Adventurous Mom

Are you still try­ing to decide what to be when you grow up? Regard­less of what you con­sider grown up: Are you doing what you want to right now? How did you get here?

When I blasted out to my Face­book friends ask­ing them about “What did you want to be when you grow up?” I got var­ied responses and some said they are still try­ing to fig­ure it out. But one good friend sticks out in my mind when she said: “I cer­tainly didn’t want to be a Dish Washer when I grew up.”

Your story is dif­fer­ent from my story but what might be the com­mon thread is that you may be in a life that you feel trapped or it is in con­flict with your val­ues. What I mean by this is not that your boss may be ask­ing you to steal….but per­haps you have a strong value for cre­ativ­ity, and you are audit­ing spread­sheets every day!! Ugh!

Are you really hear­ing that voice inside of you that is dis­sat­is­fied? Is your value free­dom? Free­dom from feel­ing trapped by a job? Or is your value secu­rity? Do you like hav­ing a secure job? None of these val­ues are wrong, they are yours and you should own them.

YOUR PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT

Some are strug­gling with clar­ity about what is their true call­ing in life. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up!!! And let me tell you that this is okay too because no one needs to decide right now. But when you find that call­ing, you will know it because you will stay awake all night and be excited all day to bring into fruition your new found occupation.

Per­haps also, we should view this from another angle: Instead of decid­ing what you want to DO every day to cre­ate money (which is what so many peo­ple fall prey to) What do you want to BE???

One tool that I use to deter­mine what I want to be is a per­sonal mis­sion state­ment. It is sim­ple to write a per­sonal mis­sion state­ment here is mine.

My per­sonal mis­sion state­ment defines what I want to be:

• I want to be a cre­ative entre­pre­neur that makes pas­sive income allow­ing me time and money to spend with my fam­ily, to also have adven­ture, and help oth­ers lead suc­cess­ful lives.

No where does this say what indus­try I will work in, nowhere does this exclude me from cer­tain things. This is impor­tant because your mis­sion state­ment should be flex­i­ble to allow for a change of mind, yet be struc­tured enough to give you a roadmap. This mis­sion state­ment out­lines your per­sonal val­ues, what you want to BE and what you WILL achieve by being this per­son. My per­sonal val­ues are tightly linked to free­dom, time and help­ing oth­ers. What are your val­ues? Hon­esty? Power? Fam­ily? Love? Adven­ture? Etc…

What val­ues do you think are impor­tant to you? What do you like doing and as a result, what might you like to be?

I found great sat­is­fac­tion in work­ing as a Para­medic because I was able to both have adven­ture and help oth­ers. Yet, it ended up not being totally ful­fill­ing because it did not allow me the time with my fam­ily that I needed.

Exper­i­ment with your per­sonal mis­sion state­ment. I would love to hear it! What’s hold­ing you back from Liv­ing your Dream?

Rec­om­mended Reading:

The Monk and the Rid­dle by Randy Komisar

Crush It! Gary Vaynerchuk

Refuse to Choose by Bar­bara Sher

3 Responses to “Are You Living the Dream? Part 1: What I want to be when I grow up”