I don’t wanna grow up. I just want to live to tell the tale.

Posted on Sep 4, 2013 in personal musings

via Flickr

(Peter Pan (1954) by quicheisinsane under CC license)

No, I don’t suffer from a Peter Pan complex. I just don’t wanna grow up and pigeon hole myself. You know where you get so good at something that you can do it in your sleep and no one can imagine you doing anything different. Yet when you get to a certain age, the question of your legacy starts to haunt you. Lately I’ve been wondering if my laissez faire approach to life is going to eventually bite me in the ass.

Recently, I’ve received an onslaught of articles on identifying your strengths, finding your calling, and others of the same ilk. I believe once you come across something more than three times, you need to sit-up and take notice. Since these topics touched on exactly what I was hoped to accomplish with this blog it seemed an appropriate first post to kick things off.

So I dug through the articles looking for wisdom. I found lots of information and some ideas to add to my never ending list of things to do before I die. But nothing was striking a cord until I came across this comment by Vishen Lakhiani, founder and CEO of Mindvalley:

Over the years I’ve come to stop believing in goal setting. Why? Because goal setting, or at least the way most of us are trained to do it, actually gets us to be obsessed about the how of attaining our goals, rather than the passion, the vision, and the beauty of the goal itself. In short, we get obsessed with the ‘means’, rather than the ‘end’. And this is why so many of us wake up at the age of 40 one day, dreading going to work because we were forced to pick a career before we could legally buy a beer.

Wow – it’s like he plucked the thoughts right out of my head! Vishen shared a seven minute exercise that all his employees at Mindvalley complete and post on the company’s vision wall so everyone can see what motivates and drives their co-workers. He says it’s the blueprint into their soul. Seemed easy enough to do and I could handle a little soul searching, so I downloaded the worksheet, The 3 Most Important Questions, and filled it out while watching his accompanying video:

 

The end result? I sucked at this exercise. In all fairness, you can only come up with so many ideas in a seven minute period (click on the image below to see a full size version). Not so long ago, I used to do something similar. I had a lengthy list of goals I updated and added to every year. But somewhere along the way I stopped. Not because it didn’t work. Many of the things I envisioned on my list came to be. I stopped because I felt guilty for the things not getting done.

3-goals-08-13But all was not lost. I did walk away with an Aha! moment. It’s not about the items on the list for me, it’s about the journey.

Was this the confirmation I was looking for? Maybe I have figured it out already. Doesn’t this make me a sort of modern day Christopher Columbus? Putting explorer as my occupation has a nice ring to it, and it just might satisfy those who questioned when or if I’ll ever find my calling.

Deep down I know I’m ok with not knowing what I want to be when I grow up. What I want is to have fun, experience new things, and live to tell the tale. That’s what I see my legacy being.

Did you ever struggle with figuring out what you want to be when you grow up? Why? Did you ever figure it out? If so, when? I’d love to hear your Peter Pan tale and any tips you’d like to share.