An excerpt from John Maxwell’s ‘Invaluable Laws of Personal Growth’

So why do many people fail to grow and reach their potential? I’ve concluded that one of the main reasons is low self-esteem. Many people don’t believe in themselves.

They don’t see the possibilities that God put in them. They possess a hundred acres of possibilities, yet never cultivate them because they are convinced that they won’t be able to learn and grow and blossom into something wonderful.

That was the case of Johnnetta McSwain, whose story I recently learned about. For more than thirty years, she was someone who saw little value or potential in herself.

But to be honest, there were many legitimate reasons for her poor perception of herself. She was born to a single mother who didn’t want her and told her so.

She and her sister, Sonya, who was a year older, along with a cousin, spent the first five or six years of their lives being raised by their grandmother in Birmingham, Alabama.

But the house was also shared by three uncles, who abused all three of the children psychologically, physically, and sexually. Johnnetta was scarred both physically and emotionally.

“By the time I was five years old,” says Johnnetta, “I had already started to believe that I was not only inferior, but I was also a child abandoned by her own mamma. As a child, I had no place, no voice, and no worth at all.”

When Johnnetta and Sonya’s mother learned about the abuse, she moved the three girls to a new home. But the abuse continued, this time from the men her mother brought home.

Sonya ultimately responded by living on the streets and turning to crack cocaine. Johnnetta avoided drugs, but she spent much of her time on the streets and dropped out of high school in the eleventh grade.

She had her first child out of wedlock at age nineteen, then a second child in her midtwenties. For the most part, she lived in government-supported housing and on government assistance, and relied on her boyfriends for additional support.

To keep herself in designer clothes, she resorted to shoplifting.

Sonya’s perspective poignantly sums up the state they were in: “Everybody in my family been in jail, on drugs, didn’t finish high school, so what I got to live for? What I got to amount to? Nothing! What I got to accomplish?”

Johnnetta’s thirtieth birthday caused her to look in the mirror. She didn’t like what she saw.

She writes, ‘That day I woke up and realized I had absolutely nothing to celebrate—no money, no full-time job, no home, no husband, and no clue, not even the will to do better…. At last, I knew it was time to make some changes.’

She wasn’t happy with her life, and she realized that if she continued in the same direction she was going, her two sons would also be headed for trouble.

As far as she knew, not a single male member of her family had ever finished high school. Many died young or ended up in jail. She didn’t want that for her boys.

For Johnnetta, the process started with her working to get her GED. She took a twelve-week course to prepare and then took the test. She needed a score of 45 to pass. She received a 44.5.

But she was determined to make something of herself, so she scheduled a retake at her first opportunity. When she passed, she was excited to be chosen to speak at the graduation ceremony. No one from her family bothered to attend.

Johnnetta knew that if she was going to change, she needed to leave Birmingham and get a fresh start. And she wanted to do something no one in her family had ever done—go to college.

She decided to move to Atlanta, Georgia, and was motivated by a profound thought: “I get a chance to be anyone I want to be. ” 4 “I get a chance to be anyone I want to be.” — Johnnetta McSwain It took her almost three years to pull it off, but she made the move.

Soon afterward, she enrolled in Kennesaw State University, deciding to take more than a full load every semester. She was thirty-three years old when she started school. She was street smart, but not very book smart—at least not at first.

That intimidated her in the beginning.

But for the first time in her life, she was determined to better herself. And soon she realized she could do it. “I realized I didn’t have to be smart,” Johnnetta explains. “I just had to be determined, motivated, and focused. This came with a high price tag for me. I had to exchange my thinking.”

Not only did she study hard and stay focused, but she also sought out the smartest person in each of her classes and asked to study with her.

Soon she was studying and thinking like the best students in the school. She also maintained the vision she had for her future.

At the beginning of every semester, she went to the bookstore on campus and tried on a cap and gown, looking at herself in the mirror and imagining what it would be like to graduate.

One day when a classmate was talking to her, she had a realization. The classmate was saying, “I don’t love myself. I’m a nobody.”

Johnnetta responded, “You sure can love you if I love me.” And that’s when it hit her, maybe for the first time. “I realized I loved myself.” She had changed. She was turning into the person she wanted to be, that she was created to be.

Johnnetta completed the work for a bachelor’s degree in three years. Then she enrolled in graduate school, where she earned a master’s degree in social work.

Currently, she is working toward earning her doctorate. “I went for something that society told me, ‘You can’t do,’ ” says Johnnetta. “Oh, yes I can”

_________

Your background might be similar to that of Johnetta. You can be successful!

Success is not determined by background, but by consistent success habits and determination.

Go after your dreams!