March 25, 2021

Who Do You Want to Be? How Do You Want to Feel?

What do you want to be? Who do you want to be?

In this episode, I’m talking about authenticity from a slightly different angle.

I’m talking about the question, What do you DO (as in for a living) and how often our jobs define our identities, at least to a large extent.

I’ve been reading a book called 12 Tiny Things – Simple Ways to Live a more Intentional Life by Heidi Barr and Ellie Roscher. Each chapter of the book addresses a different part of life, such as work, home, spirituality, creativity, etc.

The chapter on Work inspired this episode. Specifically, the question of “what do you do”. You know, the one that everyone asks when we first meet someone?

The story that the authors tell in the book resonated so deeply with me – when one of the authors was little, she wanted to arrange bouquets of flowers for her job. When her mom told her it wouldn’t make enough money, she was crushed. So, as she grew older, she did what we all do and searched for a job that would allow he to support herself. She chose being a doctor.

What really resonated with me though was this quote:

“Eventually, she chose doctor. It fit the criteria, and she got positive reinforcement for that answer so it stuck. It took her years to decide that it wasn’t actually what she wanted to do.”

I talk a lot about perfectionism on this show, and as someone who grew up very driven, an overachiever and a perfectionist, I relate to this deeply. Especially the part about positive reinforcement. Perfectionists are generally rabid validation seekers, and I was no different.

Positive reinforcement was everything to me. Validation that I couldn’t give myself was everything to me.

But also, when we’re kids, there is a lot of focus on the what do you want to be question. And today, I want to talk about a better question, or rather two better questions:

Who do you want to be?

How do you want to feel?

So good, right?

Listen to this episode of Real, Brave, & Unstoppable for more on these two questions and why these are the questions we should be asking ourselves if we want to live an authentic life – one that is aligned to who we TRULY are.