How to Develop Your Own Superpowers
Every kid has dreamed of superhuman powers. Do you remember yours? Having the speed and flight of Superman; being as strong as the Hulk; having retractable claws like Wolverine; or the sarcasm of DeadPool. Or maybe you dreamed of someone or something completely different. However fanciful those superpowers may have been, there’s a particular genre of superheroes that I think actually has some truth to it. Let me tell you what I mean.
The mutant superheroes of Marvel, like Storm, Wolverine and Professor X, claim to have an extra gene from birth that gives them their superpowers. Supposedly, they’re the next generation of humans. Admittedly, I’m out of my league talking about this stuff so I’m sure I’ll hear from many of you to correct my Marvel knowledge base.
Similarly, I think each of us innately knows that inside of ourselves we have more potential than we might be tapping into today. For example, you might have some inner-monologue about what you’re capable of or what you deserve, or it might simply be that feeling of having a calling to do something (you may not even be sure what that calling is, you just know it’s there). However it occurs to you, the point is the same, you have more potential than you’re using. Whether that potential is stored in our DNA, inherited from our ancestors or just part of how the human psyche works, I don’t know.
What I do know is that many of those mutant superhuman beings realize their capabilities by exposure to some kind of discomfort or great stress. For some it’s as simple as the discomfort of going through puberty. We’ve all been there, right? For others, they go through incredibly painful experiences for their superpowers to manifest. For example, a mutant named Frenzy only developed her superpowers after dealing with her father’s abuse (she went on to punch a hole through his chest, so I guess you could say, there was a happy ending?).
In any case, for our real potential to be realized we need much of the same. Unlike mutants though, we need not only to be exposed to some kind of discomfort (we all have that whether we want it or not),we need to embrace and voluntarily choose that discomfort to step closer to our potential. We have to surrender to the discomfort that’s forced upon us because of circumstances or experience discomfort that’s chosen by us for growth to have more of that potential show up.
Think about some of the great leaders we recall from the past. Each grew to make the difference they did through very uncomfortable situations. MLK risked his life for the civil rights movement. Churchill faced the unfathomable terrors of the Nazi army. JFK went toe to toe with the former USSR. And these are only the big external situations, not to mention the incredible things they went through and overcame in their personal lives to arrive there in the first place.
The difference between the status quo and starting to realize your potential is embracing discomfort. Voluntarily putting ourselves in situations that demand personal and professional growth is key, and the reason why it’s so important to get comfortable with discomfort .
So today, think about what discomfort you can hunt. Imagine where you can create challenges that demand that you grow.. I invite you to join me in The 10 Days to Get Results #NoMatterWhat Challenge to get you started doing exactly that. And when you do, just like the mutants developed their superpowers, you’ll step into superpowers of your very own.