Are you wilfully blind to your own potential?

Do you have a secret ? A unique private vision for your life - yet are wilfully blind to your own potential?

We find this shocking, and frankly heart-breakingly wasteful

Many of us create private, internal visons for who we want to be, how we want to live and what we want to achieve – at work, at home, in our whole life, yet choose, sometimes consciously but mostly not, to remain unseeing in situations where in order to achieve our vision. We could know, and should know, but don’t know. Because we believe it makes us feel better not to know

And so our unique vision for what a great life would look like fades into ‘normal’, into ‘fine’ into ‘I’m good, thanks’ – and a weak smile. We know we could learn new skills at work, but don’t. We know we could improve our communication skills to benefit all our relationships, especially those with our loved ones. But don’t. We know to be happier, better people - we could let go of internal baggage. But don’t. We know we could learn new skills in our favourite leisure activities. But don’t

I know what I am talking about here - I lived pretty much the last 10 years of my life with my own wilful blindness – until I realised that actually – I had an opportunity to change my perspective, to start taking the first small steps forwards towards my unique vision of a great life, to unlock my potential. Put simply - to make progress instead of staying stuck

So I did. And guess what – I am even more shocked now – by how much untapped potential not only I have, but that, in fact, we all have – if we would simply learn to ‘Welcome Feedback’

What it boils down to, is that we are all nearly always capable of achieving much, much more than we currently are – in pretty much all areas of our lives – whether as a coder, a chef or a CEO – we are simply wilfully blind to our blindspots

So we stay, comfortably uncomfortable in our own ‘one day I will’ – but never do

We are often wilfully blind because we don’t have the time or courage to shine a light into the blind-spots of our lives by reflecting on what we really want, and who can really help us do that. We do not Welcome Feedback  

From our experience this is because we believe to welcome feedback in the most important areas of our lives will be like opening Pandora’s box. The potential for discomfort and disruption on learning about where we truly are in a particular area of our life from another’s perspective – either good or bad - is too much to take on – Carl Rogers had an interesting perspective on this,

"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change"

For most of us, it’s easy to continue with being blind to where we currently are, doing what we have always done – and thus we remain wilfully blind to our own potential.  We stick with what we know

We stick with inertia. We stick with normal – we stick with stuck

And yet the more we focus on what we already know, the more we leave out of our lives. We miss different perspectives on our own potential, we miss learning new skills to futureproof our careers, we miss new ways of improving our relationships with our loved ones, we miss out on the joy of continually making progress, of step by step living our vision of a great life and unlocking our true potential

At Progressfull™ we are really curious about the disconnection between how especially in the sporting arena feedback is welcomed with voracity, and an almost visceral passion, yet in every other walk of life, human beings seem to hold back and recoil from any assessment, observation and critique of their approach – preferring to remain blind to the new perspective – the perspective which could unlock a new skill, an improved approach, their potential

We are also curious that a lot of us passionately believe and truly understand that in order for our children to be any good at anything, to learn and develop – great feedback from a great coach/tutor/teachers - is the thing which really counts

In fact, we believe it so much that we give up years’ worth of Saturdays to get our kids into a team with a great football coach, or we drive them miles for the best tennis tuition. We even move house to get them into the best school

Yet when it comes to ourselves – we do the opposite – we run in the opposite direction, with our eyes and ears firmly shut - avoiding or dreading feedback believing it will be too unnerving or exposing, or simply dismissing it - we are wilfully blind, we are blindsided to our blind spots.  Even though we know that feedback is essential for any kind of development – both for our kids and for ourselves. Crazy eh?

This is because receiving feedback sits at the junction of two conflicting human desires - we want to learn and grow, but we also want to be accepted just as we are right now

So we have a disconnect… without feedback, we cannot attain excellence in any field, as Elbert Hubbard said,

 "To avoid criticism, do nothing say nothing and be nothing…"

and yet most of us, even typically outwardly successful Silicon Valley start-up founders, avoid and often fear feedback

What to do then?

To help you shine a light on your potential, to help you unlock your vision of who and what you want to be in your life – we created an Upskill (our name for a course/masterclass) called Welcoming Feedback

Welcoming Feedback enables you to embrace, usher in, even roll out the red carpet for different perspectives and assessments on what you can do to fulfil your potential and make progress in your everyday life - at home, at work, in your whole life

Welcoming Feedback is all about us seeking and sharing the gift of feedback. It’s the best way to test and calibrate our self-perception and it’s a great way to help and support others by calling out positives and encouraging course corrections. Welcoming Feedback is about mastering the skills required to receive feedback well, drive our own learning and as a result unlock our potential. It’s about how to recognise and manage our resistance, how to engage in feedback conversations with confidence and curiosity, and even when the feedback seems wrong, how to find insight that might help us grow

We've picked the best insights, frameworks and tools from behavioural psychology, neuroscience and philosophy to create the models and content in Welcoming Feedback, enabling you to embrace, usher in, roll out the red carpet for diverse perspectives and feedback conversations with confidence and curiosity

So open your eyes, take a deep breath,  jump in and release your true potential!

You can discover more about Welcoming Feedback here