Remap Your Potential: When To Move On

Last Sunday, I had a full rollover of my routine. The situation was dumped into a sloth of unpreparedness. I scratched off my old planner. I deleted every single tracker on my notion dashboard. I unsubscribed from every career email where, sometime back, I passionately wrote my cover letters and waited like the little Nemo to see my ocean. I just wanted most of these things to wash off. My devices looked extremely clean and new. They were unbothered to look back. They didn’t look teary, nor did they sigh with relief. One hit on my elbow from my desk corner brought me back to that Sunday. I started writing new dates, and I subscribed to new ones.

My priority seesaw was more like some wrong steps in a cat's cradle. Let’s go back to May. I started feeling strongly that my career path wasn’t going towards a sustainable phase. I had that uneasy noise that was constantly yelling, "Your work and your potential both have no common rhythm."

This feeling haunted me. This anxiety of losing my potential bounced back like a sharp bruise.After a few days of juggling my strengths, I could ask one question: "What’s the ultimate thing that I could do?"

I had answers, and I still have them with the new influxes. But those answers are complex and confusing. My recent ex-circle needs the force of thrust to throw me out of that gravitational pull of disquietude. And it still has some knots of uncertainty. But at least the answers are here. By the way, the answers are still in a crotchety mood.

We fear “change”. We try to hold back the corpses of our unfulfilled plans. It isn’t easy to move on from something that, sometime back, had a positive impact or that we looked at with deep aspiration. But when we know that those "if"s have no clue of execution, then we need to be wise enough to put an end to them. And if we see that, at some point, our potential is not well articulated, then we need to take some bold steps. We humans are blessed with rationality. We know that if today we sail some Victorian ship, we can never compete with a newly designed fighter ship of this century. That rationality is not an example; it is like our gyroscopic compass. It wouldn’t deviate.

But the question is when to remap the potential. What is the right time to move on?

It’s true that our potential and the convenient chances to achieve the highest peak always don’t seem rhythmic. But how much of that deviation could be tolerated?

Sit with yourself. Don’t be boastful, but at the same time, don’t let yourself underestimate your potential. Ask,

Does it still have at least 3/5 success values of what I had expected?

Do I have the time or efficiency to make it better? (Calculate both with equal attention.)

If I go towards something more desirable, do I see myself as a better explorer?

Your honest answers will show the direction. When your potential hints at its banner value, that is not only for the societal tick mark; it depends on your acceptance. You need to reassess how you’re looking at yourself in the next phase. This decision is Ina*.

If you’re giving yourself new opportunities, then the fear of change ought to wrap itself up. The cosmos of our potential galaxies has layers of glorious upshots. Don’t pull them down.

(*In Sanskrit, Ina (इन).—a. means determined or anything that is powerful.)