Become what it takes

Numerous persons have already shared their dreams with me, their aspirations and what they want to ultimately become in life. Personally there are also things I aspire to become and some other things I had to give up entirely. There was a moment when I wanted to become an actor, another time I wanted to become a musician, astronaut, and all one not. Whenever a person shares their dreams with me, what I’ve learned to do is observe their current lifestyle, to kind of get a sense of whether they will be able to become what they want. If their current lifestyle can even sustain that. Most times than not you will have a person aspiring for a highly demanding position meanwhile they aren’t even able to manage a little stress without crashing out.

A lot of people aspire for the position of CEO, they want to be leaders, they want to have enormous wealth and authority, but they all have a hard time managing the little wealth and authority they have. It's hard for them to wake up early in the morning, to sleep late at night, they can’t manage people and easily enter into conflicts with everybody, and don’t even get me started on their financial management skills. They lack all these skills and yet their aspiration is for a managerial role which entails having a lot of expertise in all these fields. The same applies for other fields too, whether you are trying to be an actor, astronaut or whatever. Today with the internet you can already tell what skills are required for such jobs and if you are a good fit or not.

Who are you to begin with?

There is a percentage of ourselves that needs to change and another percentage which has to stay the same. The problem often arises because people want to stay the same much more than they need to and this makes everything extremely difficult. Whatever role or job you are aspiring to will require for you to become less of who you are now and more of what you need to be to fulfill this position.

You can’t expect to be a boss without handling stress, managing people and dealing with problems. You can’t expect to obtain fame without dealing with hate and extreme adulation. Even when looking at the opposite direction, you can’t expect to isolate yourself without alienating everybody against you, neither can you hope to live a modest life without being considered a hypocrite. I say all this to highlight the point that, no matter what we aspire for, there is a level of change which has to come or else we can’t attain that.

What you need to be

The point here isn’t to say that you need to fake it till you make it, there is certainly a level of hard work which needs to be applied in order to bring your aspirations to life. Its important for us to already get comfortable being what that is. For example, you want to be a celebrity, it helps to already start getting use to the pressures of such a role. I don’t mean you will go around claiming you are a star and looking for adulation, but rather you should get comfortable with the work ethic and the pressures which come with that role. If you want to be a CEO then you should already practice dealing with problems, stress, and managing people which are the main roles of every CEO. You need not wait to have that official role before you start acting it out.

In our aspirations, we tend to focus our attention only on the most lucrative and gratifying parts while forgetting the hard ones. Like an artist who is obsessed with jewelry and adulation and forgets all the hard work and endless days and nights in the studio trying to find inspiration. You aren’t going to wait to obtain recognition before settling in that role and learning what needs to be done. Being already what you want to be it makes it a lot easier to settle in to that position better than everybody else. Think about it, won’t it be easier for a manager with lots of experience to be chosen as a general manager over another person who might be way more technically competent?

You need to live the dream you want to see, act it out already and manifest that somehow into reality.

The reality

Most people I’ve seen with dreams and aspirations spend their time living like they see fit, without ever considering what they need to be doing in order to attain their aspirations. Often times they just think its something which will happen by luck and which will adapt to their personal character. Something as simple as waking up early enough is very difficult to do, yet they have aspirations which require that. How do you expect to manage people if you never show up early?

You are a reflection of what you want to see in the world except for the fact that you don’t want to accept that reality.

Become what it takes by doing what needs to be done, all these skills have to be honed for years. It's not when you are given the title you seek that those skills become relevant, it's quite the contrary.

Conclusion

Whatever your aspirations are, you have to start living them today and become what it takes. Ironically, this makes it much easier for you to become that. Live a lifestyle which goes in line with your aspirations, and eventually the title will just be one step ahead. It's hard to become something, it's much harder to continue being that thing, but it helps when you have been practicing for a while. The takeaway question for you is this, are you who you want to become already, or are you waiting for the title?