the overlooked key to reaching your potential
So many people want to reach their potential in life, yet so few do. Why? For many people, it’s something surprisingly simple: they lack the right skills. They never develop the skills they need to succeed and end up living ineffective lives. But if you want to reach your potential, it’s key that you start working today to develop the skills that you will need five years from now.
This might sound both obvious and unimportant, but few people ever think about developing their skills ahead of time, especially once they’re done with school. But if you want to be effective in life and fully use your gifts, you need to start working on new skills today.
Before we address why that’s so important, we need to define what a skill is. A skill is just the ability to do something well. Our culture contains millions of skills, ranging from fixing an engine to growing food to leading an organization. Having skills allows you to use the tools, raw materials, and resources in ways that solve the problems that society faces. While many people make a distinction between hard skills (technical skills) and soft skills (emotional skills), you need both types to excel in life.
Unfortunately, few people ever think about skills, choosing instead to obsess over talent. We see a skilled surgeon and attribute it to talent. But talent is just a natural aptitude towards a skill, it is not the skill itself. Talent is never enough; even the most talented surgeons still have to go to medical school to learn the skills of surgery. That’s why athletes like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant spent hours practicing basketball every day, their talents had to be developed into skills.
That’s good news, though! Why? Because it means that skills can be learned. While our society often focuses on talent (the natural aptitudes we each possess), talent is only helpful when we use it to develop valuable skills. So if you want to reach your potential, you can’t rely on your natural talents but need to cultivate the skills you’ll need in the future. People who reach their potential are the ones who put in the long, hard work of building skills when no one is watching.
That’s why I’ve come to believe that if you want to reach your potential in life, you need to start developing the skills you will need five years from now. While there’s nothing magical about this number, it’s close enough that you have some idea about where your life will be, while also being far enough away that you have some time to tackle a bigger skill.
There are three major reasons that you need to start developing the skills you’ll need in five years today:
1. valuable skills take years to learn.
The first reason that you need to start learning a skill five years in advance is that every part of our world is complex. Because of this increased complexity, it takes longer to master a skill to the degree needed to be helpful to someone else. For example, one hundred years ago a farmer just plowed his field, planted some seeds, and prayed for rain. Today, a farmer has to be skilled in crop science, global markets, and government policy, while managing millions of dollars in equipment and loans. The same is true in health care, technology, and almost every other area of life. Whether you are trying to get into photography, become fluent in a foreign language, or teach 7th graders how to think, it takes time in our complex world to develop the knowledge, wisdom, and expertise that constitutes real skill.
When I started my apartment cleaning business in New York City, I assumed that cleaning was low-intelligence work that I could be perfect at after a few months. Much to my surprise, I found that it took me four years of cleaning to excel at the work. I was always learning new techniques and skills to do a better job. Now if that is true with cleaning, a relatively simple skill, imagine how much more it is true in the 99% of work and life that is more complex?!
Because of the complexity of our world, you need to start working today on the skills that you’ll need in five years. This will give you the time to absorb the information, practice the tasks, learn from your mistakes, and develop the beginnings of mastery.
2. opportunities rarely show up on your timetable.
The second reason you need to start learning a skill five years in advance is that opportunities rarely show up on your timetable. Most people don’t think ahead about what skills they will need in the future because they assume life will give them a 12-month heads up before every opportunity appears. But opportunities in life don’t come with a warning, they just show up. No one ever says, “I’m going to need a graphic designer in two years…can you get ready for then?” Of course not. They will need a skilled person right then. And so when you plan and build valuable skills, you will be ready to capitalize on opportunities when they arise.
I spent much of my post-seminary years studying Pastor Tim Keller’s ministry in New York City, never thinking I would live in NYC. I developed my ministry skills in part by listening to his sermons, reading his books, and even reading the books that he referenced. It took hours and hours of work. Five years after I started, I ended up in New York and on a whim, applied to work at the church he led. When the interviewing pastor asked me, “Why are you a good fit for Redeemer?” I was able to demonstrate my understanding and knowledge of the skills it would take to succeed in ministry in New York. If I had waited until I got the interview to start developing the ministry skills that I needed, I could have never fit five years of growth into one week of preparation. It was only because I’d been developing the ministry skills that they were looking for for five years that I was able to get the job.
3. nobody is going to ask you to get ready for a future job.
The third reason you need to start learning a skill five years in advance is that nobody is going to ask you to get ready for a future job. Everybody is so busy thinking about their own life and trajectory they’re not going to have time to think about yours. So don’t expect your teacher or boss to give you step-by-step directions on how to reach your potential. After all, they probably don’t even know what direction you want to go in with your life.
