The Myth of Potential
I don’t want to go places. I want to go home.
The thought circled my mind as I prattled on about disability justice and autistic advocacy to my lightly bewildered psychologist. I was saying things she had never heard before, things that are commonplace in my little corner of the internet, things that are still revolutionary in many parts of the helping profession. In response to this deluge of new ideas she said after a pause, “You are going places with this Javelin.”
I don’t want to go places. I want to go home.
Childhood Potential
I, like many of my late-diagnosed neurodivergent peers, have been told I have an immense amount of potential since I was a very little being. Teachers couldn’t wait to see what I’d do. They said of my 8 year old self that I was a leader, or a world changer, or that I was ‘so articulate’ for my age or something to that effect. I was a child and was erroneously identified as having ‘high intelligence’ because I happened to be adept at pattern recognition in a way that made me successful at multiple choice tests. At the time it was called gifted, but mostly it just meant I was handed a stack of math worksheets and left to my own devices.
Now I don’t say all of this as a brag, all of that so-called potential has yet to turn into too much in terms of the success under capitalism that I am sure they were thinking about to some degree.
But what it has turned into is anxiety.
Pressure Cooker
The pressure of living up to this ephemeral potential has been the source of so much anxiety for my little self, and that anxiety has followed me well into my adulthood. And I know I am not the only one. So many humans, often who had undiagnosed ADHD or autism as children, are haunted by the ghosts of the potential that never seemed to materialize.
The thing is, that’s all it ever has been, ghosts.
A person dressed up as a ghost waves at the camera from a brown field. The horizon is in the distance.
Imaginary Futures
People comment on potential like it is a real, tangible thing, but it isn’t. The potential they are talking about is just a future they have imagined for you. They treat you like you have a duty to fulfill this imagined future, but more often than not this turns into fear of taking any action, lest you fail to clear the bar they have set for you. You might have heard of this phenomenon by another name, perfectionism.
Perfectionism is the enemy of creativity. It stops you from taking any action, preventing any learning or growth from happening. Ironically, avoiding learning and growth is a sure way to miss whatever potential might have existed at some point.
So Now What?
I can hear you asking “That’s all well and good, calling potential imaginary…what am I supposed to do now? Well, I’ve got two options for you here for you to consider, but this is by no means an exhaustive list.
Possible Experiments
Push back against perfectionism for a week. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly, because poorly is better than not at all. Need some help doing this? We have a tool for that called Task Tiering. Send us a message about it here, we are offering it for free right now!
Pay attention to when you tell yourself that you ‘should’ do something. Gather some data, interrogate those moments to find what is underneath. Should according to whom? Does this ‘should’ align with your values or someone else’s? Where does this ‘should’ get its authority?
Remember to try easier! 5% different is enough to make a change, you don’t need to overwhelm yourself with demands alter too many things at a time.
How have messages of ‘potential’ affected your life? Are there other ways you have found to free yourself from ‘potential’ pressure? Let us know in the comments!