This morning my friend asked me my thoughts on motivation, and reaching our full potential. After I shared them I immediately knew this had to be the topic here for today!

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Digging a hole in the red soil with my index finger, I shove the lemon seed in, cover it, and promptly forget about it. Several seeds have randomly gone into the pot of earth in this way.

I’m a fully experimental gardener. No knowledge, no attachment, no expectations.

Many months later, a little seedling is peeking out of the mud. Hm, I wonder which plant this is? I rub the leaf gently with my index and thumb finger and smell it. *sniff-sniff* Smells citrussy.

Hey, was this the orange seed from March? Or maybe the lemon seed from a few weeks ago? Wait, at some point I shoved a mosambi seed also into the pot right? No, no, maybe it was the other pot there. *laughs*

Curiosity, playfulness, and watering with simple faith and dedication. No attachment, no expectations.

There’s a plant in my little balcony garden. Now I must water it, nourish it, and coo at it encouragingly. Talk to it sweetly. My only job is to love and cherish.

Now next year there may be flowers, a fruit or two. Or not. This plant might just get taller and greener producing nothing but these thick, shiny, gently citrus smelling leaves, all its life. Maybe even all my life.

That doesn’t matter. I’ll just keep watering it, nourishing it, cooing at it with love.

Everything doesn’t have to have a purpose. Everyone doesn’t have to have a purpose.

There’s no need to produce, produce, produce. There’s no need to meet this thing called our ‘full potential.’

First of all, you need to remember, you’re worthy simply because you’ve sprouted smiling into this world.

So, plant seeds, watch with curiosity, nourish, cherish and love, and then let them be who they want to be.

This refers to you as a person, it refers to your brand, it refers to your work of art, or anything that you’re building.

Hi, welcome to The Feel Good Factor. I’m Susmitha Veganosaurus and I’m so glad you’re here today. If this is your first time here, listen to this episode and then leave me a voice note about what you love about it. Let me know your takeaway.

Today I want to talk about potential. The dirty secret behind potential.

There’s all this talk, you know. People are told to reach their highest potential, fill their full potential. And then there’s a lot of guilt and pressure associated with it.

Have you heard yourself, or maybe somebody you know, a friend, a colleague, someone you love, anyone say that, “I’m not meeting my full potential. I need to do more. Need to push myself more. Need to put myself out there more.”

See, here’s the thing. You have unlimited potential, okay? We all do. Our potential is unlimited. But we ourselves are limited beings.

As human beings, we have certain limits, right? So, though the potential might be unlimited, because we are limited, forget not wanting to reach the potential completely, it’s impossible to reach our so-called ‘full potential’. That doesn’t exist.

When we let that go, we reduce a lot of pressure on ourselves, a lot of expectations on ourselves.

Now, does that mean you don’t do anything at all, and you just sit on your butt and waste the time away?

No, no, not at all. *laughs*

But you can put effort without any expectations. And you can put effort to your capacity, to your limit, without thinking, “okay, I’m capable of so much more, so I should keep doing so much more.”

Or if you look around and you see other people doing a lot more than you, you know, marketing more, branding more, putting themselves out there more, or putting more efforts, keeping them themselves more busy, whatever…don’t compare yourself to them!

You see what you’re capable of. And not just the capacity, you see how much you want to do, how much you’re comfortable doing. And then simply put in that amount of effort and sit back.

When people talk about potential, often they’re only thinking about your potential to work. Like make money in some way, or build a brand, or grow big as an artist or a business owner, or anything like that. They only think of it from the point of view of work.

But we have to look at potential from every facet.

What about your potential to feel joy? Your potential for deep fulfilment on a daily basis?

Your potential to become better as a person, as a soul on this path, this human journey? What about those potentials?

We don’t think about those things. We only think about work, work, work, work, work. Create, create, create, create. Build, build, build. Produce, produce, produce. But we’re not meant to do that.

In every facet of our life we need to consider potential – wellbeing, fitness, just doing good work for the sake of doing good work, our potential to enjoy something just for the sake of enjoying it, for the sake of being and living. How about that potential?

So when you combine all of it, you realise there’s no way you can ever meet your full potential as a limited human being.

(Yeah, maybe as pure consciousness, as a collective, potentials can be reached, but we are only one person.)

