For many gifted adults, childhood was marked by talent —
Fast learner. High achiever. Bright. Advanced.

But gifted adulthood feels different. And for many, far more confusing, and impossible to ignore.

At some point, “giftedness” stops being about measurable talent…
and becomes something far more existential:

Potential.

And potential is a double-edged sword.

Because while talent once earned us praise,
potential burdens us with expectations —
often self-inflicted, impossible to satisfy, and almost always open-ended.

Expectations are the oxygen of our harsh inner critic. We hear it whisper:

• You should be further along by now.

• Everyone expected you to do something extraordinary — and you didn’t.

• You’ve wasted so much of your potential.

• If you were truly gifted, you wouldn’t struggle like this.

• You’re falling short of what you could have been.

• You’re running out of time.

The harsh inner critic doesn’t measure what you’ve done — it torments you with what you could have done.

As long as you live in “could”, you live in lack. Disappointment. Restlessness.

Our minds, yours and mine, are wired to see how things could always be better — that’s the gift, and the curse.

One way to manage this is by setting external benchmarks for your success.

Not external validation — external benchmarks.

You have to tell your mind, in advance, what success looks like.
If you don’t, you’ll stay trapped in the endless chase of what it “could be.”

So here’s your homework:

Before you start your next project, define your success metrics upfront.
Make your metrics binary.
Frame them in such a way that you either hit the benchmark, or you didn’t.
Yes or no. Nothing in between.

That’s how you begin to starve the critic and reclaim your focus.