Who cares about who you want to be?
It blows my mind that adults ask kids what they want to be when they grow up.
It’s an innocent enough question, often used as an easy proxy to get to other questions, like: “Do you like to dance, or do you like to write, or…?” There’s a cute assumption underlying this innocent question, that folks should have a fixed “calling”. And there’s another query, underlying it all: “How do you want to contribute to the world?”
The thing is… I never quite knew how to answer this, as a kid or as an adult - even (or especially, rather) when I was on a set path towards a traditional career.
So why do I, and so many others, ask this question? Because it’s easy, and because we crave connection. It’s easy to define a goal when you can pick it out from a nice, tidy list of “kinds of people to be”, or “kinds of people to be like”. It’s easy to focus on something to do, and it’s easy to get external reassurance for it and compare ourselves - kind of like a checklist in a language we all share.
Yet, the tradeoff of focusing externally? We look away from our present self for blueprints. The danger? We can’t pay attention to ourselves when we’re busy thinking about what box to fit into. We hang onto external labels in an effort to connect with others. Yet, relying on these same labels keeps us from showing up for ourselves in a way that brings us the meaningful connection we always craved.
(This is also why I find self-help suggestions to “start acting like your alter-ego” or “fake it till you make it” so cringe. Since when did we lose so much faith in our own light that we have to copy random ideas of others to believe in it?)
To be clear - using labels isn’t a bad thing, and neither is comparing ourselves to those we want to be! Roles can come with deep meaning; inspiration is a beautiful thing. Yet: It wastes us valuable time to not prioritize listening to our intuition first and foremost.
So, how do we drop the focus on labels and start paying attention to ourselves? Easy.
Focus less on who you want to be and more on what you want to do in the present.
Here’s what I’ve learned when trying things out, in the space of not having one fixed answer to the question of “who Raha wants to be” throughout my career:
the more intentionally I follow a path of developing new skills rather than trying to “be X” or “be like X”, the more hybrid the things I do becomes, both within and outside of work - and it’s a combination of more of the things I love to do. It’s a totally achievable combo - it’s just not a combination anyone might be able to define for me through cookie-cutter roles - and it’s unique stuff I’m deeply proud of.
The more intentionally I think outside of the labels for who I should be (such as: lawyer, businessperson, mother, partner…), the more I can explore my nuanced feelings, desires, and visions. It’s not that labels are bad - as I mentioned, they’re a language that gives structure to our world, and roles can give us deep meaning to strive for - but:
1) We are so much more than the total of all our labels.
&
2) Our worth is independent of any of our labels.
Focusing on what I enjoy doing, not just within the roles I play in the world, puts me in the driver’s seat of my own inner intuition, while letting me explore a more varied world. It also makes me way more intentional within any of my roles.
The hard part of focusing on what you want to do, rather than who to be: you lose the blueprints. You’re forced to look inwards, and stay in the present, with your mind and hands. But: You’ll start follow yourself down paths based on intuition, and you can begin building on skills that actually light you up. You might just end up with a present and a future that you could never have predicted for yourself as a child, but one that resonates incredibly deeply with the inner light you’ve always had.
Tonight, ask yourself:
What would I like to try doing that I have put off in the past - because it felt like a waste of time, or because I didn’t feel like I was “good enough” at it as others? (Try to look inwards to answer this.)
What is the kind of person I would like to be - that is, what are the 5 values closest to my heart? What can I do in the everyday to get closer to any of those values?
Much <3,
Raha
PS: Want to share this with someone whose inner light you love?