Episode #354 – Which One of These Is Holding You Back?

Today’s question is, what is holding you back? As I start this episode with you today, I want to define what I mean by “holding you back.” It’s a topic you’ve probably heard me talk about from many angles, which is what is holding you back from reaching your full potential. If I think about what I’m passionate about doing through my work, it’s almost always about helping women reach their full potential.

Honestly, I don’t even know that I would limit it to women. In my whole life, I’m passionate about my children reaching their full potential, and my friends, family members, and other members of my community. In a lot of different ways, this is a drive for me. I’m really interested in human potential and what we’re capable of when we bring our full selves to whatever game we’re playing. That’s why it was so interesting to me because, this past weekend, right before recording this episode, I was in church listening to the main message in the service. Interestingly, and this is kind of how the world works, right? There’s a frequency you’re tuned into, and then messages start landing in front of you that are really connected to whatever you’re paying attention to.

So the message that was being delivered was really rooted in this area. Now, they weren’t necessarily talking about reaching your potential. In this particular instance, we were talking about what is keeping you from addressing the things in your life that aren’t working and from getting your needs met. But there was a 3P model, and you all know how I love a good alliteration. There was a 3P model of what was causing you to hold out on what was possible for you. The 3Ps they discussed sparked my thinking, and I thought, oh, this is a good construct for a podcast episode. So, giving credit where credit is due, the germ of this idea came from that church service. I want to build on this. I’ve spent some time journaling and expanding on this to think about how some of these same things get in our way when we’re trying to fulfill our potential in our work, communities, or home lives. When I think about potential, I start to think about words like purpose. I think about that in big capital P “Purpose,” like what are we trying to do with our whole life? I also think about it in what I call lowercase P “purpose,” like what is the purpose of this season? What am I all about in this season? What am I focused on this season?

The word “purpose” to me is pretty inextricably tied to this idea of potential. If we follow through on what we think is purposeful activity, bringing great intention to our activity in every season, we have a chance of fulfilling our potential. But way too often, what happens for me, and likely for you, is that we start playing small, right? We hold back on what we actually could do. Or we make mistakes, fall into patterns, and those patterns hold us back without us even realizing it’s happening. So I thought about what some of those patterns are, and I have a list of five that I want to discuss with you in this episode.

The first thing that keeps us from reaching our potential is procrastination. In some ways, I am not a procrastinator. I’m a “let’s get it done” kind of person. I have lists, and my lists have their own lists. However, what causes me to procrastinate is my perfectionism. For me, I want the conditions to be just right. If I don’t think I can get the conditions to be just right to get the outcome I want, I will delay and delay and delay, and then I never get out of the starting gate. I wonder if that’s relatable for you: procrastination, either through that lens or just plain procrastination, where you just can’t get yourself in gear, is often something that keeps us from fulfilling our potential. If we’re waiting around for the timing to be perfect, for the moon and stars to align, our calendar to clear, no pressing projects on our workload, and the weather to be just right before we start, that breed of procrastination can really delay our ability to do the things that would help us fulfill our potential. That’s one I’m passionate about because I get tripped up in this all the time. I’m getting ready to get started because I just know that around the corner, the conditions will be perfect.

The second thing is generically called perfectionism. I almost called this performance, and in the service, they called it performance. It’s really a comparison game. We get started and then think, uh-oh, what if this isn’t good enough? What if this work I’ve started isn’t ready to share? Maybe I should just go back to the starting line. This isn’t quite there yet. I could have made this better. By the way, that person’s work looks a whole lot better. Then our inner critic goes into overdrive, or our inner mean girl goes into overdrive, and before we know it, we’ve packed the whole thing away and said, I’m not doing this today. So whether you think of that as perfectionism or performance, I think those terms might be interchangeable here. It’s this comparison game of saying, I just don’t think this is good enough. If it’s not good enough, then I’m either not going to do it, or I’m not going to share it. Maybe it’s something you’re writing that just lives on your laptop, and you can’t get yourself to publish it. Maybe it’s a conversation you want to have that you know is important, like asking someone for an opportunity, a promotion, a job offer, or funding, and you’re not asking because you’re afraid it isn’t ready, and they’re going to say no. There are so many places where this performance-based perfectionism can keep us from ever reaching our full potential. We’re not willing to try or put it out there.

