“What do you want to do when you grow up?”
Ask a kid that, and you’ll usually get answers like be a rockstar or a professional athlete — or maybe a doctor, or an architect, or a pilot, or a businessman.
This question — What do you want to do when you grow up? — is not reserved only for the young. It may pop up in our heads from time to time as we think about the future and what we may want to do some day.
And although there’s value in thinking about our future work and what we want to achieve in life, there’s another question that’s even more important to consider — a question that’s relevant whether we’re still a kid, or already in retirement.
Instead of, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” a better question is, “What kind of person do you want to become when you grow up?”
Why is this question better? Here are a couple reasons:
1. The kind of person you become isn’t dependent on external factors.
If you focus on the kind of person you want to become, and not only what you want to do, you’ll be able to better deal with life when it doesn’t go according to plan.
If my whole dream has been to play in the NFL, and then I get in an accident and find myself paralyzed, there goes my dream. But if my primary objective was to become a loving, generous, encouraging person, than what happens to me doesn’t matter nearly as much as what happens in me. I can still grow into the kind of person I want to become, even if life turns out differently than I had planned.
2. Knowing what kind of person you want to become can provide a filter for today’s decisions.
If you’re clear on what kind of person you want to become, you’ll be better able to evaluate the opportunities and decisions that come your way in light of that goal.
When someone is intensely focused on a goal — say an athlete that is training for an upcoming competition — that goal will impact their choices. An athlete pays attention to what he eats, how he trains, how much sleep he gets, etc., based on whether it will help or hurt his performance.
If we have clarity on who we want to become, this too will affect the choices we make. We can use it as a filter for the decisions we make today: Will this help me become who I want to be? Or will it take me a different directions?
And once this way of thinking becomes a natural part of how we view our choices — and we begin to act in alignment with what we envision — we’ll find ourselves steadily growing in that direction.
Little Marks on the Soul
“Therefore, what really matters is those little marks or twists on the central, inside part of the soul which are going to turn it, in the long run, into a heavenly or a hellish creature.” —C.S. Lewis
Who we become is fueled by the choices we make throughout our life. Each decision is gradually shaping the inner part of the soul. And if we don’t like who we’ve become, the good news is it’s never too later to start moving in a different direction.
But if we never stop to consider who we want to become, we’ll just continue down the path we’re on, whether or not it’s headed in the direction we want to be going. Which is why it’s a question worth asking.
I’m all for having dreams and a plan of what we want to do with our life. But the kind of person we become along the way is going to last way longer than whatever career we choose.
Question: What kind of person do you want to become when you grow up?