In my new book, The Potential Principle, I lay out a map that will help you reach your potential.

I call it the Potential Matrix. This grid identifies four aspects of life that are crucial to your journey toward improvement: the performing quadrant, the learning quadrant, the thinking quadrant, and the reflecting quadrant. Each represents potential areas of growth, and they all complement each other. Growth in one area can be used to foster growth in the others, leading to greater progress overall.

How can you best use this improvement map? Begin with the destination in mind. Decide what areas of life you want to improve in, and then use all four quadrants to help you get there.

One of the most common uses of the matrix—and the most helpful—is to start in the thinking quadrant. Determine what needs to be done and move into the learning quadrant to learn the needed skills. Then you apply those skills in the performing quadrant and afterwards reflect on the insights you gained. Then you can go back into the thinking quadrant for even more improvement.

We all have one “preferred zone” where we are most comfortable and enjoy operating, often to the exclusion of the other zones. If you really want to be the best you can be, you’ll have to go exploring outside your comfort zone. It’s in those uncomfortable areas where you’ll grow the most.

Maybe you’re more at home in the inner world of thoughts and ideas than in the outer world of words and action. That can be awesome, but there’s a danger that you might think a lot without doing much. Or maybe the opposite is true. Being highly productive is great, but you might be doing a lot without thinking much!

I’ll help you find a way to get the best of both worlds.

It takes a lot to reach your true potential. In The Potential Principle, I offer many insights about how to make your best even better. And I’ll share more of them later in this blog. But today’s lesson is an important one.

Focus on improving all four quadrants of the Potential Matrix to be better than your best.

Order The Potential Principle at http://bit.ly/potentialprinciple.

New York Times bestselling author Mark Sanborn’s new book The Potential Principle: A Proven System for Closing the Gap Between How Good You Are and How Good You Could Be is scheduled to release September 5, 2017 and provides a map and method for becoming better than best. By identifying the four key areas in which growth is possible—thinking, performing, learning, and reflecting—and applying the four tools of improvement in those areas—disrupt, refocus, engage, and expand— Sanborn reveals the secret for achieving breakthrough improvement in any area of life. Mark is president of Sanborn and Associates Inc., an idea studio dedicated to developing leaders in business and in life. He is a noted authority and an in-demand speaker on leadership, customer service, and extraordinary performance.