Why are you not fulfilling your potential?

Fear of failure is probably the biggest one. Also, I want to be the best. If I see someone attempting a goal I may like to try, and doing it well, I am likely to back off for fear of being compared to them or critisized in some manner. It's not with everything, just some things.

Fulfilling one's potential is pretty relative because potential is so endless in possibilities and choices, and life itself is so very finite. Moreover, it is useless to beat oneself up simply because one can imagine other possibilities for development, growth, or success and accomplishment.

One thing I have learned is that development, accomplishment and success take a lot of focus and work. There are always many other pursuits and opportunities but as you meet some personal goals you will then always have the satisfaction of what you have done and the confidence to know how, realistically, to take on anything new.

I think this is tougher when you are young - teens/twenties - when many feel they have not "arrived" (although many young people are quite creative and accomplished). I worked very hard to get beyond some disadvantages at that age and while sometimes it felt endless I never regret it.

So that's what I mean by "relative." Potential is endless, and how you feel about that depends on whether YOU feel YOU have made (are making) something of your life, or little/nothing. If the latter, if you have simply stagnated and live a would-coulda-shoulda life, I should imagine all the potentialities one passed on would be crushing and disappointing.

You should add "Money" as an option. :( You need money to be able to start off well unfortunately.

Probably all of the above at various times. I know I could do so much, but anxiety and lack of motivation keep me down.

I'm the same. I think all those reasons you list are reasons why I don't fulfill my potential. All those reasons are tied up in each other.

I think the biggest reason is that I don't need to fulfill my potential. I'm happy with it unfulfilled. I am fulfilled, even if my potential isn't.

You can become accustom to a certain degree of actvity. If you try to change it too fast you get anxiety. So you do less to stay comfortable and this comfort lapses into laziness.

I try to work up to my abilities realizing that ability shrinks after inactivity, and expands after prolonged motivation.

I write well
I speak well
I shoot well

^My three gifts that I know of.

My reason is...I don't want to climb this mountain. Not yet.

I'm not afraid of the challenge nor the dangers therein. I only want a couple things but it seems I can't have them until I've done this.

I'm not sure if I'm good at anything.

You know it takes money to do all that and i don't have so i am uncapable of going further with my shit.

In many situations, it's just plain old procrastination - sadly among these are practical tasks like work. But other things I'm working on already, like my first novel. (I don't know if it will be a piece of shit or not, but I'm trying!) I really hope I can work up to what I feel like is my potential. :)

I am a shit head.

There are things that I've always wanted to do but I fear that they may crumble if I direct my sights towards them. In turn, I shy away forgetting these things exist in my dreams. From time to time I turn myself back onto them feeling confident that I will succeed; only to find that I'm not as good as I think I need to be in order to reach the goals I set for myself.

It's a vicious cycle that I hope will be broken by the changes I'm bringing to my life for the new year. I'm hopefully that these things will become my main focus in life and I will never give up trying.

I'm not capable.

All of the options listed,plus the fact I'm too old now.

If there is anything holding me back from achieving, I would say it is this damn Aspergers Syndrome which I have to live with, so it's not that I'm incapable as suggested in one of the options, it's just that it's harder for me to communicate than most people, but some people say they don't notice because I'm on the lower end of the spectrum.

As for anything else holding me back, If there is, I can't see any other potential. It would be lack of self-confidence, fear of failure, and what I'm more ashamed, poor motivation. That's why I'm ignorant, but at the end of the day, I don't really care, to quote the famous line "Ignorance is bliss".

This is so me. Procrastination. Fear of failure. No confidence.