The third factor that I see as really getting in our way is prioritization, or better said, the lack of prioritization. This is where we’re doing so many things at the same time that our effort is splintered into a million different fragments. We have lots of distractions, and we pull ourselves off course to attend to those distractions. Every moment we spend doing that is time we’re not spending on the main thing. The adage about keeping the main thing the main thing is there for a reason because if we start doing all the things that cross our path, we lose the benefit of focus. We lose the benefit of harnessing our effort in one direction. Not exercising clear prioritization can really diminish our results over time. We get a little bit of results in a lot of places instead of having significant or substantial results in the direction that’s really aligned for us.

So let’s review the first three: procrastination, where we don’t even want to get started because the conditions don’t feel right yet; perfectionism or performance, where we’re comparing ourselves and our work either to someone else or to our own standard and coming up short, which keeps us from sharing it; and lack of prioritization, where we’re doing so many things that our effort is really diluted. Those are the first three, but there are two more. These may even be a little deeper in the way they can trip us up.

The fourth one I’ve called pity. This is like self-pity, right? Woe is me. This is so hard. This is taking so long. This is going to be so much effort. There’s so much work to do. No one is helping me. I’m all on my own having to do this thing by myself. Because of that, I just can’t get to it or get very far. This little pity party I know I can tend to throw for myself when I’m feeling overwhelmed can lead to procrastination and the performance-perfectionism cycle if we’re not careful. When you catch yourself having a pity party and feeling sorry for yourself about how difficult or arduous the task is, or how far you have to go to reach the goal, we want to catch that. Whenever I can catch myself in one of those cycles, I put my foot down and say, It’s time to do the thing. It might be difficult. It might take a long time. No one might be there to help you, but you’ll never get there if you don’t start. I literally or metaphorically put my foot down and say, OK, enough. Stop complaining to myself. Just go do the thing. That is often enough to get me back in gear, and I get this burst of energy that I can harness into taking the next step.

The last one that I want to talk about in this episode that can get in the way of our potential if we let it is our past. This is one that we talked about in the service that inspired this episode. The narrative we have about our past can really impede our future. The notion that I am just not enough. Who am I to do something like this? Look at what I’ve done or haven’t done. Look at the mistakes I’ve made, the failures I’ve had, and the shortcomings I’m bringing to the table. This is the unworthy story: I just don’t feel like I’m the one who can do this.

In my world, we call this imposter syndrome a lot. Imposter syndrome is the notion that if people only knew what I’m really like on the inside, if they knew how unqualified, inexperienced, or underconfident I am, they would never give me this opportunity. Imposter syndrome is really a lens on this. The whole point of saying I don’t have the right background, credentials, education, certifications, or enough money, I didn’t come from the right place, and it’s too late for me because I didn’t start early enough. Any of those messages are really rooted in a belief that something about our past is going to keep us from fulfilling the dreams of our future.

So my question for you as you’re listening to this today is, which one of those strikes a chord with you? Maybe there’s more than one, but as I rolled through those five, which one resonated deeply with you? Was it procrastination, perfectionism around performance, lack of prioritization, a sense of self-pity, or a narrative about your past? If you don’t feel like you’re reaching your potential, if you wake up every day saying, this is not where I thought I would be by now, and wonder how you’re going to get yourself on track, I want you to challenge yourself. Does one of these five things resonate with you? If it does, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do starting today to change the narrative, to change your relationship with this particular barrier, to see if you can get some freedom and forward momentum? I believe you can.

I see it happen every day with the women I coach in the Brilliant Balance program. We see breakthroughs in these areas every day. It’s so powerful to watch when someone realizes, oh my goodness, this is what’s been holding me back, and I’m going to figure out what I need to do to break free from this and get the forward momentum I’ve been craving. I want that for you. This is an invitation to reflect on what you heard in the episode today and figure out if there’s something you can do personally or if you need to bring in some support and help to get free from whichever of these is holding you back from reaching your full potential.

Please share this episode with someone you know will benefit. I always consider it a personal favor when you share my words with someone who can benefit. That’s all I have for you today, my friends. Till next time, let’s be brilliant.