There’s a laundry list of things I thought I would be at this point in my life.

I thought I would be living in a different state than the one I grew up in, but I’m still in the same one.

I thought I would be in a long-term relationship by now, but I’m single.

I thought I’d have a job by now, but I’m building a career for myself.

I even thought I would be tall because my family always said I was going to be…yet here I stand at a generous 5’4.

It can be really hard to come to terms with who our Present Self is and who our Past Self thought we would be by now.

It can feel like we’ve failed and that we’re right on track to continue failing.

But what we don’t realize is that we have no obligation to become who we once thought we would be.

When we’re young and first start to gain a sense of self and have the ability to imagine our Future Selves, we have little to no knowledge of or experience in life.

Most of the ideals we have about ourselves come from the preconceived notions we have about life through the blissfully ignorant eyes of being a kid.

To an even greater extent, we build the idea of our Future Self upon a foundation of who others predicted we would be. When we first start visualizing our Future Selves as children, we have so little understanding of our Present Selves that we let others create our Future Selves for us.

Maybe you had parents who said you should be a doctor because you got good grades in science class in middle school.

Maybe your friends joked and said you would never amount to anything in the locker room during practice.

Maybe your teachers told you you should pursue a more blue-collar, hands-on job because you have ADHD.

The image we have of ourselves and our Future Self is, at its earliest stages, created by those around us.

Who we think we’re destined to become is based on what others think and say about us.

And as we grow, mature, and start to define for ourselves who we want to be, we still carry those preconceived notions with us.

Imagine if people said you were destined to become an NBA player because of your height, and you played varsity basketball throughout high school. Not only that, but you end up getting scholarships to different colleges for basketball. But instead, you decide you want to go the pre-med route and pursue being a doctor, leaving basketball behind.

Or imagine if people say you’re the fittest for the promotion to VP at your company, but you’ve already decided that if given the opportunity, you would decline because your workload will increase 10-fold and you wouldn’t be able to spend as much time with your family.

In these instances, you may feel as if you’re letting people down by not becoming who they said you should become. Even if you’re confident in your decision and feel in your heart that it’s the right path for you, the unaccomplished narrative can rest heavily in your subconscious.

At its worst, it can make you question if you’re on the right path, if you’re living up to your full potential, or if you’re making the right decisions.

It’s almost like the death of a part of yourself, whether or not you even wanted that part of yourself to be there in the first place.

When the foundation of who you thought you would be is built upon the ideals of others, you move through life mourning the loss of someone who was never even alive.

In order to fully overcome your past and shift your focus to your future, you must let go of who you once thought you would be.

It’s okay for your passion to change, it’s okay for your visions to shift, and it’s okay to be on a completely different path than what you or anyone else thought you would be on.

But if you don’t bury the person you thought you would be by now, there will always be some part of you living in the past.

And you can’t have part of you living in the past and part of you trying to live for the future. It’s all in or all out.

Say goodbye to who you thought you would be and focus instead on who you can be, who you want to be, and who you are destined to become.