Unrealised Potential

I was chatting with a friend recently, and she told me about a 1K run she did during a gym session. When she got back to the gym and looked at the clock, it showed just over three minutes. Surprised, she asked the trainer, “Did you set the clock properly?” The trainer assured her it was accurate and said, “That’s an amazing time.”

My friend was ecstatic—but also in disbelief.

Around the same time, I had a similar conversation with my husband about his running times. Out of nowhere, his pace started improving dramatically. I said to both of them, “That’s unrealised potential. You’ve just uncovered something you didn’t even know you had.”

What struck me most was that my friend had always said, “I’m not a runner.” And yet, both she and my husband were hitting personal bests. I couldn’t have been prouder.

When we keep telling ourselves a negative story like "I'm not a runner," —without ever really giving it a proper go—we can trap ourselves in a story that isn’t true.

The first time I ever did a long-distance run, it happened kind of like that too. The furthest I’d ever run was 10 km. But then one day, I thought, “I’ll just run out to a certain point and back.”

For me, that meant running from town, out to the harbour, along the break wall, and back to town again. I didn’t really know how long it would be—just that it seemed like a good goal. Someone had suggested that route because it was the safest spot to run early in the morning.

So I did it.

And when I got back, I couldn’t believe it: it was 16 km. And I felt pretty good.

Sometimes, when you accidentally do something, you tap into this unrealised potential you didn’t even know was there. And it gives you this amazing feeling of, “Wow… I did it. I can do it.”