When You Feel Like You've Wasted Your Potential

When I was a child, I had a beautiful singing voice. It moved people. I could see it in their faces as I landed each note and articulated phrases beyond my years.

Grownups delivered praise that could make a kid drunk on possibility. And they imprinted their own dreams and desires on me in a way that made us all high on potential.

But our collective buzz did not last. As it turned out, my love for arias, jazz standards and even my folk favorites did not outweigh my disdain for the time commitment, discipline and practice it would take to improve. Halfway through my freshman year of college, I gave up all classes and academic connections to music in search of new answers.

This was not a popular decision with family and teachers. In the end they did support me, but for years after this moment, talk about my wasted potential crept into conversation. While I knew that was not my path, I didn’t have a clear sense of what my path would be—and so I internalized some of that fear.

What if that was my only gift and I squandered it?

What if it’s too late to get it back?

Years later, I’m confident that if I would have continued to pursue that dream, it would have been for someone else. It would have been for the recognition and not the love—which is a tough pill to swallow in a field where the hours are long, and the odds of success are low.

Beyond my personal journey, I’ve come to know that the idea of potential is an out-of-date construct. An old school bullshit that hinders the people who believe they have it as much as the people who believe they don’t.

Whether you think you’ve got it or not—know that the idea of wasted potential is simply one of thousands of thoughts you have a day.

It is not action.

It is not growth.

It is not momentum.

It’s stagnant, trapped in amber—fear—that there may not be more out there in this life for you. You get to choose whether to believe it or to move forward and do.

We Need To Rebrand Self-Promotion

When it comes to corporate leadership workshops, there’s one topic that consistently makes people writhe in their seats. They squirm. They scrunch their faces. Cross their arms. They get angry or they simply put up a wall.

When I say: Self-Promotion

People say:

Slimy

Fake

Salesy

Playing the game

A necessary evil

They hate it. And yes, I know hate is a strong word. But it’s not pretty.

When we brainstorm all the benefits that come from self-promotion, the room loosens up.

You control the language used to describe your work.

You let people know what type of projects are a good fit for you in the future.

You give your team visibility and build them up in the eyes of leadership.

You open the door to additional funding for your projects.

That’s not so bad, right? In fact, I would argue that when you love what you do and you know you’re making an impact, it doesn’t feel like selling, promoting or playing the game.

When I tell people about my work—in the back of my mind—I know the end goal is to get more women into positions of power. The larger my audience, the bigger the impact I can make. As we know, there’s a lot of work to be done on this front, so I talk about it—A LOT!

That’s why as a coach with a background in marketing, I would argue that what’s truly needed here is a rebrand. If self-promotion feels sleazy and like playing the game, call it whatever feels in synch with the outcomes you’ll get from it.

Whether it’s Owning Your Story, Choosing Your Narrative, or—if you want to go woo woo, which I enjoy—Shining Your Light. Whatever you go with, practice allowing those words to help you get beyond whatever is keeping you stuck and shrinking from sharing all that makes you proud. The world may need more of what you’ve got…but we will never know it unless you tell us.

Please, tell us!

Is A Good Job, Good Enough?

When I was in my last digital marketing role before making the transition to coaching, I was in a strange predicament.

I felt connected to the mission of the organization that was serving frail and marginalized communities. I adored my colleagues who became close friends, in some cases like family to me. I was comfortable with the work and I was good at it. I had the flexibility to be a present mother while moving my career forward.

So you might ask, as I did daily: Given all that was good, why did I feel so stuck and truly lost in my career?

I wrestled with all the things I now hear my clients say:

I should feel grateful for this job.

It’s fine. I’m fine.

I don’t even know what I’m looking for.

Now that I’ve figured it out, what if what I want doesn’t exist?

It’s typically not a feeling of overwhelm or a desperate desire to jump. Rather, it’s a nag. A tug. A question that begins to appear as the subtext to every project, event and new assignment: “Is this it?”

