Why you’re not fulfilling your potential is a question that lies at the core of pretty much every coaching conversation I have.
Before I start, here’s a spoiler alert: if you feel you’re not fulfilling your potential right now, it’s OK.
You’re OK.
You’re not fulfilling your potential – and that’s OK
There’s an awful lot of stuff talked about in business and personal development circles about the importance of fulfilling your potential. Things like the oft-quoted meme: “Hell is meeting the person you could have been”.
As I’ve matured, in my work and in my being, I’ve come to realise quite how much stress and unhappiness all that striving to fulfil potential can cause.
When we make potential-fulfilment such an imperative, we risk placing too much of a burden on people who may already be in a vulnerable place. They already feel they’re not doing enough, not BE-ing enough. That’s why they’re attracted to a promise that they can be and do more.
But what if they can’t?
“You too can be all you were supposed to be” is one of the most pernicious promises made by the self-development profession. No-one is *supposed* to be anything more than who they are.
Right here, right now.
Even more pernicious is the idea, implicit in that promise, and in all the positioning that leads up to it, that you *have* to be all you could possibly be. It’s an idea I’ve been guilty of clumsily promoting in the past, and that’s something I truly regret.
Unrealistic expectations about potential
What on earth does “all you could possibly be” mean anyway? A world-leader in your field, maybe? Or ludicrously rich, perhaps? A billionaire?
Of course, it could be that your drive comes more from doing good deeds. So what about a Nobel Peace Prize? Or for the spiritually-minded, why not go the whole hog and hope for gurudom or a sainthood?
If the thought of that level of achievement genuinely excites and inspires you, then that’s fantastic. It means you’re ready to create a world of activity and expectation that will keep you busy for quite some time to come. So it’s probably time to get going!
But I’m betting that for a good proportion of those who read my posts, any of those objectives feels uncomfortably big.
And that’s fine – it just means those are not part of your right path, right now.
The reason you’re not fulfilling your potential right now
So, to get to the core point of this post, if you’re asking why you’re not fulfilling your potential, it’s probably because you don’t want to. And that’s absolutely fine!
Instead of worrying about not fulfilling your potential, try asking yourself what you’d love to achieve this year. It’s often said that we under-estimate what we can achieve in a lifetime, but over-estimate what we can achieve in a year. But here’s the thing: the lifetime bit only happens if there’s some progress each year. So a small, achievable potential for right now is far better than doing your head in worrying about where you think you should be in a decade or so.
(or, more likely, where you think others ought to think you ought to be – but that’s a whole other blog!)
What can you, realistically, achieve this year, that would bring you joy and a sense of pride – and that you are willing to commit to?
Start there.
An unfulfilled potential
I’ve spent quite a lot of my life “not fulfilling my potential”. But I’d say I’m quite a lot happier than many people who’ve achieved a lot “more” than me in life.
My top-of-the-class school career turned into a rather mediocre degree. At that time, learning really wasn’t exciting to me, I was more interested in beer, women and ‘whacky baccy’. Yet later in life I thoroughly enjoyed earning a Master’s degree in business.
My retail career, after a pretty meteoric rise from junior salesman to Head Office store General Manager, stalled as the prospect of Sunday working loomed on the horizon, taking away the joy of a family Sunday after a busy Saturday’s trade. And yet some years later I chose to miss the Friday and Saturday beers with friends and threw myself with gusto into helping run large all-weekend events.
At first I wasn’t willing to be that guy, the studious over-achiever who worked all hours to get the job done. Yes, the potential for a good degree was there, I know that from my MBA. And so was the potential to help run an exciting consumer business, which I’ve done since. But back then it wasn’t what I wanted; my circumstances meant I was not willing to do the necessary.
When the time is right
And then my circumstances changed, and I was willing. My genuine potential, what I was willing to create, expanded when the time was right. For me.
And I fulfilled it.
And you can fulfil yours, whatever that is for you – right here, right now.
And next year, you can fulfil it again, and again.
And you may well find it gets greater and easier each year. If and when you want it to.
