‘Expressing Full Potential’ offers a calmer way to think about how we put our unique abilities to work
Within the Map of Meaning framework, you don’t “reach,” “achieve,” or “unlock” your full potential—you express it. This subtle mindset shift can help you create a worklife with less angst and more joy.
At the beginning of this year, Forbes published an article that asked, perhaps a bit forebodingly, “Are You Ready For The Seismic Shift In Employee Expectations?” Employees these days don’t just want things like job security and benefits, the piece warned. They’re after intangibles now—things like mental well-being and a sense of belonging.
Of course, this seismic shift didn’t just start in 2025. It’s been a long time coming. Our expectations about work have transformed over the past century. For most people, a job used to be an unpleasant, but necessary, fact of life. Now, employees are openly seeking work that meets their higher needs, as well as their most basic ones. Ideally, we don’t just want to show up. We want work that empowers us to learn, grow, make an impact, and connect to that powerful and elusive thing: our human potential.
Our culture has made potential into a high-stakes issue, something we might “miss,” like a boat or train.
‘I could have been a contender:’ How should we talk about potential?
Your potential is all about the future. It refers to your capacity to develop, grow, and accomplish. In English, our use of language around potential can reveal different mindsets about our individual power and our role in shaping our future. Depending on the turn of phrase you pick, your potential is something you might “reach” or “achieve,” like a goal. Or you might “fulfill” or “realize” it, almost like a prophecy. Alternatively, you might “tap into” or “unlock” your potential—like a hidden force within, waiting to be activated. “Living up to” your potential is a particularly daunting one, suggesting an ideal self we need to hurry up and become.
In literature and film, some of our most tragic figures are those who seem to have “squandered” their potential, or have had it taken from them. There’s a reason Marlon Brando’s painful line in the 1954 film On the Waterfront, “I could have been a contender!” is one of the most quoted in film history. Our culture has made potential into a high-stakes issue, something we might “miss,” like a boat or train.
The Map of Meaning* takes a different approach: It uses the term “Expressing Full Potential.” You might have heard of the Map before—it’s a framework for understanding how humans find meaning in work and life. Lately on the MeaningSphere blog, we’ve been using this framework to unpack current workplace trends and explore ways to navigate the world of work with more humanity. On the Map, Expressing Full Potential is one of four integrated pathways through which we create meaning.
We won’t “reach” our potential, just as we can never quite catch up to the horizon line, and that’s a good thing.
What it means to express our full potential, according to the Map of Meaning
By framing potential as something we express, the Map of Meaning framework allows us to think more calmly and optimistically about this fraught topic.
In their book The Map of Meaningful Work, the Map’s creator Marjolein Lips-Wiersma and co-author Lani Morris share some of the ways people in their workshops talked about Expressing Full Potential (let’s call it EFP). In the examples they share, EFP is less about a linear trajectory toward a specific goal, and more about a state of being in which our unique talents, abilities, and passions are engaged. Seen this way, our potential is not some boat that may sail off into the horizon without us—it is our horizon.
When talking about EFP, Map of Meaning workshop participants used language like, “doing my best work at all times,” “having a good idea heard and acted on,” “being responsible for making the most use of my gifts and talents,” and “find out what you are good at and do more of it!”
From their research findings, the authors identified three sub-themes within the pathway of EFP: creating, achieving, and influencing:
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Creating is about our need to “bring into existence,” in the authors’ words. This sub-theme is about accessing creative flow, enjoying self-expression and exploration, and having the autonomy to follow your vision.
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Achieving is about the satisfaction of accomplishing things. It’s about the meaning we get from mastering a skill, completing a piece of work, and from knowing we’ve done well.
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Influencing “covers our need to affect destiny.” It’s about having the power to inspire people, win them to an important cause, or materially improve things for the better.
By definition, EFP involves learning, growth, and forward momentum. We won’t “reach” our potential, just as we can never quite catch up to the horizon line, and that’s a good thing. As the saying goes, it’s about the journey, not the destination!
What matters is simply that our unique talents and abilities find the appropriate forum, in a way that allows our personal and professional selves to be in harmony with one another.
Is Expressing Full Potential important at work?
Most of us spend a huge portion of our time working. Employed Americans are working an average of 34 hours per week, according to the 2024 American Time Use Survey. (That figure accounts for both full-time and part-time workers.) Since we spend so much time there, it’s greatly beneficial if that work is also a source of meaning for us—not just a paycheck. Being able to express our potential at work is one of the ways we can experience that work as meaningful.
