Many would have been great personages if they had not had something wanting without which they could not rise to the height of perfection... They do not perhaps take themselves seriously enough to do justice to their great abilities; some are wanting in geniality of disposition... In all such cases a careful man may make of habit a second nature.
Baltasar Gracián, 1647 (tr. Joseph Jacobs, 1892)
A great deal of unrealised potential comes down to a single missing ingredient, one specific lack that holds back abilities that would otherwise be more than enough. For one person it is warmth, a coldness of manner that colleagues feel and that caps how far they rise. For another it is the discipline to organise, or the moderation to not overdo, or simply taking themselves seriously enough to do justice to real gifts. The valuable move is to identify your own particular missing thing, the one lack that is capping the rest, and then work at it deliberately until practice turns it into second nature. This is close in spirit to knowing your chief fault, but from the other side: not the flaw to fight so much as the missing quality to build, and the good news is that most such lacks can be built.
Practice
- Identify the one thing missing that caps everything else; for most people it is a single specific lack, not a general deficiency (maxim 225 fights the chief fault; this one builds the missing quality).
- Work the missing ingredient deliberately until habit makes it second nature; the lack is usually buildable, not fixed.
- Take your own real abilities seriously enough to complete them; some potential goes unrealised simply because its owner never did it justice.
Use this when
- Use this as a focused self-development project: find the single missing quality and build that, rather than trying to improve everything at once.
- Use it when capable people around you plateau; the cap is usually one nameable lack, and naming it is half the work.
Ignore this when
- Don't mistake a whole catalogue of weaknesses for the one missing ingredient; the point is the single decisive lack, not general self-criticism (maxim 225's discipline).
- Don't assume the lack is unfixable; the whole counsel rests on habit becoming second nature, which is to say the missing thing can be built.
A picture of it
Technically the strongest person on the team, an analyst keeps being passed over and cannot understand why until a mentor names the single missing ingredient: warmth. His work is flawless and his manner is cold, and the coldness caps everything the competence should have unlocked. It is not so much a flaw to fight as a quality to build, and he builds it deliberately, practising the small human warmth that did not come naturally until, over a year, it becomes second nature. The abilities were always there. The one missing thing that would let them count was what he had never thought to work on.
One missing ingredient can cap a lifetime of ability. Find yours, and work it until habit makes it second nature.