Before you set your New Year’s resolution. Before you shell out for a gym membership, or write a list of goals for 2021, I ask you to consider these two questions.
Who are you becoming in 2021?
Who do you want to become in 2021?
Becoming is one of those recent buzz words probably made more popular because of Michele Obama’s 2018 best selling memoir of the same name.
It’s a word that implies that one is coming into something or moving into one state of being to another; an unfolding, or the evolution of ones potential. Almost as if the outcome has already been determined by nature or some fate outside of ourselves.
But becoming is well within your control and that is why I asked you to consider the two questions above because one offers you more control over the outcome of your 2021 than the other.
The question, “Who are you becoming in 2021?” has a level of consequence to it. The question asks you to look at your life as an observer who is looking for the answer based on their understanding of the situation up until now. Karma will have had a hand in the answer to this question. It implies a logical sequence of cause and effect. If you continue on the path you are currently on, what is the plausible outcome at the end of 2021?
Now that is not necessarily a bad thing. If you have set a path for yourself with a long term goal in mind such as an area of study with a successful career at the end, then the answer to, “Who are you becoming in 2021?” may have a positive answer. You would be working towards unfolding into the person you have full intention of becoming.
But if you have no set path for yourself and are just living day to day with no thought to the outcome of the year ahead, or any year for that matter, then the answer to who you are becoming may be out of your control and left in the hands of fate.
That is why I gave you the second question, “Who do you want to become in 2021?” By giving thought to, and answering this question, you will have infinitely more control over the outcome of 2021 that the first question.
“Who do you want to become in 2021?” is meant to be more of a personal integrity question than a goal oriented one. Remember, becoming is an unfolding or evolution of ones potential. In order to become more than you were in 2020, you need to evolve into someone better in 2021. This requires raising you personal standards.
Becoming is a process not a goal. To become, is to make an intention and then make consistent decisions that are congruent with the outcome of the intention.
It’s a matter of mindset. What you think, is what you become. So if your intention is to lose weight in 2021, you will need to think and act like a person who weighs less. How do slim people live? What actions do they consistently do to stay that way? That is who you would need to become to achieve the goal. Who you became to end up overweight, is not who you need to become to be slim.
No matter the goal, no matter the growth or desire, in order to achieve what ever your mind can dream up, you will first have to choose to evolve into the person you need to be to accomplish it. That level of becoming requires a conscience decision to choose the outcome. It’s a package deal. Anyone can achieve a goal with enough perseverance and hard work but to maintain the goal, you also need to raise your thoughts, actions and beliefs, to become someone who can live the goal.
So even if you rush out in the New Year and buy yourself a gym membership then outfit yourself in state of the art workout wear, the odds are still great that you will fail at your resolution to become fit and healthy, unless you first choose in your mind to become a healthy and fit person first, and then consistently act as a healthy and fit person acts. Because if you go into that resolution with the old mindset of a overweight, lazy person and go to the gym every morning bitchy and begrudging, you will revert right back to your old habits and lifestyle.
Of course I am only using the example of health and fitness because it tends to be the number one resolution every new year, but the principle of becoming is the same for any personal growth goal.
So ask yourself who do you want to become in 2021. Then make that intention as if you already are that person. Choose to control your destiny this year by choosing your becoming. Let this year be the year you become the person you really were meant to be.