Steal These Thoughts 20.12.22 | Creating vs Finding Yourself

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Leave the cave, friend...

Also, not forgetting the usual dose of weird, wonderful and what I hope is helpful content from the rest of planet earth in my curated roundup.

👉 New podcast on how to prepare for 2023 as an L&D team dropped this week too. Only 7 minutes long!

The big thought

After I left college, I had a bunch of options in front of me to pick for my next move — join the corporate world, continue my education or (like many of my friends and classmates) go travelling to “find myself”.Now I’ve never been comfortable with the term 'find myself'.What the hell does that actually mean?Who you are at 19 is not necessarily the same person you'll be at 35.Finding myself at 19 would have meant that I loved video games, eating junk food, creating random small businesses and clinging to toxic relationships — my values were pretty weak and more centred around what my hair looked like.I'm actually still very much in love with my hair, FYI.With everyday life experiences and age, we mostly find some form of wisdom.Note how I say mostly. Not all of us are so lucky to get it.I read a great quote from Tim Ferriss that went:“You don’t find yourself, you create yourself”We learn through everyday experiences and continue to evolve.I’ve seen lots of friends & family who have struggled with identity and have used various methods to try and find out “who they are”.The most popular one that most of us have no doubt been in contact with is travelling areas of the world and burning through our finances.The pursuit in doing this is to find “ourselves” and then return to our actual life to use that realisation to go forth and conquer.

So, what did you learn?

The problem is I’ve very rarely seen anyone come back from their travels with any other learning than they became good at burning money and taking a billion-holiday snaps for Instagram.Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t travel the world to experience different cultures, connect with new people and have an amazing time.But don’t pin your hopes on backpacking for 6 months and expecting to figure it all out and become an oracle — sadly life doesn’t work that way.

My path, not 'the path'

Personally, my path was different.I poured myself into literature, podcasts, and videos and embraced new people from different cultures to understand new ways of thinking and experiences.The caveat for me is that I didn’t have to travel the world for 6 months and burn through multiple credit cards to live on a beach or in a sacred cave to chase enlightenment.You need to make the time to continually invest in yourself wherever you are.

Final thoughts

Beach or no beach is not going to give you guidance for life.Things change, we change, and we learn. We're in a continual flux of creation.So, try not to fall into the new year's trap of finding yourself.Instead, think about the 2-3 things you'd like to get better at in your time ahead.Below is a quote I always ponder in relation to the who I am conundrum.Perhaps it will help you too.“True happiness beats in your chest. Work out what you like to do best and try to do more of that. Don’t torture yourself pondering the purpose of life. It’s here, it’s now and it won’t last forever, so enjoy it.”  

TL;DR:

• You don't need a backpacking trip to find your identity.

• We're all works in progress.

• Focus on 2-3 things you can do better every year

P.S. Have an amazing festive weekend. I'll be back for one more edition before the year is out. Enjoy, folks!

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Combine this with my thoughts on the 5 easy ways to optimise your cv to beat 99% of the market and you might be on to a winner.

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Will this be a wonderful thing or another failed attempt at innovation? Only time will tell.

That's it for this week. Please do share your thoughts with me on these pieces or anything I share on the Twitterverse and LinkedIn. Chat to you soon.Don't forget to visit my website for more content.

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