Potential

“Clarity follows action” - Unknown

After thinking about writing for most of my life, I finally started at age 48.

On the first Sunday of 2025, I published my first weekly reflection. This week, the final Sunday of the year, I’m writing my 52nd. I’m proud of honoring that commitment to myself. Not because of the output, but because of what the process unlocked.

Writing changed me.

It reshaped how I see myself and what I believe I’m capable of. Most importantly, it reconnected me to my potential to create.

We all have that potential. Expressing it is part of why we’re here.

And I don’t just mean creating as we usually define it; writing, art, music.

I mean creating our lived reality.

We are each the artists of our own experience. We draw the contours and lines of our own lives, We choose the colors we want to see in the world. We define the landscapes we live within.

Each morning offers a blank canvas. No matter what came before, we get another chance to create something new.

This is how we once lived as children. But somewhere along the way, we forgot.

Most adults don’t wake with curiosity or excitement. We wake with obligation and often, deeper down, fear. Our days become cycles of responsibility and repetition.

We do what we have to, while what we truly want slowly slips out of reach, sometimes so far that we can’t even name it anymore.

So when time finally opens up, we distract and numb ourselves. Unsure of how to summon the motivation to start something new.

And yet, most of us experience moments of clarity.

A subtle tug. A sense that there’s something more aligned than the life we’re tolerating. Not necessarily bigger or more impressive…just truer.

That’s our potential calling to us.

Accessing it doesn’t require a grand plan. It requires movement.

Stop thinking. Start doing.

Pursuing that sensation, not knowing where it leads and not needing it to lead anywhere at all. Trusting that the act itself, the feeling of engagement, curiosity, or aliveness, is reason enough to begin.

As Joseph Campbell said, “Follow your bliss.”

Bliss isn’t an idea. It’s a feeling in the body. A physical response. A subtle sense of lighting up.

A remembering.

That spark can be nurtured. Or it can be ignored.

For most of my life, my head dominated my heart, and it still does. I chased understanding, knowledge, and certainty. But you can’t learn who you are from a book. And you can’t unlock your potential using someone else’s map.

Self discovery is personal and it lives in the place that access is hard to find entry to. For me, it’s been getting out of my head. For others, it might be the reverse.

In either case, it begins with looking inward at the patterns we repeat and the beliefs we’ve absorbed without realizing it.

Simple to understand. Hard to practice.

Our minds are filled with voices that sound protective. Once, they were. Now, many of them simply keep us small.

It can feel overwhelming to begin. We typically stop ourselves before we start. Why even bother?

But reframed as small steps toward something that feels right, the path becomes clearer.

Every meaningful human endeavor has started this way. Not with certainty, but with consistency. Not with a fully-fleshed, master plan, but with willingness. Over time, small efforts compound into something far greater than we could have imagined.

And when we let go of what something has to become, we’re often surprised by what it does become.

As we head into 2026, I’ll leave you with this invitation.

Take a few quiet moments to reflect on what lights you up, even subtly. What would you want to do if time and money weren’t an issue.

Notice what brings energy, curiosity, or quiet excitement. Something that makes your body tingle just a little bit.

You don’t need a plan. Just think of one intentional step you might take next month in that direction.

You have the potential to create any reality you want to experience, you just need to take the first step!

#Coach Kris

P.S. I will continue writing forever now, but i’m taking a break from doing it weekly. Sunday morning writing has ben spilling into Sunday afternoon! The time constraint has been ideal for this first phase but so many of these topics feel like offer greater depths to explore. Instead of a full Sunday brunch buffet of ideas, I may offer smaller meal to chew on.

And I have been extremely derelict in making real Sunday brunch for my family!

I’ll be using these last few days of the year for a deeper reflection to gain clarity on how best to channel the potential this year has unlocked to expand in 2026! So much more to come…