These three words have come up quite a bit for me recently. In fact, most of your day goes to allocating your time, leveraging your talent, and spending energy. Why are these three things so important? I think they are a huge part of what makes up your potential. Your potential can only and should only be defined by you, but it is essentially the determining factor of how far you will let yourself succeed. I think there is a common misconception that success is determined by outside forces - but research and reality would argue it is determined by your own individual passion and perseverance - or as some would call it, grit.

As business owners, we have all these self-limiting beliefs and fears, not to mention daily distractions that stop us from achieving the big goals we have in our minds. But what if, we keep those distractions and beliefs there because we are simply afraid of what happens if we succeed? Or better yet, if we fail? Maintaining the status quo is safe. In order to evaluate if this is what you’re doing, I challenge you to ask yourself a few questions:

1. Have you defined your career potential and what success means to you?

2. Have you achieved or are you on track to achieve those goals?

If the answer to those is no, then I recommend looking at these three variables:

1. Where are you spending most of your time?
2. Are you maximizing your talents?
3. Are you wasting energy or creating energy?

Depending on your answers, you may have some work to do. Most likely, all of us do anyway. No matter what, there is always something we can improve on.

Kevin Durant said, “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.”

I interpret this as sometimes we allow our talents to get lazy or underutilized. If you continue to work hard, you will continue to take steps to achieve your goals. The question behind this whole blog is, do you want to?

Recently, I’ve been faced with answering these questions myself and I can tell you I have found that more often than not, I’ve played it safe. I am scared of what it looks like to fail, and part of me is scared of what it looks like to succeed. The result? I’ve got to take the risks. So if you’re inspired to do the same - here is what I recommend:

1. Revisit your core values: Is the work you’re doing aligned with your value system? It should be. If you need to, reevaluate your core values and identify what has changed. Values aren’t stagnant because we grow and began to want/need new things.

2. Figure out what you’re passionate about and practice passion daily: Write down what excites you and what you want your future to look like. Yes, think about your future for your whole life not just when you are a kid! Constantly refer back to these passions when evaluating your next steps in your life.

3. Find work that makes you look forward to the next day, not just check off another box: Your passions and your Core Values should be present in the work you do. Always be looking forward to enhancing your vision and adjust your life to fit who you and what you want.

You have control over your life and evaluating your passions and Core Values will help you make the best decisions for yourself! Always looking forward and always envisioning your future will help you become more fulfilled. Your time, talent, and energy are valuable, so what are you going to do with it?