When you stop and think about it, aren’t acorns an incredible phenomenon of nature?

They go from being less than an inch big with no hint that they can grow into enormous, gorgeous trees with majestic branches and leaves that provide shade, oxygen, and delight to human beings while offering a home to many creatures. They are indeed extraordinary!

Just like you!

You are a human acorn!

Every human being has enormous potential within. Just look around! The human mind has created houses, roads, electricity, plumbing, communication systems, government systems, art, cultural traditions, and religions….The list is endless! Mind-blowing!

You are a human acorn. You have enormous potential within you.

You’re like the acorn in another way, too. Acorns don’t become trees without the right conditions for growth—sunshine, dirt, and water. Neither do human acorns.

What are the “right conditions” for you to develop your potential?

If you sense that you are not living up to your potential, you may not have had the right conditions for that growth.

For human acorns, the necessary conditions for growth involve having someone, or a few people, in our corner who believe in us. This is because we are inherently social beings. We live up to that which is mirrored back to us.

This could be a friend, a parent, a therapist, or a coach. Whoever it is, some key ingredients are needed:

• It needs to be someone you respect and whose opinion you trust
• It needs to be someone capable of seeing your potential objectively
• That person needs to be able to reflect your greatness back to you in a genuine way that resonates as truth. When you hear it, you know it’s true.
• As you grow into your potential, it is essential to have support as you take steps to actually move into its unfolding in physical reality.

All of these ingredients are incredibly important. However, the last one—having support as you take steps to actually move from having your potential be expressed in physical reality—is indispensable.

Have you ever seen a toddler learning to walk? They take a step, fall down, get back up, teeter a little, fall down, get back up, take another step or two, fall down again…..

That’s what growing into your potential is like. As adults, we tend to hate that experience. Unlike toddlers, we beat ourselves up when we fall down. We might get mad, even have a tantrum. We often give up, concluding, “I’m no good at this.”

We need support. We need reminders that failing doesn’t mean that it’s not worth trying. We need someone to believe in our dreams and our capacity to fulfill them, especially when we lose that belief in ourselves.

We need someone who knows in their heart that we are human acorns waiting to burst into life, and who won’t give up on us.