Finding the "Living Up to Your Potential" Concept Troubling

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Today’s episode is a little different. I’ve been turning over the idea of “living up to your potential” for years, and I’m finally putting words to why it bothers me so much. If that phrase has ever driven your decision-making—or weighed on you in a way you couldn’t quite articulate—I think it’s worth examining and challenging it.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t want more or chase goals. But I believe this phrase often leads us away from what we actually want – to choices that are disconnected from our happiness and real desires. And ironically, it can even block us from having the real impact we might be seeking in the first place.

In this episode, I share:

Why the phrase “fulfilling your potential” feels made up
How it shows up in conversations and decision-making, especially among ambitious women
Why this framing often leads us to dismiss our own happiness, joy, and satisfaction
A story about how, if I’d used “potential” as a decision-making guide, I might never have left law—and never started the business I love (and arguably is me “fulfilling my potential” “more,” if that makes sense)
A powerful quote from a podcast that hit me hard: “I guess I’d rather be special than happy”
Why none of this is about shaming ambition—but about grounding our goals in what we want
The danger of measuring life through a blurry concept that doesn’t actually have a finish line
A reminder that we can want what we want—and that can be enough

If you’ve internalized the “fulfilling your potential” message, I hope this episode helps you question the story behind that phrase. What if there is no fixed “potential” you have to live up to? You get to want what you want—and build your life around that.

Let me know what you think.

Mentioned links:

The post about the Atlantic quote: “I guess I’d rather be special than happy”
My earlier post about ego and decision-making

Below is a transcript of the episode. Enjoy!

Full transcript:

Kelly Nolan: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Bright Method Podcast, where we’ll discuss practical time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up the bright method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all personally and professionally. Let’s get you falling asleep, proud of what you got done today, and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow. All right, let’s dig in.

Hey, hey. All right, so today I wanna talk about something that is one of those ideas that’s been percolating around in my head for a number of years, and I have struggled to articulate it and really understand it, but I’ve kind of dug into it recently. I shared about it in an email that I sent out recently on my email newsletter, and.

I got some great discussion back and I figured it’s worth sharing here as well because I’d love to hear what you think. And I just think it’s a really interesting topic that clearly [00:01:00] resonated based on the responses that I. So as always, before I dig in, please feel free to disagree with me. This is, as I said, it’s something that I’m somewhat new to, like trying to really dig into.

It’s always, it’s an issue that’s really troubled me for a while, but I didn’t really always know why. And so not to tease it and I’ll get it there in a second, but just more know that it’s okay if you disagree with me and I would love to hear about it. And I just wanna know what people think. So here we go.

As I’ve mentioned, I have always felt a bit confused and troubled. Whenever I hear someone say something along the lines of, I’m not living up to my potential, or kind of like they’re talking about needing to do something to live up to their potential. And there are a number of reasons why, and I’m gonna talk about a few today.

I anticipate this being a conversation that keeps going beyond this one episode. The first reason why it troubles me is just candidly it’s, it just sounds like a made up concept. Like it’s the idea that we have [00:02:00] some sort of inherent objective, measurable like box of capacity for what? Like success, impact.

What is it for the potential to do what? The idea that we have that like objective measurable blocks of capacity for some like ambiguous success metric that we are like supposed to achieve or else we failed or like wasted our life or it was all for nothing. It just seems really candidly made up to me.

And while I don’t think that all made up things are bad, I think that when we use them in harmful ways, they can be, they can cause more harm than good. That leads me to 0.2, which is chasing this idea of fulfilling our potential leads to a lot of decision making that I believe seems divorced from what we actually want.

It might just be the way that I’ve heard it spoken about, like that phrase tossed around in [00:03:00] conversations over my life. But when people get to the point where they’re talking about fulfilling their potential. It’s often in this like heavy way. It’s not exciting. It’s not like I’m gonna fulfill my potential.

It’s like I have to do this ’cause I’m gonna fulfill my potential. And there’s almost like a moral responsibility or like superiority thing that’s being shouldered by doing the thing or not doing the thing all for the reason of fulfilling potential. It’s not something they’re excited about. To just give a little more context here, like if someone wants to do something, they say, say things like that.

