Living up to your Potential--or Not

What do you do when you don’t quite live up to the dreams you have for yourself? That’s the question that writer Abby Ellin tries to answer for herself in the current issue of Psychology Today. Ellin, the author of the book Teenage Waistland, describes her own feeling of inadequacy in comparison to Tina Fey, the creator and star of the TV show 30 Rock. Ellin is smart and funny, she tells herself, and it nags at her that Tina Fey is winning Emmys and she isn’t. This vague feeling that she isn’t living up to her own potential is what Ellin labels the Contender syndrome, a reference to the scene in On the Waterfront in which Marlon Brando says, “I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender.” That envy of what she thinks she could be doing, Ellin recognizes, gets in the way of her taking pride in what she has actually done, from writing her book to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.

How can you prevent yourself from feeling bad about your non-accomplishments? Being “self-referential” for one. This means using yourself as your reference point, rather than just looking at how you stack up next to someone else. If you think about how slowly you’re running compared to the other runners you see at the park, you might feel bad. But if you think about how much faster you can run than you did when you first took up the sport, you’re more likely to feel good about your performance.

Seeing the idea of potential as something you can affect helps, too. When kids feel that being “smart” is a static trait that comes naturally--not something they can work at and improve--they are less likely to try new and difficult tasks. Similarly, if you see yourself as having “potential” but don’t connect that potential with a task or goal you can work on, you likely won’t realize that potential yet will be more envious of people who do live up to their dreams.

It also helps to broaden your idea of success. If your only definition of success as an actor, for example, is to win an Academy Award, then your odds of reaching your goal are slim. If you can focus on what you’re doing, your enjoyment of the process, then you’re likely to feel good along the way--and feel less cheated by others’ success.