Breaking Through Barriers: How to Reach Your Full Potential

Some people are content to just cruise through life, making do with what they’ve got and not pushing themselves any further. But if you want to make the most out of your limited time on planet Earth, it’s worth putting in some effort to push through your personal barriers, even though this may be challenging.

This article will discuss how you can push through your barriers to reach your full potential, whether that’s personally or professionally.

Why Put Yourself Out There?

Breaking your own barriers means stepping out of your comfort zone and pushing the limits of what you’re used to. It means getting uncomfortable or uneasy as you learn to face your fears.

Whether it’s submitting a short story you wrote to a competition or finally enrolling yourself in an EdD in higher education online program, putting yourself out there will look different for everybody. The key takeaway here is that you need to push beyond your levels of comfort and safety in order to break a barrier.

What Are Personal Barriers?

Personal barriers are the limitations that we set for ourselves every day that define the shape and course of our lives. They are the stories that we tell ourselves. For instance, you might say that “I’m no good at public speaking”, or “my writing is poor”, or “that promotion is just out of reach for me in my current role”. These examples are the narrative you tell yourself that holds you back from achieving what you’d like to in life.

While some barriers are practical, such as a fear of public speaking for someone who experiences anxiety or a new parent focusing on raising their baby instead of work, some barriers are self-constructed and achieve nothing except holding you back from achieving the best outcomes in your lifetime.

Self-Compassion and Kindness are the Key

One of the most powerful tools in your toolkit for breaking your barriers and unlocking your unique potential is self-compassion and kindness.

Far too often, when you fall short of your own expectations, you’ll respond with self-criticism and beat yourself up internally. You might think that being tough on yourself will motivate you to do better, but all the evidence on motivation and achievements shows the exact opposite.

Practising self-compassion – where you acknowledge your struggles and treat yourself as you would a friend or loved one in the same situation –  will foster resilience and make personal growth more achievable. Self-compassion and kindness allow you to acknowledge your current limitations without letting them define you and shape your impression of yourself. When you are kind and compassionate to yourself, you are much more likely to see setbacks as learning opportunities for growth rather than signs that you’re not good enough or have failed.

Consider this for a moment: When a friend or loved one is struggling to achieve a goal, you are likely to encourage them and offer your support. Imagine what might happen if you used that same approach toward yourself.

By doing this, you create a mental space where it’s okay to try, fail, and learn from your failures, which is the very foundation of breaking barriers to personal growth.

Breaking Your Barriers: Key Strategies

Here are some powerful and practical strategies to assist you to you push past self-imposed barriers:

• Create a new internal success narrative. Rewrite the story you tell yourself every day about your potential and your limits. Visualize yourself thriving in your newfound glory and free yourself from the limits of the past. Your past doesn’t determine your future.
• Identify your upper-limit behaviours and what’s holding you back. Make a list of the behavior patterns that hold you back, such as excessive worrying, procrastination, imposter syndrome, or avoiding success.
• Shift your focus. When you catch yourself engaging in upper-limit behaviors, redirect your attention to the real issue—your emerging capacity for greater love, success, and abundance.
• Approach growth and learning with curiosity and playfulness. Instead of seeing challenges or your barriers as threats, view them as opportunities to learn from and expand your being.
• Embrace an abundance mindset. Consciously expand your awareness to invite more success, joy, and love into your life. Engage your whole being in this endeavor, not just your mind.

Push Through Your Barriers

It’s important to push your limits as you aim to break your barriers.

If you have a fear of public speaking, why not join a book club where you’re invited to speak on how you found the novel in a small group to start with? If you’re a budding writer, approach some smaller publications to see if you can get a short story or a poem published. If you’re angling for that promotion at work, speak to your supervisor and flag your intentions with them.

~

This article has shared how you can smash your own barriers – and unlock your full potential – by practising self-compassion, identifying your barriers, and dismantling them, piece by piece.