Are Your Commitments Your Truth?

If asked, do we have a set answer for who we are? Is who we are nouns or verbs? Most people will go right to a few definitions usually starting with being a parent, then their work, and most likely a activity with which they identify.

I have often thought I am a parent, a coach, and a surfer. This is a pretty good description of the importance of my activities to me. But when I wake up in the morning, do I think of these three nouns? No. Our thought patterns tend to loop through our brain. Sometimes we get negative thought patterns of fear we can’t shake. Sometimes we get happy memories we don’t want to let go of. Sometimes we are consumed in anticipation of something we want or don’t want to do.

We Generally Describe Ourselves as Nouns Because its Easy

The nouns we use to describe ourselves don’t really play a big part in our day until its time to engage in one of those nouns. They are not necessarily our drivers. When I was an active parent, I was driven to make a living and what I did to make a living was my main driver. It is often a priority over all other demands. This is why sometimes we are bad parents or bad mates.

Let’s look a little deeper into our drivers below our easily tossed out nouns. The nouns don’t explain our uniqueness. At face value they make us similar to everyone else on earth. Our drivers are much more accurate in differentiating our uniqueness. If you take people’s drivers, the differences begin to stand out.

What You Don’t Like is Also a Good Description

The things you don’t like or won’t do might be as good of a definition of who you are as what you do. I don’t like to work for other people although I am totally committed to serving my customers. This can be a major driver because it means I want to be independent and will take the risks and insecurities of not having a paycheck. My older daughter is the same. My younger daughter needs to work for someone, and she is the most productive worker they ever experience.

This immediately defines the kinds of lives we have just from that one aspect. It might be a better insight into who we are than the nouns we use to describe ourselves because the nouns would make us very similar. My older daughter and I are therefore entrepreneurs and my younger daughter and ex-wife would never be entrepreneurs. This means we have entirely different thoughts when we wake up in the morning. Two of us have to make things happen and two of us have obligations that have to be fulfilled as part of our job descriptions.

How Ambitious Are My Daily Plans

Who I am is also the list of things I do in a day to make my life meaningful. I need to have creativity in my day which is writing. I need to have healthy nutrition which is a strong connection to Nature. I need to have exercise for those same connections to Nature and spirituality. These are all acts of doing or verbs. Writing, eating, and exercising. They get much closer to describing who I am.

My overall plan is to self-actualize by continuously improving on all fronts which are about four or five different activities. I consider my acts of self-improvement verbs and they are activities that are always in motion with goals, strategies and tactics. Would you have any understanding of who Elon Musk is if you met him at a party and he said I am an entrepreneur? No, because you would have no idea of the kind drivers that power his life and make him who he is.

Are you getting a feel for how who you are differs between the nouns and verbs? Nouns are general but the verbs of doing describe how you treat your life. They explain your dynamics and what we can expect from you. They explain your attitude about yourself, life and others.

My Drivers Are Most Descriptive About Who I Am

If I say my big driver is contribution and that my creativity and coaching are attempts to increase my contribution and all my meditating, nutrition, and exercise are to make me a more energetic person and better contributor, my life comes into greater focus.

We are as different as cars. If we all say we are a car, we don’t get much insight. If one says I am a Toyota Prius and one says I am an Aston Martin we realize these autos are built with entirely different performance standards in mind. One is economy oriented and one is performance oriented. By the same token individuals vary by the intensity and grandiose of their ambitions.

How does the ambition of the pet shop owner and that of Elon Musk differ? How does the intensity of commitment between a hiker and a person who is climbing Everest differ? They can both say they are hikers. How does the intensity of commitment differ between the person learning to fly a Cessna airplane and a person training to be an astronaut?

What we are and what we are committed to make all the difference in the world about who we are. Without ambitious commitments of growth, we are nouns. With ambitions to learn and risk we are verbs because we are in a dynamic state of becoming not just a state of being.

If two people say they surf and one is an average surfer but loves it and the other is Kelly Slater, 11-time world champion pro surfer, who they are is on entirely different planes. Maybe we should describe ourselves as nouns but on a scale of 1 to 10. I am a dad, but not a great one, maybe a 4. Another dad is the greatest and clearly a 10 on anyone’s scale.

So lets look at the degree of intensity we engage in being our noun. I like being what I am and it doesn’t take much work and the next person is the same thing but aiming for the moon. Assess what you are and what are your ambitions. Are you a noun or are you intensely invested in becoming the best the world has ever seen? You probably fall somewhere in between. How committed are you on a daily basis to find your full potential with all the risks that entails?

Read More

Emotions Are A Weapon Not A Hindrance

You Are in Charge of How Others See You

Thriving in the Tough Times

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