5 Steps to Figure Out What to DO with Your Life — Define who you really are (step 3/5)
One of the biggest mistakes people make before deciding what they want to spend the rest of their lives doing is that they go into a career without having a microscopic look at who they REALLY are. Not who they think they are, not who they wish they were, not who they wish they friends and family though they were, but who they REALLY are.
If you haven’t read the first two steps click here.
Step 3: Define who you are
To move forward you have to let go of your past and embrace change. With change comes reinvention and if you don’t know who you are and what you want, it makes it a lot harder to move forward in your life.
One of the best examples was Dilan, one of the millennials my partner Steve, worked with a while ago.
Like many people, he was really good at pointing out the things he didn’t like about himself but he was unable to see the positive things about himself. This was very understandable considering the fact that he grew up in foster homes abused and ashamed of his body.
BUT, once he got clear on the person he wanted to be, he realised that when he was a child, before all the abuses he always wanted to develop his body and inspire others to do so.
After this stage (step3), he put a career plan together, and now he is a fashion model, always sending us pictures of his fashion shows in New York and Paris.
He went from trying to become invisible to realising that he can inspire others and help them to overcome similar challenges he faced.
All — simply by remembering and defining who he was (before all the abuses) and learning to define himself non-judgmentally.
All — BEFORE deciding what to do with his life. And here’s a secret:
Find the balance between who you wish to be, who you really are, and who you need to be.
So let me ask you now… who are you?
Some people say that they are their bodies.
But what if you were involved in an awful accident you lost your arms and legs. Would YOU still be YOU? Some of you may answer YES.
Research shows that over our lifetime our body regenerates itself every 7 years: we change our skin every 27 days, every 5 years we change our muscles and in 10 years we have a completely new skeleton.
So, if YOU’re not our body nor our memories, then who are YOU?
We suggest that the best way to find yourself is to listen to that wise voice in your head — some people call it consciousness, other people call it inner guidance, we just simply call it your essence — that inner voice.
We assume that it doesn’t really matter who you are or who you think you are. All it matters is who you intend to be.
Because successful and fulfilled people were not born, they were created.
And to find out who you intend to be, let’s do a simple exercise.
Visualisation exercise: you can either read through this exercise and then put it into practice, or have someone reading this exercise to you.
Find a comfortable place: either sitting in a chair or laying down. Anywhere as long as you feel comfortable.
Now I’d ask you if possible to close your eyes for a second.
Or if you’re reading this you can do it with your eyes open.
You won’t have to do anything, just to listen/read and play along.
Once you close your eyes(or with your eyes open), for a couple of seconds I’ll ask you to pay attention to your breathing as you inhale and exhale.
For 30 seconds…
Imagine you are celebrating your 100 years of passionate and meaningful life. You’ve lived an amazing life full of fulfilment doing what you really loved and serving others at the same time. You have your partners, kids, colleague and business partners around the table all smiling and cheering you.
After you HAAAARDLY blow all 100 candles, each member of the family wants to have a small speech.
What would you want your partner to say about you?
30 seconds…
How about your children and grandchildren?
30 seconds…
How do you want your colleagues and business partners to describe you after a lifetime of achievements?
30 seconds…
You can open your eyes now and meditate on those answers. Pause for a second before going to the next exercise. Write down the answers to those questions on the same sheet of paper, then combine all your answers into a phrase or two that will be a detailed description of the person you intend to be
I am a person who: ____________
That’s the person who you need to be, who you really are.
This is it for today. I’m really excited about the next steps (4&5) because that’s where everything will come together.
What’s next?
- 50 Self-Coaching questions to help you figure out and clarify what to do with your life
- A breakdown of the full Career Planning Strategy (see Step 5)
- E-book with checklists for EVERYTHING in this programme: Step 1 to 5
- The list of decision and payoffs that most people use to unconsciously get stuck
- Advice from fulfilled (and successful) people about building a meaningful career
- FREE 5 minute per day course to help you figure out what to do with your life jam-packed with strategies and exercises to discover, design and achieve your career goals (to be released in less than a month)
- Other secret goodies that we’ve gathered for our readers
But please don’t share it with others as this is just for our close readers.
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