Potential is a compliment for things you haven’t done yet. Don’t let it stay a compliment forever.

Being told you could be good is pleasant, and it is also a statement about the future rather than the present. It can become a comfortable identity, where the praise keeps arriving without the work and the work keeps not happening. At some point the word stops being generous and starts describing what you did not do.

Take the smallest finished version of the thing people say you could do, and complete it badly rather than planning it well. A finished small thing moves you out of the category. Give yourself a date this month rather than a someday.