Once you accept this, and take the pressure off, there’s a lot of freedom in it. Because now there’s no pushing yourself over your limits just to so-called “meet your potential”.

Instead, you see what’s right in front of you, you take things one day at a time. Then you put in a bit of effort at a time. Slowly, slowly, slowly. You do it holistically so every part of you, every part of your life is taken into consideration.

That way, you end up doing a lot more meaningful work, instead of constantly telling yourself, you need to do more, you need to push yourself more, you need to do this, that, that.

Figure out how much you’re willing to do, how much you want to do, and set a clear intention. “Okay, this is what I want in my life. This is how I want to feel, the fulfilment I want to experience, the meaningful service I want to provide in the world. Make this world a better place”. Become very clear about that, and set that intention. And then you sit back and you attract the opportunities.

In last week’s episode, I was in a car with my friend Chef Ram, we were on our way to a college to teach vegan cooking to a bunch of young chefs, hotel management students.

Now, I’ve been in this field for several years.

I’ve been working with so many chefs. I’ve run my own restaurant. And I’ve taken cooking classes for people from all walks of life.

So teaching people how to cook vegan food, if I push myself, if I say, “I need to meet my full potential, I have to use every bit of knowledge from the past couple of decades of being vegan and cooking, I need to juice it for every last drop”, then I’m going to drain myself out.

I could go approach different organisations and say, we’ll veganise your menu, try to build connections, get more work opportunities that way. I could do that. But that aspect of the job is not something I find very fulfilling.

What I am going to do is, yes, build my brand quietly from the inside, put it out there on my website, on my podcast here, mailing list, on Instagram, put it there and let people know I am available for opportunities like this. And then I just sat back.

I’ve built this brand for myself slowly, gently, and I sat back.

And because I’ve set my intention, I attract the right opportunity. The universe sent me this opportunity.

So the workshop we went to teach was organised by Humane Society International, the India branch of it. They go and approach the institution, they discuss having a vegan workshop with their students, they do all the organising. Then they come to us, me and Chef Ram, and the ask us to go there and teach a workshop where everything is already arranged as per our prior request.

So all we need to do is go there, teach the class, be fully present, answer the questions, be full of life, full of enthusiasm, encourage these young students to learn more about plant exclusive cooking, about veganism, and come back.

Yes, this means I’m dependent on the outside. I’m dependent on this organisation (or others like the time we worked with Mercy for Animals).

I’m waiting for these other organisations to bring me opportunities instead of going out and finding them on my own.

In this area of my life, I’m okay with doing that. Whatever comes, comes.

Coming back to that lemon plant. For many years it grew, just like I thought it would. And it did not flower, it did not fruit. It just grew, grew, grew. Does that mean I stopped watering it? I stopped loving it? That it didn’t give me any joy at all? No, it was enough. Those leaves themselves were enough.

Maybe yes, the so called ‘full potential’ of the lemon plant is to fruit and give lots of lemons, right? But even if it didn’t, it was still beautiful, it still smelled good, it still looked good. Provided oxygen to me in the house. It had its purposes.

So just because you don’t meet your full potential, doesn’t mean you have no purpose.

It’s just that every bit of you doesn’t have to have a purpose every single day, every single minute, and every single second of your life. That’s the important part.

The next time you catch yourself saying, “I need to push myself harder, I need to meet my pool full potential. I’m not meeting my full potential”. Just know that you can never meet your full potential because it is unlimited.

So take that pressure off yourself, sit back, relax, set intentions, and then put the message out there gently that you’re available, and see what comes your way.

All right! Once again let me remind you, if you enjoyed this episode, if you have some takeaways from this or any episodes of The Feel Good Factor, then leave me a voice message of one minute or under. Maybe I’ll put your message on one of the upcoming episodes.

I look forward to hearing from you soon. All right, talk to you again next week. Take care. Bye.

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Susmitha Veganosaurus

“I’m a Spiritual Vegan Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur. I read voraciously, find humour in most things, and believe kindness and authenticity can make this world a happier, loving place.

If my content resonates with you, join my free newsletter where I share Life and Business Tips, Vegan Hacks, Holistic Guidance, and more.

Vegan cuisine and holistic business building are my two biggest passions. If you’re looking for guidance with vegan cooking, or want to grow your conscious business with joy and fulfilment, explore ways we can work togetherhere.”

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