Our past experiences increase our knowledge and skill, build our credibility, and create the foundation for who we are today. There is no denying that what we have done and what we are currently doing is highly relevant and important to who we are. But something else critically important to our identity is where we are going.
Where we want to go and what we want to do should define us as much—if not more than—where we’ve been and what we’ve already done. Bruce Kasanoff recently wrote an excellent article titled “Never Tell People What You Do.” In it he says,
“The happiest and most successful people nearly always have a sense of what they want to do next, or of how they wish to grow. They are able to say where they are headed, instead of where they have been the past few years.”
His bottom line: when people ask you what you do, “Whenever humanly possible, say what you want, not what you do.”
What you do doesn’t really define you—not completely. But what you want to do, what you hope for, dream about, and aspire to be—that truly defines you.
It may be that you’re already doing exactly what you want to do, and if so, bravo! But if you’re like most people, what you’re doing now might just be paying the bills and paving the way to where you really want to go.
So where are you going?
