Authenticity in Progress

William Taylor
Jul 27, 2017 · 2 min read
“Love who you are today, have the vision for who you can become, and make the progress to get there.”

I was talking with a good friend of mine recently discussing the people that we love being around. We took a hard look into our inner circles and tried to narrow down the traits of the people we want to emulate the most. It didn’t come down to net worth, physical appearance, or job titles. We narrowed it down to two characteristics. One of the traits that was very evident was they knew exactly who they were and they didn’t try to be anybody else. It didn’t necessarily matter what stereotypical genre they may fall into such as nerd, jock, businessman, doctor, professional, blonde, etc. The attractive trait was that they were genuinely themselves. They didn’t try to portray things that they weren’t, they understood their shortcomings and took pride in their strengths. The second characteristic of these attractive people is they didn't all strive for perfection but they relentlessly went after progress. They made sure that everyday they were a little bit better than they were yesterday.

As I thought about these two traits they almost seemed to conflict. How can you be happy with being exactly who you are today and yet at the same time constantly push for progress towards becoming something different? After a few days of thinking about this I have come to the conclusion that authenticity of self doesn’t mean that you are so happy with who you are that you have no more room to become. Knowing yourself means that you have a full awareness of where you are, how you got here, and what could be done to be in a different place. I think it would be fair to say that all of us have aspirations that would put us in a different spot than we are today. This is where progress plays its role. In order to achieve our dreams we have to take the small necessary steps to reach them, while understanding that this is a time intensive process. Love who you are today, have the vision for who you can become, and make the progress to get there.

William Taylor

Written by

Owner of CrossFit Cedar City. MBA December 2017.

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