They’re like, I’m really excited about this opportunity ’cause I get to do this. Or as of, you know, I think about it in the opposite, like, if I’m not happy in a job and I wanna do something else, there can be a bit of like, I’m gonna look for another job ’cause I feel like bored or miserable in this current one.

And I just wanna see if I can be happier somewhere else or if something else will gimme more flexibility, like with the assumption that that will make you [00:04:00] happier. Like there’s a. Explanation that’s full of reasons that make sense that are inherent to the person and what they want. People explain that if they want something, people will say that and explain it and just explain decisions relating to what they hope to get out of life.

When people talk about fulfilling potential, to me, it often sounds like they. Don’t have a one of those reasons for wanting to do the choice that they’re contemplating, like that there’s not a compelling reason for them about what they want out of it, but they still feel an obligation to do it and to explain that they use words like, I need to fulfill my potential, essentially.

Like I think it’s not usually like I need to fulfill my potential, but there’s like a fulfilling potential phrase that’s used in there that really comes down to that. Like, I feel obligated to do this. For some [00:05:00] reason that I can’t fully explain that doesn’t really relate to what I want. And as I said, there’s like a heavy tone and it’s just pretty clear from an outside perspective that they’re making a decision that’s divorced from, and even like worse conflicting with what makes that person happy, what they really want outta their life.

In some ways it reminds me of doing things to feed our ego. That’s something I’ve talked about in the past. I think of ego as like. The part of us that I think we all have, I have it that we want to be seen as successful. We want, that’s why prestigious jobs are compelling. Even if we know that we might be miserable in them every day, there’s like that prestige badge we get to wear and talk about at the dinner parties and things like that.

I do it. I have zero judgment. I completely get it. And yet, as I’ve talked about in the past, I think that when we follow things for our ego. We are often being following something that is in the opposite direction of our actual happiness. I’ll link to some [00:06:00] places that I’ve talked about this in the past.

There was a awesome podcast episode I was listening to that someone sent to me. I think it was The Atlantic. I’ll link to this Instagram post I did about it years ago, and this woman said. I think it was Arthur Brooks or someone was repeating a story that happened to him before and the woman was basically overworked, stretched too thin, all this stuff.

And she was like, what do I need to do? And he’s like, you know what you need to do. And I mean, to the point that, let me back up. She was overstretched to the point that like her relationship with her kids was poor, her marriage was poor, her health was poor. It was all because she was like just throwing everything into work.

And she asked him like, what do I need to do? And he said something like, you don’t need me to tell you that you need to spend your time differently. And she said, I guess I prefer to be special than happy. And that hits like, I think it might not hit for you, but for me and some of the women I’ve talked to.

It resonates in a [00:07:00] way that we don’t really, really like, and I think that that is really an important realization to have is to not get, what’s that word? Like not succumb to the alluring thing of being special and being seen as special and being seen as a success. Because often it leads us away from.

Happiness and amusing happiness as it leads us away from the things that we say are most important to us, like our kids, our marriage, our relationship. Like I think we genuinely believe often that those things are the most important things in our lives, and I believe that work is very important. And I still think that when push comes to shove, a lot of us would say our relationships, our friendships, all that is the most life-giving part of our lives and the most important part of our lives, and often.

When we follow though, our ego we’re led away from those things. And so this idea of fulfilling potential is a little [00:08:00] different to me. It’s a little different than like just doing the prestigious thing because sometimes I think we trick ourselves into thinking we want the prestigious thing where the fulfilling obligation again feels like heavier and we kind of know it’s not what we want as we go through it, and yet we feel that obligation.

But to me there’s like a bit of hand in hand. So I’ll link to the, there’s like that and another Instagram post I’ve done about ego, if you’re curious. But that’s what kind of resonates Here is the second point of chasing the quote, unquote, fulfilling our potential thing, I believe really leads to a lot of decision making that seems divorced from, and often conflicting with what we actually want.

The other element of this, like the last reason that I, you know, just for today, that I think that this can be harmful and why it troubles me when people say it is not only does it cause us to stick with or like chase with things that are making us unhappy, I also think it like [00:09:00] ironically, might make us miss out on the things that actually would be more quote unquote fulfilling or potential.

And I’m viewing that as like having an impact being seen as successful. The impact thing, I think is what it really comes down to. Like sometimes by picking the choice of how we’re going to like satisfy our potential actually might lead us away from where we could actually do that in a more effective way.

