Summary

The author reflects on the struggle to find self-worth in personal achievements rather than potential, despite the challenges of ADHD and external setbacks.

Abstract

The author begins by acknowledging the difficulty in letting go of goals and expectations, despite declaring 2022 a year of no goals. After recovering from an illness, the author adjusted their NaNoWriMo target to 40,000 words, celebrating the completion alongside a Skillshare course and a webinar. However, the joy was short-lived as the course was removed for not meeting quality guidelines, shaking the author's sense of accomplishment. The author, who has recently come to terms with an ADHD diagnosis, discusses the impact of time blindness, unrealistic goal-setting, and the tendency to overlook completed tasks while fixating on what remains undone. The internal dialogue criticizes past and future selves, leading to a questioning of life choices and business endeavors. Despite this, the author finds happiness in the creative process, the learning experience, and the ability to solve problems efficiently, recognizing that even with imperfections, their work has value and that they are enough as they are.

Opinions

The author believes that self-worth should not be solely tied to achievements or the fulfillment of potential.
There is a critique of the societal pressure to constantly achieve and the negative impact this can have on mental health and self-perception.
The author expresses frustration with the constraints of platforms like Skillshare, which can undermine creators' efforts with strict quality guidelines.
The author recognizes the importance of self-compassion and the acceptance of one's limitations, advocating for a focus on the joy of the creative process rather than external validation.
The author

I Am Not Defined by My “Potential”

Trying to find the joy in who I am and not what I accomplished

I noted last December that 2022 would be The Year of No Goals for me. This is all well and good, but it turns out while I’ve said I’m letting go of goals and expectations this year, my brain didn’t get the memo.

I Set New Year’s Resolutions for 15 Years. I Won’t for 2022. Here’s Why.

Or, getting curious about a year instead of trying to mold it against its will

writingcooperative.com

Not long after I got sick and then got better enough to have a voice again, I intentionally decided that winning NaNo was unrealistic and would be detrimental to my health if I tried to do it, and if I managed 40,000 words, then that would be a Win for me.

I went to bed on November 30 with 40,051 words in my document, and I was so proud of myself. That morning, I’d uploaded and pressed publish on my first-ever Skillshare course, I hit 40,000 words in my novel, and my brand new webinar was complete. I did it! Yay me!

Note, here, how even though I let the goalposts change, I was still measuring myself up against what I wanted to accomplish. It was okay that I didn’t win NaNo, but only because I finished my Skillshare course instead.

Fast forward to this morning, when I got an email from the Skillshare team that my course had been taken down for violations to their quality guidelines. Some of them make sense (hey, your audio is a bit crackly sometimes). Some of them make no sense at all (showing your logo is self-promotion, even though you’re only using it as an example for extracting colors and choosing a design, without highlighting your services at all). Some of them make sense on paper but seem impossible to fix (you MUST have a 16:9 ratio, even if it doesn’t make a lick of sense for the screenshot video and what you want shown vs not shown).

But the most important thing this email did was break me. Remember, it was okay that I didn’t win NaNo and that I had other projects I was putting off because I got my Skillshare course done. One email that essentially says, “haha no you didn’t, actually!” toppled the house of cards that was my self-worth over my accomplishments in November.

I’ve been struggling with ADHD my whole life, but it’s really only been about a year that I’ve accepted this framework for how I view my brain. This is what happened.

Time blindness doesn’t only mean I lose track of time. It also means I lose track of what I’ve done. I don’t see what I did once it’s checked off a list.
Time blindness also means I don’t know how to create realistic goals. Because I experience days of hyperfocus occasionally, I set my idea of “what I’m capable of doing in a day” for my Superman days. I have a hell of a lot more Clark Kent days than Superman ones. Especially in November.
I can get caught up in what isn’t done yet even as I forget entirely about things that are done. I see the messes I’ve made. I see 40,000 words I haven’t written yet for the second half of the novel, and some of the plot elements I already know need detangled in the first half. I see the list of revisions for my course that might not even be worth the time it takes to fix. I see the change I need to make to the templates I revealed in my webinar that was messing them up on Macs. Everything feels BIG. Well, everything except all the work I’ve done in getting here.
While I’ve mostly overcome comparing myself to others (I think), I get tangled in comparing myself to other versions of me. Past Me who made more money than I have in 2022, and it wasn’t even much then. The Future Me I manifested who never showed up. “You have so much potential” follows me around, and so does the implied “but” that follows it. The whole sentence is a veiled insult that screams, “you’re better than this,” and it’s haunted me for decades. It’s become the voice in my head.

I’ve spent my day lost in reflections. Would I have made a better course if I didn’t write at all? Should I have written and given up on Skillshare, especially once I got laryngitis? What if I stopped throwing eggs in baskets that don’t make me any money? Should I just give up on my business, note that by most small business standards I’m a success for lasting eight years, and go back to a “real job”?

Among the relatively helpful questions are the subconscious answers in my head telling me none of this was significant at all, that I don’t matter, that I chose wrong. Here’s the proof that you can’t juggle a damn thing, Rochelle, my brain said. You failed at everything. You even failed at not making goals, because otherwise you wouldn’t be mad right now. Great work, you lousy excuse for a human.

My brain is not always a very fun place to be.

But you know what?

The banter I wrote in my rom-com makes me so happy. The story is coming together, and, while I know there’s room for improvement in the conflict, I’m almost to the midpoint 40,000 words into a book I planned to be 80,000 words long. I love those characters. It’s been so fun writing adult for a change.

Even if I never edit and republish my course, I have a great outline and 38 minutes of material on a subject I think so many freelancers would find super useful, and I can find a home for it.

The webinar I gave, the one I barely remember because I was super sick when I gave it, went well enough that I received multiple emails thanking me for it, and I think my boss got even more. When students found issues with the templates, I knew enough about Word (and knowing about Word is basically my job) to figure out the problem fairly quickly, fix it in 15 minutes, and have everyone happy again. It was an oversight this summer, but I knew enough to know my mistake without a lot of trial and error.

In the midst of all this, I was trying to rest a sprained wrist, not allowed to handstand at all or draw often (my favorite ways to decompress during November), navigating a bad cold and a week and a half with no voice, and hosting Thanksgiving for my in-laws.

November was a good month. I made the progress I intended to make, and I did good work. Even if it needs editing. Even if it needs redone. Everyone needs an editor, even me. And giving it my best means giving it my best on any given day, not always performing at the highest level I’m capable of.

I don’t have “so much potential.” I am enough already.