Yesterday in Spontaneous Speaking, one of our Table Topics questions was:

“As a kid, what did you want to grow up to be?”

One participant gave a beautiful answer about geology and how much she loved studying it.

What caught me about her story, though, was that she isn’t a geologist.

She’s a life coach.

But that early love of geology left its mark. It shaped the way she sees herself as a steward of the earth.

My own story isn’t all that different.

I wanted to go into law since I was in third grade.

“You speak so well.”

“You like to argue.”

“You talk so much.”

That’s what I thought lawyers looked like. That’s what I was taught lawyers looked like.

So like most things I decide I want, I chased that dream.

And I caught it.

I became an attorney. I litigated. I was in court four or five days a week. I was living the life I had dreamed about since I was a little girl.

And I was unfulfilled.

I tried a different kind of law.

The feeling only grew.

It wasn’t until I went on maternity leave that I finally admitted I couldn’t go back.

But the guilt.

Oh, the guilt.

There was grief in it, too.

I had done exactly what that little girl wanted me to do… and then I found out I didn’t want it anymore.

The hardest part wasn’t realizing I didn’t want to be an attorney.

The hardest part was admitting that the dream I’d been carrying since third grade no longer fit.

What I know now is that the waiting wasn’t wasted. (Thank you, Rev. Mary Rodgers, for giving me those words.)

Those years gave me the resilience I would eventually need to change direction. They developed the communication skills I use every single day. They taught me to prepare, advocate, listen, think on my feet, and stand up when the stakes are high.

And they gave me the foundation for whatever came next.

They allowed me to become.

I think that’s the part we sometimes forget.

The becoming.

We spend so much time trying to become certain about who we are.

I’m a lawyer.
I’m a leader.
I’m a coach.
I’m a ______.

But when we become too certain about who we are, we stop making room for who we could be.

Sometimes the dream changes.

Sometimes we change.

That doesn’t mean the dream was wasted.

Maybe it was simply part of the becoming.

So keep dreaming.

Keep learning.

Keep living.

Keep becoming.