaching Your Full Potential Reason #2:

Listening To Other People



Other people are chock-full of all kinds of opinions and beliefs about what you should do with your life. So let me tell you this: it doesn’t matter what your parents, boyfriend, wife, or best friend think about your life. The only opinion that truly matters is your own!

You could spend your entire life attempting to make those around you happy and still not quite make it. But even if you somehow (magically!) managed to do that, what about what your desires, dreams and vision? How would those things be fulfilled if you’re not paying attention? It’s a fact: we all only have so much time here and your number one job for that time is to do YOU!

And BTW, this isn’t selfish at all! All those “helpful” opinions you’ve heard are really coming from a good place. Everyone just wants to see you happy! It’s just that other people’s ideas of what will make you happy comes from their filtered vision of the world. Your happiness is your job so it’s time for you to start showing up and doing it.


Things That Are Holding You Back From Reaching Your Full Potential Reason #3:

Not Enforcing Your Boundaries



The business of being the best ever version of you means you’re not only an advocate for your own happiness, you’re also the enforcer of your boundaries. Yup! Boundaries: we’ve all got them. And it’s entirely up to you to locate and set your own! Boundaries are ultimately there to protect you. They’re an important part of you hitting your highest potential.

The tricky thing with boundaries is that they are a two-way street! You get to decide them but you also have to communicate them to the relevant people in your life. You can set boundaries all day long but if you don’t tell anyone about them and also don’t enforce them when they’re crossed, then what’s the point? Boundaries are ultimately there to protect you and the people who are close to you should understand that! Be very wary of anyone who tells you your boundaries are dumb or illogical or who crosses them willingly. Those people definitely aren’t concerned about your well-being!

Of course, some people will make mistakes from time to time and you can definitely forgive them. It’s not always black and white! Of course it’s all about their attitude.


Things That Are Holding You Back From Reaching Your Full Potential Reason #4:

Not Enjoying The Journey



One of the biggest pitfalls that people face at all levels of success is the inability to enjoy the moment. That’s largely because we were all raised in a permission-based school system. We’re used to allowing someone else to judge our work and deem whether or not we’re allowed to move forward. School is all about passing into the next grade, not about enjoying the learning process!

And that’s too bad because life is–of course–all about the journey. If you tell yourself you can’t be happy until you do X, Y or Z, then you’re just withholding your own happiness from yourself. Once you get to any finish line, a number of new goals will just pop up again! You’ll feel like you’re on an endless treadmill and sooner or later that will just leave you feeling burnt out and wondering “What’s the point?”

To keep your energy high and your happiness boosted, you have to stop and give yourself credit for all you’ve achieved! If you keep focusing on the lack, that will just spin you down into anxiety or depression. So flick the switch and start concentrating on what you do have instead! Yes, it’s true: you’ve done a ton of work on yourself in the last week, month, year! Let yourself stop to smell the roses and enjoy it once in a while!


Things That Are Holding You Back From Reaching Your Full Potential Reason #5:

Destructive Self-Talk



Most of the time in life we’re our own worst enemies. Be honest: how does your inner voice actually treat you? For many of us, our inner voice says all kinds of things that we would never say to another person! So why are we so mean and disrespectful to ourselves?

This is really just our ego getting in our way! It’s that part of our subconscious that loves to trick us into playing small and to feeling fear. Of course in reality, the only thing that is real is LOVE. If you’re feeling fear, then that just means you’ve bought into a LIE–something that isn’t really true. So how can you start to shift your thinking to get back to what’s actually true?

Negative self-talk is a hard habit to break! But with a little effort you really can start shifting your attitude towards yourself to be full of love and acceptance, instead hatred and fear.



So tell me: how are you standing in the way of your own success? And what action are you going to take to start moving forward again?

The biggest obstacles standing in our way are never as big and scary as our brain would like us to believe! If you do a little inner work to see where you are being blocked, it becomes easy to find the real root of the problem. And that’s great news because it means we’re always in charge of our own success!

I hope you enjoyed this post! Thank you so much for reading & I’ll see you back here next week!

Jenn Stevens The Aligned Life


PS Looking for more? You might also want to check out this post about stop making excuses or this one about using people as a tool for personal growth.



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5 Things That Are Holding You Back From Reaching Your Full Potential

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