Chasing Potential: Why It Cost Me My Peace

A blog for the woman who kept seeing the light in people who refused to turn it on.

I thought if I just held on a little longer… If I loved them a little harder… If I poured more, prayed more, stayed more…

They’d finally become who I knew they could be.

But chasing potential? It cost me clarity. It cost me self-trust. It cost me peace.

I wasn’t loving who they were I was trying to love them into their healing.
But I had to learn the difference.
As a natural nurturer, it took me a while to realize:
Loving someone doesn’t mean carrying their transformation.

Let’s be honest potential is intoxicating. It gives you something to hope for. To fight for. To stay for.

But what I learned is this: When you fall in love with someone’s potential, you enter a contract with a version of them that may never arrive.

And in doing that? You abandon the version of you that’s already here.

I gave chances to people who gave me confusion. I waited for growth that never came. I accepted breadcrumbs and called it patience.

And slowly… I stopped trusting myself. Because my intuition would scream “this ain’t it,” but I kept romanticizing the “someday.”

Until one day, I realized: Their potential wasn’t mine to carry.

Journal Prompt: Where have I been holding onto someone’s maybe while losing my now?

You are not hard to love. You are not asking for too much. And you are not responsible for someone else’s becoming.

Read that again.

You can’t build a future with someone who’s still building a foundation. And you can’t keep editing yourself to fit into someone else’s possibility.

You deserve presence. Not potential.

Journal Prompt: What does it feel like in my body when I’m chasing vs receiving?

I don’t chase anymore. I attract. By being fully me. By trusting what feels right instead of what looks promising.

And since making that shift? Life has met me differently. So has love.

Ready to come back to your power? Start with the Dating with Discernment Energy Guide and start choosing now energy over “someday” hope.

More truths, tools, and healing reminders at DavinaLiving.com