I am confident in my current self, but I am not overly attached to it. In a world where people seek to define their identity, take personality tests, and categorize themselves, I choose to embrace the transient nature of my being.
The fixed mindset is an over-attachment to one’s current self, capabilities, and worldview. But I understand that my current self is temporary. The person I am today is as transient and fleeting as every other person I’ve ever been. My future self will be a different person than I am today. In fact, I will be more different than I can currently predict. Just as right now I am more different than my past self could have imagined.
For instance, twenty years ago, I worked at an elderly home taking care of old people. I worked with a cozy group of middle-aged and older women and at the time thought to myself that maybe I could stay there and make it my career. Right now, I can’t imagine how such a thought could enter my head, but at that time, I was craving a steady source of income and a comfortable work environment. Looking back, it’s astonishing how different my life is now and how different I am as a person. And it all happened in a matter of 20 years. Imagine where I can be in another 20 years from now. Taking a compounding effect into account, my growth will be exponentially larger than the one I had in the past 20 years.
Therefore, I don’t see a reason to attach myself to my current self. My future self will be fundamentally different, and I will see the world differently. Imagination is more important than knowledge because I become the things I think about. The whole essence of the growth mindset is that I live my life based on imagination. I view myself as a different person with enhanced capabilities, a better situation, more empathy, and more self-control. I will have skills and abilities I don’t have right now, and I will have the capability to travel the world and millions of dollars.
I know that who I am right now is not who I’m always going to be, and so I don’t overly attach myself to what I do. I can have a state of freedom and flexibility of trying new things and failing. If things don’t work out, I don’t overly identify with those failures because I know that I can be different, and who I am right now is just a mile marker along the way.
Rather than overly defining my current self, I choose to operate with imagination, anticipation, and excitement while still being present and in flow in my current self. I want to love my current self, be here in the present, and have vision and imagination. One way to do this is to have a long-term vision of my future. If I am playing a long game, 5, 10, or 15 years out, then I don’t need to force and rush myself to the next stop. Instead, I am in love with the game I’m playing, and I’m happy with where I am. I know that the game is going to evolve and change, but I’m confident that things are going to progressively get better.
