The Arenas of Untapped Potential
The crucible of profound learning
Every life arena sculpted your story of resilience.
Recognize the avoided arenas of fear and choice; they quietly steer your journey's course.
In untapped potential lies the wisdom of paths not taken, revealing your deepest values and strengths.
Embrace each arena—foundational, transformative, untapped—to learn, grow, and wield courage continuously
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Your Arenas
Throughout our journey, we face numerous battlegrounds. Each arena marks a pivotal chapter in our personal story. Often, we're quick to dismiss these experiences, overlooking the strength, courage, and identity they've carved within us.
It's time to bring these stories to light.
Focusing solely on failures blinds us to our accomplishments and the invaluable lessons that we’ve already experienced.
This oversight diminishes your narrative. And that’s a shame. You have a story of courage, strength, and resilience that the world needs to hear. And you probably need to hear it, too.
There are other arenas that you’ve been through. We classify these arenas into three distinct types:
The Arenas of Foundation: Your past milestones are the foundations upon which your present stands. Read more in last week’s post.
The Arenas of Transformation: The experiences that imparted invaluable lessons, shaping the wisdom with which you navigate.
The Arenas of Untapped Potential: The unengaged challenges to revisit these with courage, for unengaged challenges.
Embracing each of these arenas is a critical step in learning your unique steps of courage to face your chaos.
The last arena of your past is the arena you’ve avoided - the arena of untapped potential.
The arena of untapped potential
Finally, we consider the paths not taken and the battles not fought. These represent the choices that have subtly directed our journey. These arenas are created by avoidance or deliberate focus.
They are our untapped potential.
Our aim for these arenas is to understand why we did not take on these challenges. Understanding why can be as instructive as understanding why we embrace others.
Our most revealing insights into our values and priorities often fall within these voids.
The arenas we’ve avoided fall into two categories:
1.) The arenas we’ve avoided out of fear.
2.) The arenas we chose to bypass to move in another direction.
Avoidance can be purposeful and protective…but it can also be cowardly and full of fear. But regardless of the reason for the arena, there’s still a vital truth to consider.
There’s also a lesson in what you’ve avoided.
If you’ve avoided for purpose, your past shows that the paths you choose often lead you to greater options. They lead beyond the path you’ve avoided into greener pastures. They’ve led you to where you are today. Your strength, discipline, and character are all based on choices that you’ve made.
If you’ve avoided due to fear, your past shows you areas to overcome. Like the arenas of transformation, this shows you where you can use what you have learned to improve.
And that’s your opportunity - the reason for every arena in your past, and the arena you are working through today - to learn and improve continuously.
The simple fact is that you are stronger, and have more experience than you realize.
So be strong, and full of courage.