practicing / playing / embodying the person you want to be

09 Jul 2017

lately i’ve been getting so much more into play and imagination for a variety of reasons. this post is about the idea of practicing / playing / embodying the person you want to be (because, that is, after all, the person you really are).

i’ve learned about this “idea” from a few different places.

1. my old roommate and dear friend, annemarie, explained to me once that one of the ways she makes decisions is to play as if she had actually already made a decision and then seeing what it feels like. and then doing the same but for the other choice. imagine something like deciding whether or not to take a particular job: how does it feel to believe you have taken job versus having turned it down?

2. that idea has been extended via cyndi suarez’s thinking in her forthcoming book on power & play.

3. it has been further extended by gibrán’s thinking about experimenting our way forward through all sorts of things, including our own individual lives (a la seth godin, austin kleon & more), organizational change processes, and the evolution of our species.

now i’m working with people to not only map out different life paths with research and things, but also to act/live those paths out. i’ve done some of this myself, but it can go pretty far. i’ve done things like work in places i thought people i might want to be like work… or dressing like people i admire dress. this type of activity can be extended as far as seems valuable (act like, dress like, befriend different types of people, etc.)

so i was thinking all this coming off of a recent coaching session with someone and then gibrán posted this and my jaw hit the floor.

It’s a matter of switching gears, never looking back, and being the person today that you’ve always dreamed you’d be.

Entertain every thought, say every word, and make every decision from their point of view. Walk the way they would walk, dress the way they would dress, and spend your free time the way they would spend theirs. Choose the friends they would choose, eat the meals they would eat, and love and appreciate yourself the way they would.

After all, that person is who you really are. — gibrán rivera

crazy, eh?

words / writing / post-processing
296w / 9:52min / 5:38min