Instead, you need to take responsibility to figure out where you want to go in life and then start preparing the skills that you will need to help you get there. Effective people take initiative and pursue the skills training they will need, whether that’s going to grad school, reading books on their own, or setting aside time to practice 10 hours a week. Sadly, so many people never think ahead in life, causing them to never take any initiative in attaining the skills they’ll need. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: “Of course, I could never be successful, so why should I get the skills to be successful.” Then when they aren’t successful they say, “See, I was right, I wasn’t cut out to be successful.”
I spent my late 20s and early 30s studying marketing and practicing my writing 10-15 hours a week, not because anyone asked me to, but because I enjoyed both subjects. While I wasn’t sure how those skills would be helpful, I knew that they would be good to have. When the pandemic forced me to close my cleaning business, I was able to get a job writing in the marketing department at a Christian college here in NYC. If I hadn’t planned ahead and taken the initiative to work on my writing skills on my own, I never would have been prepared when the writing opportunity arose.
so why don’t we spend more time building skills?
I hope you see how important it is to start building the skills you’ll need in the future today. But if working on your skills is such an important way to increase your effectiveness and reach your potential, then why doesn’t everyone do it? Here are a few reasons why:
We see skills as magical: because we confuse skills with talent, we think that skills are magical abilities. This creates a false determinism towards skill development, causing people to think they’ve either got it or they don’t, so why bother trying? But while talents make you predisposed towards certain skills, everyone can learn, practice, and build new skills.
We’re lazy and distracted: let’s face it, gaining new skills takes hard work and discipline. Scrolling your phone, watching TV, or hanging out with your friends will always be easier than learning a new skill, especially if you don’t need it right now. The future feels a long way off, so we try to maximize our comfort today and avoid thinking about the future.
We don’t think we need new skills: many people arrogantly assume that they don’t need new skills, so they never think about gaining or developing their skills. These people believe they’re already near the top, so they never read books, go to conferences, or learn from people more skilled than they are. They are then puzzled and frustrated when their peers advance faster and live healthier and more successful lives than they do.
These common reasons keep so many people from building the skills they’ll need to excel. But not building your skills runs contrary to everything God teaches us in the Bible. He calls each of us to be good stewards of the gifts, talents, and opportunities that He has given to us. To do that, we need to cultivate our skills so that we can use them to serve in His kingdom.
so how do you know what skills to work on?
Some of you are probably thinking, “But I have no clue what skills I should start to work on?” So here are a few ways to discern what skills you could start to work on:
1. Figure out what skills you are drawn to.
You can start by thinking through what skills you’re naturally drawn to. As you went through school were there subjects or tasks that you connected with? Start learning about and trying different skills and see which ones you gravitate towards.
2. Figure out where you want to go in life.
Another way to determine what skills to learn is by working backward from where you want to end up. If you want to work at a tech start-up, learn to code. If you want to be an artist, study perspective and color theory. If you want to start a restaurant, get a job as a line cook. Don’t be afraid to pick a dream job in the distance and then get to work on building up the stable of skills that you will need to get there. And don’t worry if your interests sound weird to the people around you. God gifts us all in surprising ways and just because “people like us don’t do those things,” that doesn’t mean that you can’t excel in it.
3. Identify what skills people have in roles you would like.
Sometimes the easiest way to see what skills you should be building is to study or interview the people you’d like to become. Whether you want to be a principal, coach, CFO, or politician, thousands of people have gone before you that you can learn from. Study their paths and the skills they needed, either by meeting with them or by reading about their lives.
4. If you don’t know where you’re going yet, focus on general skills.
If you still don’t know what skills to start working on, then pick multi-disciplinary skills that will be important in every field. Communication and relational skills are valued in every field, so if you don’t know what else to do, get better at things like writing, speaking, making videos, or solving conflict. These skills will give you a great foundation to be in a position or job where you can learn more technical skills.
so what now?
People who achieve long-term success are rarely overnight successes or lucky. Rather, they are those who build skills before they will need them. Sadly, so much talent gets wasted because people never develop their talents into skills. The future is going to come whether you acknowledge it or not, so be proactive and start preparing yourself for 2029 and beyond.
appendix of skills
Here’s a short list of skills to jumpstart your thinking. And keep in mind, within each of these skills are thousands of even more specialized skills! You can get better at:
Teaching
Painting
Welding
Woodworking
Sewing
Public speaking
Analyzing data
Understanding statistics
Investing in stocks
Storytelling on social media
Remodeling homes
Playing a musical instrument
Graphic design
Fundraising
Managing a project
Hosting events
Understanding a specific period of history
Lean manufacturing
Supply chain and import/exports
Speaking a foreign language
Singing
Creating a website
Campaigning for a politician
Fixing computer networks
Using symbolic logic
Foreign policy
Understanding ocean currents
Developing new medicines
And many more!
