Who do you want to be?

Who do you want to be? Does your identity match your vision? Many of us discover in middle adulthood that we’re not quite who we want to be. We’ve become a version of ourselves that’s gotten a bit off course and we begin to feel off-kilter, out of alignment with ourselves.

Why is this and what can we do to be our best selves? Discovering an identity and a purpose for life is an evolutionary process and a journey far more than a destination.

So let’s start at the beginning

We start our journey to learning who we are when we’re very young. Inevitably, we become the sum of the decisions we make throughout our lives.

We’re led to believe our roles define us

Well-meaning adults often ask us who we want to be or what we want to do when we grow up. The purpose of the question, presumably, is to see if we’re beginning to develop a direction for our life. Yet, we begin from an early age to associate our identity with doing something.

Ak kids, most of us respond with short answers. We want to be a doctor or a nurse, a veterinarian, a chef, a fireman, the president of the United States. Likely we respond more to the allure of a job we’ve only heard about than from an actual knowledge of our own skills, talents or abilities.

And somehow, in our heads, this sense of identity, of who we want to be, becomes intertwined with what we do.

We focus on what we want to do

When I was a child, I thought I would become a veterinarian because I loved animals. As a high school student, my dad encouraged me to take business classes because I could always find work with business skills. And, as I entered college, I enrolled in classes headed toward physical therapy, influenced by family friends whose son had muscular dystrophy.

Yes, I had taken a couple of aptitude tests but in reality, they gave me very little useful information other than that I wanted to work with people because I had good “people skills.” I had no more idea of who I wanted to be at 20, than I did at 11.

We navigate the maze

As young adults, we adventure down many paths to determine who we are going to be. We seek open doors and head down paths until we hit walls.

And on the physical therapy path, my first wall was an anatomy/physiology course which focused heavily on memorization, NOT my forte. I bombed both semesters without even realizing this was a screening mechanism. And then, I veered off into medical record keeping — apparently a path for those less scientifically inclined.

And then I bumped into another wall. We visited the local hospital records room and I was appalled. No people there, just row after row of files.

If we’re lucky, our way of being gets notice

Discouraged and disenchanted, I took a part-time job in the local newspaper’s advertising department, following a talent for editing other people’s words. Here, I found people like me, with a love for words and a talent for communicating with others.

I’ll always remember Wanda, the exacting manager of the advertising copy editing team. She saw my natural abilities and took time to train me to better use them. She taught me to slow down and focus on quality work. And in time, she encouraged me to learn new skills and advance into creating ads.

She reminded me who I wanted to be

Wanda cast a vision of me that I hadn’t considered. She helped me see that I had a natural talent in this area and that I could grow my skills in this area. And she reminded me what I knew deep within myself: that I was someone who did quality work, who paid attention, and continuously improved.

And those small beginnings led me down a path of becoming a stronger person, a better employee, and an effective contributor to the mission of a large organization.

Looking back, I think there is so much more value in observing who we want to be, not by the roles we will play in our life, but by our identity.

One definition of identity is:

“Identity is who you are, the way you think about yourself, the way you are viewed by the world and the characteristics that define you.”  

(yourdictionary.com)

So who do you want to be?

Who are you now, who do you want to be, and who are you on your way to becoming? Are the habits and behaviors of your life today congruent with your sense of identity? And will your current decisions help you become who you want to be? Or do you need to make course corrections?

I’ve been thinking a lot about these questions. And as I answer them for my life today, I’m realizing areas where I might need to let go of some habits that aren’t serving me well — and strive for habits that anchor me in the person I want to become.

We can always adjust our path …

We can make changes to live mindfully into the story of our own lives. And, we can wake up each day and think about who we are, who we want to be — and what small changes will lead us to where we want to be.

For today, maybe that’s enough. We set the course, acknowledge the need for change, and create a small beginning. We’ll grow into it. After all, it’s a journey. One day we’ll make it to our final destination but that’s an ending — and we’re not ready for that.