If You Want To Be A __________, Be A __________ Already
You do not have to wait for someone's else permission to be
When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
There are so many answers to this question. When children are asked this question, they commonly answer astronaut, doctor, teacher, firefighter, or professional athlete. One of the most interesting answers I heard once is someone wanting to be a garbage man because jumping on-and-off the truck looked like so much fun.
There is no wrong answer to this question. There are a seemingly-endless number of good, needed professions from which to choose.
When I was a child, I wanted to be an astronaut or a professional athlete. When I started growing up, I decided to try astronomy, journalism, and cartography — in that order — during college. Cartography stuck and became a career, but my love for space and writing never waned.
Writing especially. To wit, this newsletter.
I’ve always been inspired by great writing and tried to incorporate writing into my personal and professional life. Travel writing being a favorite genre. Over the years I’ve been influenced by travel authors like Geoff Dyer, Audrey Sutherland, Bill Bryson, and William Least-Heat Moon. By travel journalists like The Wall Street Journal’s Dawn Gilbertson. And by other great travelers from the past, like John Muir, Alexander von Humboldt, and Meriwether Lewis.
To that end, a few years ago I reached out to Dom Bonvissuto with a couple of pitches to write travel stories for his men’s lifestyle website, Jeans & Ties. Dom, he of the great writing (life?) advice, accepted both pitches and I wrote about trips to Iceland and Prague for his site.
That experience was beneficial in that (a) I got to work with a seasoned writer and editor in Bonvissuto and (b) it generated a bit of confidence and momentum with my writing. Both good things that, it turns out, I did not even need to become a travel writer. All I needed was just to write.
Dom’s great advice aside, the biggest lesson of all from that experience was this: That in order to become something, you do not need to wait for someone else’s permission. Decide what you want to do and begin at the most logical starting place.
If you want to write, then write. If you want to become a doctor, then apply to school for it. If you want to be a better boss, partner, or humanitarian, then find a way to improve yourself today.
Too often we seek extrinsic approval before moving toward the thing we want. We limit ourselves. What we should be seeking, instead, is our own permission to get started in whatever capacity we can.
I did not need Dom to accept those pitches in order to become a travel writer. What I needed to become a travel writer was to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and write about travel.
This year, if you are inclined toward something new but often limit yourself by “waiting for the right time” or “waiting for permission”, try a different approach. Make an audacious move. Stop waiting for the universe to give you permission and give it to yourself, instead.