The basketball player you see above is LeBron James. For those of you who don’t follow the sport, LeBron James is arguably the most gifted player to have ever played the game. The amazing thing is that he is only 23 years old, has many years left to play, and can only get better. I really can’t wait to see how good he gets.
Imagine for a second that LeBron James decided not to pursue basketball as a career. In fact, let’s go as far to imagine a scenario where he did not train on a regular basis, was completely out of shape, and could barely play basketball for five minutes without running out of breath – let alone playing 48 minutes of intense basketball every other night with the best in the world, which is what he’s doing right now. In that world, he would not even come close to being one of the best basketball players in the world.
Nonetheless, his potential to be one of the world’s best basketball players has not changed. In our hypothetical world, he simply hasn’t gone out and achieved it.
What is Potential?
I’m sure you’ve heard many stories of teachers telling parents “Oh your son has the potential to do well – if only he worked harder!”, or something to that effect. What does that really mean?
Dictionary.com gives two pretty good definitions for potential: (1) Possible, as opposed to actual, and (2) Capable of being or becoming.
From my perspective, your potential for a specific activity are the levels of achievement you are capable of obtaining, given your natural abilities. I don’t think circumstances (e.g. resources available to you) are involved with determining someone’s actual potential; rather circumstances are factors that affect your ability to achieve that potential.