Not that I think that that has to be the goal that we should all be choosing paths that make us most effective at having the highest impact. That’s not what I believe life is about, but if that is the goal, which I’m assuming it is for anyone talking about fulfilling potential, I think that sometimes.

Using that as a decision making point of how you’re going to make decisions and operate can lead you away from that. And for me, the most obvious example is myself, just ’cause it’s my own life and it’s something I’ve experienced. And while I haven’t like subscribed to [00:10:00] that concept, the potential concept ever.

I have definitely had my fair share of like chasing cold stars and wanting to be seen as a success as I’ve talked about. And so I can imagine, and I can imagine how my decision of whether to leave law might’ve gone a really different direction if I had been worried about living up to my potential. I think if that had been a metric in my decision of whether to le leave law, I likely would’ve stayed because being a lawyer is.

The more traditional route at having an impact and being seen as successful and living up to my potential. Also, just logistically, I’d gone to law school. I spent a lot of time and money going to law school, so the potential coming outta law school is to be a aware, so to fulfill my potential of the path I had taken, it kinda makes sense that I should like continue on being a lawyer.

And if that had been true, I would never have started this business. And I just wanna clarify one thing before I keep going. I actually, I [00:11:00] loved practicing law in Boston. I am not knocking law as a profession when I’m talking about this. If we had stayed in Boston, I likely would’ve been a partner at that law firm or a different firm.

And doing that, like through my retirement and my guests on the whole being pretty happy, like I really loved it. But we had left Boston. I left law and I started this business, and I love this business. I love it selfishly for the flexibility it gives me with a young family and married to someone with a very not flexible job, but I also find it incredibly fulfilling and believe I’m having an impact.

I get to help amazing women do their careers well and then also just enjoy their lives more, including their careers, but also everything outside of it, and in many ways. That is more rewarding to me than a lot of what I did in law. And I believe that I am having a bigger impact than I did when I was a lawyer.

So arguably like if you’re really looking at the metrics of like fulfilling potential, I’m [00:12:00] doing that in a bigger way than I would’ve as a lawyer. And yet had I been using that metric as a decision making factor when deciding to leave law, it probably would’ve led me away from this. And so I just think it’s.

Dangerous concept, harmful contra, I don’t know if dangerous is the right word, but like harmful in that. I do think it’s kind of made up. It sounds made up to me, and it causes you to do things that don’t lead you to your happiness, but sometimes lead you to places where you’re miserable, but you’re doing it just ’cause you think you’re fulfilling your potential.

And ironically, it might be leading you away from fulfilling your potential. So now you’re not even doing that and you’re miserable at the same time. And I just think that. That’s a shame. Like that is a real shame if that’s the outcome of this phrase and using it to direct your life. I do wanna clarify something really important.

’cause it’s not about wanting more versus wanting less. Like if you want more out of your life, if you want a job with more challenge, [00:13:00] you feel like you’ve outgrown your job and you genuinely like want more of a challenge, you want more management experience, you want more like creative autonomy. You want, who knows what you want.

All those things, like anything is really what I mean. Anything you want then I think that is terrific and you should go get it. And the reason I feel that way is because it’s genuinely what you want. It’s what aligns with what you want out of life. And you know me like, I like really thinking about how do I want my life to feel, not look like, but feel.

And if those decisions align with that for you, then I think that is awesome and that everyone should go for it. My struggle is when the fulfilling potential concept is used and it’s the candidly, the only way I’ve seen it used. It’s used in a way that is divorced from what you want. It has that moral like must do more to be good and worthy undertone to it that I do not like.

I also think it can sometimes creep in, like if you’re honestly like [00:14:00] genuinely happy in your life, like you’re pretty happy generally. And yet you still feel almost like guilty because you feel like you, like quote unquote should be doing more to fill your potential. I don’t like that either. Like I don’t know why we think sometimes like more and doing more and working harder and kind of like the misery that comes with that is better and that, I just think all of that can lead, as I said, to a lot of misery, not just for you, but also like the people you say you care most about.

And so that’s where I think like if you’re genuinely happy. Sure. Could you do other jobs? Yes. In the same way you could do thousands of other jobs. We all could do a hundred other jobs. That doesn’t mean that we should, if we’re generally happy and we’re enjoying our life, and sure we could do more, but like why?

