Ep 13. You're Allowed to Change Your Mind
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There’s a strange moment that can happen when you’ve spent years working towards something.
You’ve put in the hours. Made decisions around it. Built your skills. Maybe even built part of your identity around becoming that person. And then you get close to it, or perhaps you actually get there, and realise you’re not sure you want it anymore.
That can be confronting.
Because when you’ve worked hard for something, changing your mind can feel like quitting. It can feel like admitting you got it wrong. And the longer you’ve been working towards it, the harder it can be to separate who you are from who you once decided you were going to become.
But what if it was right until it wasn’t?
The Decisions We Make About Who We Will Become
When I was 16, I decided I was going to be an accountant.
At that age, what do you really know about the working world? My uncle was a successful accountant. I was academic, I was good with numbers and from where I was standing, it looked like a good life.
So I made the decision.
And that one decision started influencing other decisions. The subjects I chose. What I studied. Where I directed my attention, I started building an idea in my head of who I was going to become.
I went to university, but eventually I had enough real-world experience to realise the reality didn't align with what I'd imagined.
So I left.
At the time, that felt like failure, like I hadn't followed through. Looking back now, I see it differently.
The decision I made at 16 was based on everything I knew and had experienced at 16. By 20 or 21, I had more information. More experience. I knew myself differently.
It was right until it wasn't.
“Identity can move you forward. It can also keep you there.”
Years later, I found myself in the car industry and eventually locked onto another identity: I wanted to become a Dealer Principal.
That identity was incredibly powerful for me.
It gave me somewhere to direct my energy, learning, habits and focus. Before I could become a Dealer Principal, I needed to become the best sales professional I could be. Then the next version of me. Then the next.
I spent hours commuting each day listening to audiobooks, podcasts and anything else that could help me develop. I changed how I approached my work. I stopped seeing it as simply a job and started seeing myself as a professional building a career.
I became known as the car guy.
Then something interesting happened. The opportunities I'd been working towards started arriving and I kept saying no.
That forced me to ask myself a different question. Why?
Who You Are Isn’t A Life Sentence
One of the performance gaps I talk about in my work is the gap between who we currently are and who we're capable of becoming.
I think we can become so focused on closing that gap that we forget something important.
The destination can move too.
As you work towards becoming someone, you're gathering new evidence. You're learning. Experiencing things. Developing confidence. Seeing possibilities you couldn't see when you first chose the goal.
You're changing.
Which means the version of you making the decision today has information the version of you five, ten or fifteen years ago simply didn't have.
That doesn't make the old decision wrong. It also doesn't mean you have to keep honouring it forever.
Sometimes an identity gives you exactly what you need for a season of your life. It gives you direction and helps you become someone you couldn't have become without it. But that doesn't mean you owe it the rest of your life.
What Still Belongs to the Old Version Of You?
This isn't about burning everything down because something suddenly feels uncomfortable. It's about noticing.
What in your life belongs to the person you were but no longer fits the person you're becoming?
Maybe it's your career. Maybe it's a goal you've been chasing because you've already invested so much into it. Maybe it's your definition of success. Maybe it's a habit, relationship, expectation or way you've always seen yourself. You don't necessarily need to do anything dramatic with the answer. Just notice where there's resistance.
Because changing direction doesn't automatically mean you've failed. Outgrowing something doesn't erase everything it gave you or everything you learned while becoming the person capable of reaching it.
Sometimes it's simply recognition.
Recognition that you've grown.
Recognition that you know more now.
Recognition that what was right for one version of you doesn't have to remain right for every version that follows.
The goal isn't to become who you said you would be. The goal is to continue becoming.