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Are you 100% certain that you know who you are and what you genuinely want? Maybe not. It seems like not many people know themselves so much. Otherwise, why do we all go blank when we hear the question that goes ''where do you see yourself in 5 years?'' We all go ''Ehhh, not a single clue?''
It is important that we know
Look, I don't want to make you feel bad because you don't know the answer to that question now. But I do wan't to put light on the fact that it's important that you figure out what it is. And it's important that you start figuring it out, now. Not tomorrow, or the day after, because truth be told, when it comes to making decisions, tomorrow never comes. However, when it comes to facing the consequences of the decisions that we did or didn't make, well, tomorrow is right around the corner.
So why is it that most people can't answer this question? I'm going to tell you what I think is going on. I could be right, I could be wrong. You're free to agree or disagree with me. But this, is what I think.
This is what everyone wants
I think that must of us are afraid to make bold statements regarding what we desire for our lives. Obviously everyone wants a happy, healthy & wealthy life. We all want tons of love flowing in and out of our doors, we want to feel that we're having a successful career, and we want to look in the mirror and say ''damn, I look good and I'm feeling better than ever''. We all want that. But we're also not sure how we're going to achieve that. We don't know what we should be doing for the next 5 years to get there.
Winging the right answer
See, when you start University, if you do a 5 years program and someone asks you where you see yourself int he next 5 years, that's easy. You'll say that you'll probably be graduating and looking for a job. But once you graduate, and you go on that first interview, and the guy on the other side of the table asks you the same question, you go blank.
It could be, at that point, that you don't know because you're lacking some work experience. You're not really sure what the field has to offer because you haven't gone deeply into it yet. So you kind of try to guess what the right answer should be. Maybe you'll say that you see yourself as an expert in something, or maybe managing a team. But you don't really know. You're just guessing and aiming for what you think would be a decent answer.
And then, 2 years pass, and you're actually closer to knowing what the answer to that question is. You may not be 100% of where you do see yourself, but you know where you don't see yourself. For a few years, you followed the path that you were supposed to follow, and because that wasn't as exciting as you thought it would be, you managed to spot here and there a few things that you definitely want to stay away from.
Still unsure of where to go next
But do you actually dare to shift? to make a change? to look in a different direction? Well, if you knew exactly where you wanted to go, you probably would. But because you don't, then you stay in the same place, doing the same thing, and still not being able to answer where you see yourself in 5 years.
If you knew...
This is my theory. If you knew who you are, what you like, what you enjoy and what you're good at, and on top of that, you believed in yourself, then you would be able to say where you see yourself in 5 years.
But maybe you do know
But the thing is that, maybe at the very core, you do know who you really are and what you really love, but you don't dare to bring that into the world because maybe, it doesn't fit with what the environment around you has made you feel is normal. And because you feel like the real you is not normal, and you don't believe that it's good enough to simply let it be, then you hide it.
You hide who you really are and what you really love, to fit someone else's idea of what's normal and okay to be. You hide it so deeply, that you even forget who you are. You start creating this persona, who based on some belief that you have, will fit better into the world around you.
The new you - A.k.a: The fake you
You create a new you, whose personality is fuelled pretty much by the wrong reason: fear. Fear of showing up the way you are. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of being too weird, too odd, too bizarre, too goofie, too friendly, too loving, too stiff.
Someone know who you are
So when someone asks you where you see yourself in 5 years, there's a little child inside of you who actually knows the answer to that question. There's a dreamer, that if you allowed to come to life, and gave him or her a plan as structured as the ones that you create for your fake persona, could turn that dream into a reality.
There's a little child in you, who does know who you are and where you could be in 5 years, if you made a plan that was aligned to the uniqueness of you. But the fake you, the one that you show to other people when you're too afraid to believe in yourself, that one doesn't know. The fake you doesn't know who you are or what you need to do today to be, in 5 years, where the real you wants to be.
So today, I'm asking you to look inwards. I'm asking you to tap into the little child in you, and I'm asking you to let him or her speak. I'm asking you to make space for that child to be, to play, to laugh, to create and to expand. I'm asking you to reconnect to the real you and discover who you really are.
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