The gap between who you want to be, & who you are.

I think most people, myself included, feel as if there is a massive gap between who they are, and who they want to be. I often feel this painful gap. But today the thought I have, and am latching onto, is this: “There is no gap between who I want to be, and me. Because who I want to be is a behavior, and I can do them right now.”

The feeling of this gap, and the pain is real though, and shouldn’t be ignored. Until this thought popped into my mind, I didn’t have the perspective to hold in a beneficial light. The gap is that we think of our “who we want to be” as the accumulation of the behaviors we wish we did.

Narratives of “I wish I was healthier” take hold, and we dwell on that. Healthier though, is a set of behaviors for most of us. Eating better, moving better, sleeping-breathing-thinking better. Next time I think; “I wish I was like Tony Robbins” (that’s a bundled image of super rich, fit, charismatic, and kind) I will break that thought down, and set to work.

There is no gap between who I want to be and me, because who I want to be is a behavior, and I can do them right now.

This brings up two more points that I feel need addressed. 1. Usually (for me) I/we think of a person or persona that embodies the qualities that I/we admire. I have my list, and I’m sure that you have yours. I think that it’s fine to use the images we construct of people as anchor points, or beacons in the distance to help establish the direction we want to move in. The dangers of what else our mind can do with these images are many, and the one I want to bring to the forefront is this. That person or persona is the accumulation of the behavior(s) you want to embody. You will not get there over night, or even in this life time (which might be important to make peace with.) The important thing, is whether you move in that direction, or not.

The gap is that we think of our “who we want to be” as the accumulation of the behaviors we wish we did.

The second point is this 2. A person is whole. As much as we wish that our lives could be simplified down to a specific activity or direction, most of us are not in a position where this is possible. We can’t just go live in a gym, and 4 years later, pop out as a fully formed Arnold Schwarzenegger. We have lives, and that takes time, mental energy, and dedication, all of which are finite. Because of that we can get over loaded, and default back into a state of “I wish.” This is one of my top 3 activity stoppers. Getting overwhelmed, pulled in too many directions, and feeling that if I can’t spend X absurd number of hours to do X perfectly, then why bother?

as long as the effort is applied to the little things rather then the dream you will grow.

The above two points bring to the fore-front the element of time, which is what’s tripping us up to begin with. It is so easy to think “I want X” (A body, mind, bank account etc…), and never get it, never even move towards it. Because its’ so far away in time, effort, will, even self. In my moments of grace, I try to think about how nature would approach the problem. Aside from the removal of ego, and perception of time, nature is indomitable, in that it is always moving on all the smallest levels at once, and this is a damn good approach! (Darren Hardy’s book The Compound Effect is a good example of this.)

I think of these raw expanses of my life like a clear-cut, it hurts, it’s ugly, there are all sorts of costs, and mostly a profound short fall in benefits from this barren patch of my life. But I can’t juts look across the valley to the verdant green slopes of the neighboring hill, and instantly have those qualities in my self. Nor will a weekend effort of planting bring back all the benefit of a healthy forest, though it will help. Nature’s approach is the one sustainable approach. Plant seeds, a lot of them! Millions of tiny efforts. Grow in from the edges, slowly grow up, from grasses, to shrubs. Build the soil back, then the seeds you planted all that time ago, the ones that will turn into big ripe trees can start to grow, and then time, more time, and more time, and as long as the effort is applied to the little things rather then the dream, you will grow.