Self Discovery

For many years I put on a great show for the people in my life. Who I was at the moment depended on who was in front of me at that time. I was a chameleon.

To be honest with you, there wasn’t much that I liked about myself. So I was certain that if you knew the “real me”, you wouldn’t like me either. My need for acceptance and love would kick in and I became whoever you needed me to be. Actually, whoever I thought you’d like.

When we moved into our new house last year, our neighbor’s yard looked like junkyard material. Among the debris lay a rotting shed, rusted over RV, and stagnant water pool. To make matters worse, the only way into their back yard was through a shared driveway that passed through our property. Since we had children, we weren’t exactly thrilled about the situation.

Our concerns heightened when we talked to the other neighbors. We heard stories of vagrants living in the RV, playing loud music and keeping everyone up at night. The neighbors also claimed that the owner, while a “good person,” was often out of town, letting random friends have run of the property. Both claims seemed legitimate since we saw lights in the RV at night, but no one ever answered the front door during the day.

I knew my first marriage would be a disaster, but I went through with it anyway.

I tend to analyze things. It comes with the territory of being a project manager. So when it came to marriage, I thought about it like a logic problem. How compatible are we? Would I be happiest with him? What if I never found anyone else? The scenarios rolled in my mind, and I even wrote a pro and con list of why we should be together. Ultimately, I decided getting married to someone I had been dating for 6 years was a safe bet.

If this approach seems a little off to you, you’re on the right track. There are two basic approaches to problem solving. Analysis is one way to look at a problem. Let’s say my primary doctor had retired and I needed to get a new one. If I had used the questions above on compatibility, happiness, and worst case scenarios, I probably would have found a decent doctor.

I read a wonderful post on this blog recently about we don’t FIND our passions, they come THROUGH us: Our passions are already there. This is very, very true.

I was reminded of this over the weekend while teaching a workshop on finding your passion and creating income from it. We were in the portion of the class in which I did some *laser consults* from the front of the auditorium. I was helping one man come to understand his true *Passion*. In fact, he was close, because he already knew that he wanted to be a Professional Speaker. However, he couldn’t choose WHICH of many topics he wanted to speak on.

I put it to him square: “What would you do with your life’s work, if you were going to die tomorrow?”

I grew up with a mother that, loving though she was, believed that people with great talent – artists, writers and the like – are born with their special gift. She would often watch a program on PBS, say a broadcasting of one of the MET’s operas, and say afterward, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to….’ (Fill in the blank for the specific talent).

You can imagine how hard it was to believe that I could accomplish much, given my mother’s feelings about human genius being confined to the few born into it.

I think a lot of us were raised with parents like this.

I’ve been involved in the personal development world for several years, since I was in college. I believe that there’s a lot of good material – in blogs, in books, taught by coaches and trainers – which can help you to enjoy life more and to achieve your goals.

But what I’ve come to believe is that, on some deep level, we are who we are. However much you might envy Richard Branson or Steve Jobs or Oprah Winfrey or whoever your particular hero is, you are you.

Perhaps you’re reading this because you’re curious. Perhaps you want more from your life. Perhaps there’s something you’re desperately keen to change – your weight, your fitness, your financial status, your job, your happiness.

You labor to fill the day with activities; you create more tasks for tomorrow than the ones you have completed today; you hyper-intentionally force productivity (yet you have not defined what it is that you are trying to produce); you make plans to make more money; you make career plans; you make retirement plans; and you make plans to make more plans….

But where are you going and what are you becoming? Are you merely surviving the day or are you living it?