Many of us have a ‘work’ personality and a ‘life’ personality. But the reality is, who we are at work influences who we are in life and vice versa.
I read a quote years ago that has influenced me ever since:
“Your last day on earth, the person you became meets the person you wanted to become.”
We spend so much time trying to become successful – and usually letting that word “success” be defined by others. We take on personas that only care about winning. A better car. A bigger house. More bling. These “things” come to define us. How often do we stop reviewing our goals and instead ask “am I becoming the person I want to be?”
As kids, we were full of hope, full of dreams. We find ourselves thinking or saying “I’ll never be like that when I grow up…” and then we find ourselves as grown-ups doing the very things we swore we’d never do...And we ask ourselves: how did we get here? And this isn't about the ideals of a child - these are the core beliefs we once had and abandoned to fit in. Or be successful. Or to ignore the gut feeling that tells us the things we're doing don't sit well with us. And, it's simple:
The choices you make, make you.
People don’t wake up one day and decide to be bad or good. They don’t wake up and decide to go off the right path or stay on it.
We end up there through a series of choices. So that in the end…the choices we make is who we become. Goals and accomplishments are important, yes. But how we got there is just as…if not more…important.
Doing well at work, reaching goals, earning promotions…there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with those activities. But the key difference is that these results should be by-products of the work you do on yourself, not the end goal like so many in the hustle-culture preach.
What if you do this work on yourself and you still aren’t a “rock-star” at work? Ask yourself, does it matter? Despite what gurus would lead you to believe - You weren’t put on this earth to sell just one more widget; to eke out that last basis point of productivity. You were put on this earth to become the best version of yourself you can be and use that to enrich others around you.
Measure your life and your success on the person you’re becoming, the relationships you forge and whether the person you became and the person you wanted to become are happy with each other. If the person staring back at you in the mirror is proud of you, are are a success. Don’t measure yourself on some made-up-KPI that your manager assigned to you or whether or not you own a watch with a two-year buying waiting list.
You will find that the byproduct of becoming the best you and enriching others around you…is much more fulfilling than the Widget Seller of the Month award.
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