How To Guide Who You Become

Many of us have a vision in our heads of the person that we want to be. Great looks, confidence, and most likely very purpose driven. But then we look to who we are today and feel the gap between the two. And that gap feels like a chasm. But we can slowly close that gap. Pro-tip: as you grow, your target of who you want to become will alter and change. So you never actually “get there”. But you can become more pleased by what you have become and the direction you’re going.

Trajectory

Before we start getting into it, I just want to mention the concept of trajectory, in the realm of personal discovery and development. Trajectory is the idea that your history (personal choices), culture (family impacts), and ancestry (genetic patterns) will give you momentum to move in certain directions.
Allow me to give an example: let’s say you play a sport, like hockey. Your parents got you into at a young age (a family impact). Maybe they played when they were younger, maybe even generations did (a genetic pattern). You learned to love it and decided to stick with it when it got tougher (a personal choice). Because of these influences, you have some inherent forces moving you forward, further and faster than someone without those influences. Say you want to move into sports coaching or sports broadcasting. You’re already miles ahead of someone coming in without any of those collective influences.

Now, we do not have to be a slave to our influences and trajectories. We always have a choice. But it’s good to be aware of what influences we have in our past, both positive and negative. This way we can avoid pitfalls, and maximize advantages.

Becoming = Trajectory +(Doing + Being)

Who you become is a product of your history (trajectory) plus who you are being and what you are doing IN THE PRESENT. What you do is the sum totally of your actions, words, choices, and (to some degree) your thoughts. Who you are being is the sum total of your attitudes, styles, emotions, and the quality of your presence. It’s the how you do things, rather than what you choose to do.

Now you have a huge degree of choice in both of these areas, and this is great. But those choices, while easy to select, can be hard to practice. As I teach my son, you have a tremendous source of power in the space between (your thoughts and feelings) and (what you say and do). But as you practice new forms of doings and beings, they get slightly easier each time. And this can also be where new, novel information can come into play. If you want to be rich, but you don’t know anything about finance and don’t know anyone who does, your going to have to do some leg work and gather some information and resources to learn new skills. Same goes if you want to be calm and emotionally regulated all the time. You might need to open a book and do some meditation. This is also where who you socially surround yourself also comes in. If you socially interact with people that are similar to who you want to become, their doing and being will subtly influence your own. They will naturally teach you new insights into what its like being them, in being and doing. And they will likely introduce you to other that act and behave in the same ways (they hold the same values). This can help you be naturally pulled along into your own vision for yourself.

The key here is the practice of these doings and beings regularly. But doing the actions and adopting the attitudes of who you want to become RIGHT NOW in the present, will gradually transform you into that person.
And as you revise or expand the vision of who you want to become, just remember to occasionally look in the mirror and see how much you have developed already.