What could you do if you didn’t have to be YOU?

Who are YOU?

It’s a heady question to ask and an even harder one to answer. But, go ahead, take minute and actually try to answer it.

You are: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What does your answer look like?

Your name probably came up, or you answered in the form of “I’m someone who…”? Maybe you listed things like your name, job, or where you’re from. Other parts of who you are may have included your family situation, your hobbies or any interests you have. And usually there will be some of your habits, beliefs, values and an aspiration or two.

But most likely your answer to the question “who are you” will be an amalgamation of most or all of those qualities. Who am I? “I’m Susan, an interior designer from Wichita who loves my family and wants my own one day. I like to scrapbook, binge watch true crime drama, love horses, cycling and one day would like to start my own business.”

Not a bad answer, but is that really who you are?

“When I let go of who I am,
I become who I might be”

— Lao Tzu

Is that all you are? Is being a Susan from the Midwest encompass your being? Does liking your family define you? Do any of your habits or beliefs make you a good or bad person?

What if you didn’t have to keep being who you’ve been?

If you didn’t have to keep being Susan, who likes her family and watches crime drama on Netflix, what else could you be? If you weren’t so committed to doing everything you could to keep being “you”, who else could you be, what else could you do?

You don’t have to be a therapist or Tony Robbins to understand that the chances of anything new or different happening to you, if you keep doing everything the same way you’ve been doing it up to now, is slim to none. Being who you have been, will only result in getting you more of what you’ve already gotten. And while being you has probably gotten you plenty of good stuff, you probably can guess that if you don’t do anything differently, out of your comfort zone, you won’t get anything that hasn’t already happened.