Who do you want to be when you grow up?

One of life’s most important, yet often unanswered questions is “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” Have you stopped and thought about this question? Are you living your dreams? Is your life filled with richness of family and friends, passion for work, creativity in leisure and contentment in your spirituality?

Most of us are too busy surviving….reacting to our daily challenges, stressing on the realities of paying our bills, dealing with the demand of our jobs, raising the kids, taking care of our health, keeping up with the treadmill of life…. To actually prioritize precious time for our dreams.

The questions are obvious:
“Am I being proactive or reactive in my journey?”
“Is life happening to me or am I creating my way in the world”
“If I don’t know where I am going, how am I going to get there?”
“Do I have a GPS for my life and have I fine tuned the coordinates?”

I know that without a GPS, without a map or charts I can’t navigate thru the complexities of a journey. It doesn’t matter whether I am driving, hiking, sailing, or flying…. If I don’t know my destination, how do I expect to arrive there? Wherever “there” is? I will just end up wherever the journey takes me.
One of “The Secrets of Life” is to turn your personal GPS on and to constantly adjust the coordinates. The exciting thing is you never actually get “there”. It is all about the journey, being in the moment, finding yourself in the “zone” of being in the right place at the perfect time to maximize life’s experiences.

Sounds good. But how do I activate my personal GPS? And most importantly how do I fine tune the coordinates of the trip? For me it starts with visualization…. A detailed picture in my mind of where I want to go even though I understand that the closer I get to my destination, to my vision, the more likely it will change. This visualization includes my aspirations for achievement, the depth and intimacy of my relationships with family, friends, and God. The wellness of my body and mind, my passion for creativity and inspiration, and most importantly making a positive difference in the lives that I touch. The more focused I am on my vision, the greater the clarity; the easier it is to fine tune my GPS.

Planning the journey is essential. We all need goals and aspirations to motivate and measure our progress. If you want to be “You” when you grow up than you must set standards of greatness. Mediocre doesn’t make it. Mediocrity produces poor results. Setting the personal GPS to standards of greatness requires flexibility and management. As we move forward in life our environment is constantly changing. New opportunities appear at different cross roads, passion increases with discovery of our deeper selves and the positive emotional feedback of happiness. Planning and goal setting provides us direction but we must be open and adaptable to the changes in our world and more importantly, the changes in our own likes and dislikes.

Personally, I am addicted to change even though I am a planner by nature. This means that I am often playing with the dials of my personal GPS. The results have been beyond my wildest dreams. I have had many ups and downs, obstacles, and wrong turns along the way but for me the journey has been way more exciting and passionate than I could ever plan. When I am mindful of the moment, aware of my environment, and positive of mindset, life unfolds better than I can dream it up. It is magic and I feel like I have the best job, the best marriage, the best friends and family of anyone I know. And most importantly, “I want to be me when I grow up!”