My work as a coach, consultant, social entrepreneur, and as an athlete has been hyperfocused on performance. People and organizations alike all over the world come to me to help them reach their “full potential,” or optimize it at a minimum. They come to me to help them through the journey of change and transformation, whether that be for themselves or their team of thousands. They want to learn techniques, processes, leadership styles, and habits to help them in this quest for optimizing their performance at every level. Yet, after nearly two decades of doing this work, and in reflecting on my own spiritual journey and personal transformation, I understand that reaching your full potential simply means living your truth. It’s just never been sold to us that way.
The most courageous thing we’ll ever do in our lives is be our true self, and live our full authentic expression.
The most courageous thing we’ll ever do in our lives is be our true self, and live our full authentic expression. Each breath we take is an opportunity to sink deeper into that possibility. Sitting, breathing, sinking into stillness, a new portal opens with every inhale and exhale. The tension, worries, fears, doubts, joys, identity, anticipation we might have brought to our practice get to take a rest for those mindful moments we choose to take. One of the many benefits of meditation is that it connects us with truth: the truth of the present moment and truth of our own being—where we are no one and no thing. We can experience our true essence.
Seeking the Truth is a Journey
The day-to-day pace of life of modern society makes it so that we spend most of our time unconnected to our state of being and caught up in a state of doing. In the state of doing, our subconscious can lead freely with old beliefs and programs that might not even be ours to begin with. I think back to many years of running on autopilot with dreams that were sold to me as a young girl, telling me what would lead to happiness and success. Those dreams were even prescriptive in the sequential order they were meant to happen—finish college, get a “great” job, get married, get more degrees, have babies, and buy a house. At 27, I had my hard awakening moment: This formula was not mine or meant for me at the time, or even an automatic ticket to happiness. This realization was perhaps the beginning of a truth-seeking journey that included questioning what “reaching our full potential” might mean. What I found is that our full potential is not defined by what we do or what we have, or some arbitrary measure of success. It is realized when we can fully step into the truth of who we are–our wild truth. It is a state of being and expression not defined by any exterior source. All the accomplishments in the world can’t be the defining factor.
When our full potential is not being realized—when you start to see breakdowns in performance, motivation, collaboration, and beyond on an individual level and organizational level—these all can easily tie back to people being misaligned with their truth. Just as mindfulness is a practice, so is connecting with our truth in a way that allows us to actually live and speak it in our everyday lives. It takes a tremendous amount of determination and courage to put into practice, as not everyone is going to like your truth, especially if it disrupts the status quo and the autopilot mode so many operate in regularly. I’ve learned this the hard way many times over in my career and life. The good thing is, like a muscle, it is something that grows stronger with practice and becomes less difficult to do over time.
When our full potential is not being realized—when you start to see breakdowns in performance, motivation, collaboration, and beyond on an individual level and organizational level—these all can easily tie back to people being misaligned with their truth.
As humans, we want to connect, belong, and generally be liked. This can be what makes having a practice of connecting and actually expressing our truth a big challenge. Speaking my truth and seeing every day as a new opportunity to actually live it has been a core value, especially since my late twenties, when I had a big realization that the life I had worked so hard to build up until then was misaligned to my truth and in need of a total reset. Having this core value and practice has led me to have the courage to follow my dreams despite obstacles, as well as the courage to leave jobs, organizations, and relationships that no longer served me or were misaligned. The beauty in embracing this all personally is that it’s given others the courage to speak and live their own truth as well, or at least embark on the journey.
Like Mindfulness, Truth-Seeking is a Practice
Living your truth in practice can have its challenges as I’ve shared and requires total self-awareness. Last year, I was faced with one of my greatest leadership challenges when I made the decision to step down as board chair for a nonprofit organization due to a misalignment with my truth and core values. What I witnessed and experienced in the organization as a woman of color was unacceptable and really left me no option but to go. I wholeheartedly did the best I could in my capacity to be of service, help bring major issues to light, provide a path to resolution, and create space for those difficult and unwelcome conversations with compassion, despite the underlying pain I was experiencing. In the end, there was not a willingness to implement the changes so desperately needed, or even to acknowledge the need itself. The time came when the only way to speak and embody my truth meant choosing to part ways.
The thing is, as I was reminded, I cannot make other people change, I cannot make others shift their mindset and perspective, and I cannot take away people’s unconscious bias, or make them agree or see eye-to-eye with my truth. Each of us can only encourage, inform, and serve as an example. Our duty as leaders and as individuals is to express our truth, listen, and reflect. We cannot force our truth and values on others—it just doesn’t work that way. Eventually, if there is a major misalignment, there will either be a voluntary shift, a change, or a departure.
Our duty as leaders and as individuals is to express our truth, listen, and reflect. We cannot force our truth and values on others—it just doesn’t work that way.
Embodying our truth can also lead us on a journey of pursuing our dreams, forming deep connections with others, and discovering opportunities that are in total alignment. When people can connect with their truth with total awareness, it can serve as the best guide to determine where to invest mor