Your potential really has very little to do what you achieve. More important is how you perceive your potential.
In fact, it might be true how you perceive your potential determines your potential.
And for good or ill, how we perceive our own potential is often dependent upon the perception and psychological quirks of other people.
Maybe you were told as a young person that you have lots of potential.
Or maybe it was worded in a less complimentary, less encouraging way: “You're not living up to your potential.”
Perhaps you were told something vdifferent from either of those ideas: “You're worthless. You'll never amount to anything.”
Chances are you didn't choose the person (or people) who told you any of those things.
And chances are you did not consciously choose the people around you who currently comment (either explicitly or implicitly) on you potential today.
We are, as a rule, surrounded by people who hold expectations of us, based not on our true potential, but rather on their expectations of how we will express that potential.
The expectations others have of us say more about their own self-image than about the measure of our potential. They either have low expectations of us because that's how they see themselves, or because of their fear of how we might force them to see themselves.
It's useful to consciously choose peers who see you at a level of potential you desire to reach, instead of settling for peers who see you limited by their own dysfunction.
Remember: We rise to meet the lowest expectations of our peers.