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What Are You Willing To Do In Order To Be What You Want To Be?

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]I read a fabulous article on Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank and Dragon’s Den from the Business Insider that came out in July, 2015. In it he talks about some advice he received from his step-father at an early age. After high school, his step-father asked Kevin what he wanted to do with his life. Kevin replied that he wanted to be a photographer. His step-father response was:

“To be or not to be?” Isn’t the question. The question is: “What are you willing to do in order to be what you want to be?” It’s not enough to say you want to be a photographer, or an actress, or a writer. You have to want to do all the necessary difficult things that are required to support that goal.

I love this advice!! Many of us decide on a goal without asking the questions to fully understand what achieving our goal will mean in our lives. Questions such as, what do you have to do to achieve this goal? What are your financial/life style goals and does your goal facilitate this? How does this impact your family/people around you? Where does your goal require you to live and does that fit in with your life style goals? Is this goal realistic and achievable?

This issue of looking at your goals from different points of view to make sure it is the right fit comes up frequently with my life coaching clients. This also really hits home for me.

When I was in my early 20’s I started ballroom dancing. A year later I started training to teach and a year after that was teaching. I taught full-time for 8 years and part-time for another 8. My original goal was to travel the world to compete, do shows, choreograph and live a great lifestyle. The reality was very different than my original dream. I never found a partner to compete with.… that really put a wrench in my plans….I worked most evenings so rarely saw my family. Pay was terrible so I was always struggling financially. Over time I realized that I was not willing to put in the hours, stay broke and never see my family to become a competitor. What I did love was teaching which was a surprise because it was not what I had originally wanted to do but did as a means to an end.

I did not look at the bigger picture when deciding what to do with my life. But I still found a piece within my goal that I loved and would not trade those years for anything. I walked away with tremendous experiences, learned a lot both physically and emotionally, and have met fabulous people along the way.

The moral of the story, look at the bigger picture when figuring out who you want to be and remember, maybe the perfect fit won’t look like what you first imagined it to be.

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