If this is your first time reading this series, I’d recommend reading my other blog post on how this started and how you can participate! Basically, I’m going through this book day by day and answering the questions for myself. I invite you to answer the question below by leaving a comment!
Question(s):
1. What’s one of your aspirations when you were younger? If that vision were alive today, what would your life be like?
2. Take a minute to dream and think…what do you really want for your life?
Let me know your answers in a comment below. You could also link to one of your blog posts with the answers!
What’s one of your aspirations when you were younger?
When I was younger, specifically a senior in high school, I was dead set on going into the FBI and becoming a special agent. I had always kind of been attracted to this kind of job, but it wasn’t until the end of high school that I became serious about the dream.
I started interviewing previous special agents, learning about what the career was like, and up until the end of my first year of college, thought that this was going to be the course of my life.
In case you’re wondering, yes, I’m glad I didn’t end up becoming a special agent (there is still time! haha). But, looking back, this dream unleashed an avalanche of passion and commitment and I didn’t realize I had within me.
I started working out 5 days a week to get ready for the field test. Although I had always played sports, I never considered myself to be one of those gym buffs concerned with reps, sets, and protein powder. I also never actually thought that I could get a six pack or build muscle.
To be quite honest, it was the physical fitness requirements that scared me most. I always hated running if it wasn’t related to a sport and didn’t consider myself to be the strongest person among fellow athletes. This fear made me very angry. I didn’t like the feeling of being afraid of something and ultimately, it made me extremely focused.
Remarkably, I cut out unhealthy foods all together and committed to seeing food as a nutritional source and not a savory delight. In case your wondering, yes, I went a little overboard with this. I counted calories religiously and rarely let myself have a cheat meal.
It would be a lie unless I said that the first week’s worth of workouts and dieting was super hard. I thought I wasn’t capable of running 5 miles daily or eating salads every day for almost every meal. However, days turned into weeks and I started become used to the lifestyle change, despite several relapses.
Over the ensuing years, I experienced some drastic changes for the better in my body to the point where others noticed my newly build muscles and figure. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t fat or anything beforehand, but hearing the feedback from people around me who didn’t even know me was a testament to the fact that I was changing for the better.
It isn’t until looking back now that I see a pattern with whatever it was I have been passionate about in the past. Every passion has focused my entire being and made me improve some area of my life. In the case of this dream, being an FBI agent, I learned about nutrition, exercise, and transformed my physique. Although the dream has died, the accompanying knowledge and realization is permanent.
If that vision were alive today, what would your life be like?
I first want to say that I have nothing against people that have this particular dream. It just isn’t for me.
Over time, I came to realize that one of the major reasons for wanting to become an FBI agent was that I wanted a feeling of importance. I wanted to be to come home from my job and know that I’d saved, changed, or improved the world for the better. I wanted to be valued and be seen as capable in multiple ways. Also, I wanted to be able to walk in a room and know that other people considered my job to be of high importance or interesting, in the same way that people talk about doctors or lawyers.
If that vision had persisted, I would now be working as some kind of an analyst for the government, leading up to my becoming an agent. While working as an analyst can improve other lives and make an impact in some ways, it in no way compares to what I’m doing now. In addition, I don’t think I’d be able to be happy executing someone else’s agenda or vision, if I didn’t agree with it. Finally, I would have far less power and control over my own life.
The greatest takeaway for this dream is that there are multiple avenues to satisfying our own desires, needs, wants, and ambitions. Life is about finding the one that fits with you best and doing work that reflects your values.
What do you really want for your life?
Aside from the obvious (wealth, happiness, fame, relationship, friends, family), I want my life to be an exciting journey that surprises me. I’m a very linear planner and looking back, many of the amazing things in my life have been the result of accidents or following my passions.
Who thought I would have reporters calling me up for a quote on a particular topic or that I’d have other entrepreneurs emailing me, looking for feedback on how to build a business? I certainly never expected that.
You can plan the foundations of a great life and even cultivate the mindset that will lead to taking action and seeing out opportunities, but the great moments in life can’t be planned.
In many ways, I think that a great life is like a great company. You can define the values of the company and work to form a compelling vision, but you can never fully predict what products or industries are going to take off. You can only keep an open mind, work in the moment, and manage your psychology.
Even though this series is entitled “work life balance,” I don’t think that it exists. I think that your work should be an intimate part of your life because it will take up such a big portion of your lifetime. In addition, your life will always affect your work and trying to ignore your life will only lead to the demise of your happiness, even if you do meet certain work-related goals.
So let me ask you – what do you really want for your life? Let me know in a comment below!