That’s just a neutral fact that you could do more. You don’t have to, and you can enjoy your life because that’s the life that you want, and you want your life to feel like that, to me, is wonderful. So [00:15:00] that’s just the issue I wanted to call out today. And then I called out in that email and had such great conversations with people about it.

And so my takeaway supplemented a little bit with things that I heard in my email is, you know, take this for what it’s worth, including nothing. If you want, just leave it, is that if the idea of your potential drives some of your decision making, and if everything we’ve talked about today resonated. Just consider the idea that we don’t have any fixed potential that you need to live up to.

This is your life. You can, and I hope you do make decisions about it with considerations of what you want, what makes sense for you and your family in this season. All that kind of stuff. It’s all nuanced. It can be very complicated. We don’t need to add complication to it with the specter of some like ambiguous potential factoring into the equation.

In the words of one woman who wrote back, she said, it took me a lot of therapy to realize that just [00:16:00] because I was a good leader and a good role model, it didn’t mean I couldn’t chase the things that made me happy. And that that’s really, man. Isn’t that what it like comes down to had another woman write in and share about the recent loss of a person in her work community and how hard that was hitting everyone.

’cause they seemed like a really, really wonderful. Person, and it was a early passing, like earlier than expected. And it brought up a lot of feelings for me too. I shared on Instagram way, way, way, way, way back, like when I started this business about losing my best guy friend when we were 29 years old. I don’t talk about it a lot.

I think about it a lot. I don’t talk about it a lot because it just feels kind of icky to me that I, I don’t wanna talk about like my best guy friend and his life and his death as like. Any way that is like monetized in relation to my business. So I don’t talk about it a lot because I recently heard someone talk about how like what we [00:17:00] share, we kind of lose the sacredness.

And I and I, that part of my life is very sacred to me. I bring it up here because of that email and what it dredged up for me. And I do think that in general, like moving to the general of like if you lose someone, and especially if you lose someone early. It has a way of just shaking you and making you think, what is really important here?

Where do I wanna be spending my time? And I think that that’s a really important thing to think about is if you died tomorrow, are you happy I. Spending your focus on what you’ve been focused on. And I don’t think that means all the time, obviously, like there’s a lot of my day that I would rather spend doing something else if it was my last day on earth.

But I also think that it’s an important thing to think about in like a realistic way, like not too ideal. And we can’t all like quit our jobs and travel or do whatever you would wanna do if it was your last day on earth, but like. In a [00:18:00] realistic way. I think it’s an important inquiry and like I am all for similarly, working hard towards a goal, like working hard and not enjoying the present for that ultimate goal.

But I think bringing it back to the fulfilling potential here, I. Is to me, I’m all for it. If it is a goal you actually want, and if you’re enjoying the journey for the most part, like I know that that can be hard sometimes, but on the whole, you’re enjoying the journey and you really want the goal that you’re working towards.

And to me, where I think it gets heartbreaking and troubling is when we are pursuing a goal, we know we don’t actually want, we’re not enjoying the journey. We’re doing it ’cause of some, I don’t know, external, amorphous thing that makes us feel like we should. That’s when I think that hard work, that sacrifice is not worth it.

It’s just not. And I think that it’s really important to make sure that we want the goals we are working so hard to get and that we can enjoy our lives that we have [00:19:00] worked so hard to get and fulfilling potential to me gets in the way of that. So going back to the takeaways, if you are considering doing something to fulfill potential or you think along those lines.

Just challenge those thoughts. Is it a made up concept? What’s the purpose? How would you know when you even made it? When you fulfilled your potential, what would the cost of pursuing that potential be? Are you willing to sacrifice that cost to get to just fulfilling the potential? And how will you know when you’re done?

I think there’s a lot to unpack here. I think it’s a complicated one. I know that not everyone thinks this way, but I think that I’ve heard it enough that I wanted to call it out and challenge it a bit. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you. You know? Now if you’d like, feel free to shoot me a message, email, dm, whatever you would like.

And also over the years, ’cause I’m sure we’ll still keep talking about it. I would love to know what you think. Thank you for being here, [00:20:00] and I’ll catch you in the next episode.

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Finding the “Living Up to Your Potential” Concept Troubling

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