If this is where you are right now, you can begin taking these steps to find your answers:

1. Accept the possibility of more
Part of why you are stuck is that you continue to block the idea that something else could be out there for you. Sure, you don’t know that there is, but you also don’t know that there isn’t. By accepting the possibility that there might be another path and giving yourself permission to investigate options, you can move out of judgment and into curiosity. Swap—“When the hell am I going to figure out what I want to be when I grow up?” For “I wonder what my next chapter could look like.”

2. Commit to something physical
I’ve found in my own experience and in those of my clients—often the only path to our answers is tapping into the wisdom of our bodies. The bridge to my breakthrough was running the New York City Marathon. I focused on daily training—working through setbacks and finding a will to nail my goal. The lessons, the confidence and the ideas for what was possible in my life instantly shifted once I crossed that finish line. I’m not that great a runner and I ran a marathon. What can I do in my life with the things I’m really good at?

3. Seek out clues—everywhere
This was a process I went through and one that I work on with clients in transition. What are the moments in your career—and life—when you were ignited? What do people come to you for that’s not in your job description? Be open to finding evidence that there is more out there for you, that there are new things you want to learn and explore. As a digital marketer, I wondered why so many people asked me to review their resumes or give them tips on how to manage up to their bosses. Your clue may come in an unlikely package, so don’t be too literal about each one. Investigate further. Allow it to live and breathe for awhile so you can begin making the connections.

The truth is, a good job is a great place to be. If you’re in a good job, you’re not racing or rushing to leave—which is helpful because exploring and experimenting takes time. It’s also a place to mine for clues and in doing so, you may be able to make the job you have into the job you want, at least for awhile. This was my path prior to running my marathon and breaking things wide open. Whatever you choose to do, know that when you are in a good situation, you can do things on your timetable, at your pace and in your own way. And when the time comes to make your shift, you will know you came from a clear and honest place.

The Freedom of Owning Who You Are

At the age of 11, when a new potential friend asked me, "What does your dad do?" I had to make a split-second decision.

Do I think this is going to be someone in my life for longer than an afternoon?

Is it worth dropping a bomb on our conversation?

Will we make our way through that first naked minute?

Sometimes, I simply chose safety and comfort. Pretend. "Sales." I lied.

And then there were the moments self-acceptance peeked through long enough for me to fumble the words, "Both my parents died, actually. In a car accident."

I looked longingly at that kid across from me. Knowing she wouldn’t get it, but hoping for at least a deep breath, a nod or a "Wow" of acknowledgment.

Most often there was a speedy change of subject and I sorted through my list of pre-selected topics used to salvage what was left of the conversation.

There were a few occasions though, when I met someone who could be there with me. Stand in that tragic, unfair truth for a beat. She would one-up the nod and the wow with the pinnacle of solidarity: a follow-up question.

Whether it was, "Were you in the car?" or "Who do you live with?" or "How are you even standing right now?", all I saw before me was strength and courage and someone who could get me.

Sometimes they were kids with their own pain. Divorce, addiction, loss and illness in their lives, too early to comprehend. And sometimes they were simply unafraid of the hard things in life, perhaps even curious about them.

As I look back on those early years of building relationships after my parents died, I see that outside of my inner circle, I created rose-petaled paths for people to softly land by my side. I made it easier for them to know me, to talk to me by locking up the very moments that made me strong and resilient in a box categorized, "over it." My loss was not my fault, yet I still felt shame when I said those words aloud.

As I shifted careers four years ago, I began to choose who I serve and who I collaborate with. I decide how I talk about who I am and what I do. I understand that I will never be "over it." And I never want to be.

This is who I am. I say the hard things. I write about them. Whether we’re going to know each other for the next 2 years or 2 hours, the calculation of how long we’ll be in each other’s lives has no bearing on who I’m meant to be.

So when I stood in front of 30 strangers this weekend to facilitate a leadership workshop, I walked them through why my early tragedy was one of the key moments that shaped who I’ve become as a leader. Honest. Compassionate. Imperfect. Vulnerable.

I spoke those words without apology, without shame, without a reason to try to be anyone else but myself. And a beautiful thing happened. They were inspired to do the same.