That moment when you know what you wanted or worked so hard and long for is slipping away, shrinking or dissolving is one of the most painful experiences one can encounter. I’ve experienced it myself, witnessed it from others and currently being a punching bag for someone who crashes out too often. It’s like death. It’s an ending that you don’t see coming. One that not coming to terms with often leads people down a path of no return. You’re fighting to keep it going. Or to make it work. You also feel as if you’re suffocating because your options are running out, limited or obsolete.
All my life I’ve been told I’m so good at this, so good at that. And it irritated me. I don’t like being put on a pedestal because it’s so easy to get knocked off. Yet, in every season of my life that’s what I hear from multiple people. God has greatly gifted me and sharpened my talent as I’ve aged. I am intentional about being the best I can and doing my best at all times. I believe in excellence. I’m not looking for validation. I’m seeking results that will positively impact someone else’s life.
However, I have been known to crashout when the results I’m working towards don’t show up. Many people are aware of one of those instances that took place publicly. I spent years investing in building a career in blogging. As soon as I got to that point where I thought finally everything would come together, the house just crumbled. Everything came crashing down. Yet, I was still fighting to make fetch happen. And fetch was in fact not happening. I felt a numbness I can’t describe that set in once I accepted the reality of what was happening to the potential I saw in creating an organization that would change people’s professional lives. The healing, wound care and restoration from that experience took years. Years of my life.
It’s at this moment that I can finally accept what happened. That God has bigger plans, even though I don’t know what those are, for me. The loss I felt and experienced as well as lessons learned sit deep in my spirit. Those are in the back of my mind when I make decisions at my current job. Those are in the back of my mind when I want to get frustrated. Those are in the back of my mind when I see other people crashing out. I know they saw the potential of what they thought was going to happen slipping away or no longer there and they don’t know what to do.
I chalk up the lack of my potential producing the vision I had in my mind to being refined through the fire. Growing roots in the middle of a storm. Seeing past my own ego. When my potential stopped producing results, I thought my life was over. Little did I know that that journey was just done. I needed to learn that some things in life are done whether we get a result or not. Whether we get a result we like or not. That something not producing the results we want or no results at all is not a failure. It just didn’t work out. And that’s part of life.
I learned one of the biggest lessons of my life in front of an audience. It wasn’t pretty. It was excruciatingly frustrating. It was messy. And I lashed out. I didn’t accept the fact that all the work I did was not producing anything anymore. I could not believe this was happening to me. The one everyone always had something so positive to say about my work ethic and the things I did. This couldn’t happen to me. But it did. And it did so very publicly. The funny thing is I was never ashamed, I was just mad, resentful and bitter.
Once I dealt with those emotions I was able to see how my life is taking shape now. I was able to get out of my own head and begin to make decisions again. I am able to build a life that I find joy in, love and am grateful to live.
Potential is great. But potential can be dangerous if we hold on past its expiration date. Let potential run its course then move on to the next one. Life isn’t one long path. It’s a lot of paths on the road to our eternal home. Give potential the respect it deserves. But don’t have a grip so tight that it prohibits you from producing something even greater once you move past the fact that that potential became non-producing.
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