When we’re connected to our potential, work can elevate us. It can foster our talents, amplify our impact, and allow us to accomplish things we otherwise couldn’t dream of—think of a scientist in a research laboratory or an engineer designing better cars. The workplace is where they will find the infrastructure and support to experiment, innovate, and put their specific talents to use, in ways that wouldn’t be possible on their own. (We assume here that most of you are not running a privately funded industrial operation on the level of Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark.)
However, many of us would not describe our workplace as an arena where our talents can shine! Instead, work may offer little opportunity to influence important decisions or engage in creative problem-solving. Depending on your priorities and your expectations of work, this arrangement might suit you just fine: perhaps you are actively expressing your potential through things like community activism, a fulfilling creative practice, or a rewarding family life. If that’s you, a stable 9-to-5 where you can turn up and follow a routine without any need for improvisation might be the perfect balance to a rich and stimulating personal life.
On the other hand, if a role with no opportunities for creating, achieving, or influencing is starting to make you feel dead inside…it might be time to pause, reflect on your priorities, and consider whether a few changes are in order.
Ultimately, what’s important is not whether we express our potential through paid work or through other means. What matters is simply that our unique talents and abilities find the appropriate forum, in a way that allows our personal and professional selves to be in harmony with one another.
EFP by the numbers
Recent data from we collected at MeaningSphere** offers valuable insight into how much others feel they can express their potential in the workplace. What’s most remarkable here is how evenly split most responses were. This means that no matter where you fall on the spectrum, you’re in good company.
Respondents were asked to react to a series of statements about their present work, selecting never, seldom, sometimes, often, or almost always. We found a tidy, nearly three-way split in responses to the statements “I create and apply new ideas or concepts,” “I make a difference that matters to others,” and “I experience a sense of achievement.”
However, responses to the statement “I am excited by the available opportunities for me” were more polarized, with 55% saying they seldom or never felt excited by available opportunities at work, and only 20% selecting always or almost always.
If you’re curious about how your own work experience allows you to express your potential, try this: consider how you would respond to these four statements. Then, notice how you feel about the responses you gave.
There’s no right or wrong answer, but your gut response (positive or negative) may provide a flash of insight into your own needs at work. For example, consider the statement “I create and apply new ideas and concepts.” You may respond “sometimes” and feel neutral about your answer. But it’s possible this answer of “sometimes” may produce a pang of longing: “If only I got to create more concepts and apply them!” (Whatever this looks like in your specific field.) In this way, your reaction itself can be instructive.
The power of ‘sounding our own note in the universe’
Our expectation that work should be meaningful is at an all-time high, and that’s a good thing. As we navigate the world of work, most of us are keen to make a positive impact, apply our unique gifts, and follow our passions. This can, however, lead us to put undue pressure on ourselves if we feel we are not “living up to” or “reaching” our potential—a word we’ve taken to mean “my idealized future self.” When viewed through this lens, the concept of “potential” has, let’s say, the potential to be a pretty stressful idea.
Fortunately, the Map of Meaning offers a more flexible, less angst-ridden way to think about our capabilities and how they might shape our future. Here’s how the Map’s creators describe the pathway of “Expressing Full Potential,” in a nutshell:
“This pathway refers to the meaningfulness of sounding our own note in the universe. It relates to the human need to create, accomplish, and make things happen through applying our unique gifts, talents, and passions.”
What’s refreshing about this is that potential is not characterized as something to reach or live up to, but something we connect with when we are using our abilities, making a difference, and being authentically ourselves. Crafting a worklife that allows us to express our potential can be an ongoing challenge. But the more we learn about ourselves and what matters to us—and the more we associate our potential with joyful expression rather than with false comparison—the better equipped we are to find meaning in all that we do.
*Developed by Dr. Marjolein Lips-Wiersma at Auckland University of Technology, the Map of Meaning has been used by individuals and organizations for decades as a tool for understanding how we experience meaning—and therefore, what makes work meaningful rather than meaningless. The Map comprises four pathways and three tensions which we must balance to create individual and collective meaning.
**The Meaningful Work Inventory is based on the Comprehensive Meaningful Work Scale, part of the Map of Meaning framework co-developed by Dr. Marjolein Lips-Wiersma and Dr. Sarah Wright, and used with permission from the Map of Meaning International Trust. The data we cite is fully anonymized and based on 436 people who completed the Inventory through our paid programs.