My college years were a blur. The only memory I have was the time I got caught cheating and a rainy Thursday afternoon.I rushed onto campus after sleeping through all my morning classes for the meeting with my advisor. I needed to get her clearance to schedule my classes for the next year.

Cutting to the chase, she told me:

“Look, we have to be realistic here. With your given gpa, you’re not getting in dental school. It’s highly competitive. It’s time for you to consider something else, like dental hygiene”

The rain picked back up as I left her office.

Good timing, I thought. You deserve it.

She wasn’t wrong. I was holding a 1.9 gpa. I failed chemistry lab twice.

When I got home and told my boyfriend at the time, he said: “I’m sorry, babe. But she’s not wrong”.

Neither was he.

It was clear the only one that was wrong was me.

I laid in bed that night with my eyes wide open. I stared into the darkness with a stark realization how much of a hole I’ve dug myself in. It was as if I finally opened my eyes and found myself in the dark for the first time.

If I wasn’t a dentist, what the hell would I do with my life?

I didn’t have an answer.

For so long, I had chosen dentistry as the perfect profession for me.

• It would make my mom proud

• I would make a lot of money

• I didn’t have to worry about begging for jobs and getting rejected.

All I needed to do for a life of prestige, luxury and comfort was studying — something I was already doing for over a decade.

It’d become my identity.

And because of that, despite a shitty gpa, a realistic school advisor and a useless ex-boyfriend, I became a dentist.

And made a grave mistake.

The Obvious Lesson: Identity Misalignment

We go through life with a split identity — one we cultivate in our head, and one shaped by our actions. All our problems in life arise from the misalignment of these 2 identities.

You imagine your life working out a certain way, but you keep taking the action that gets you a bit further from achieving that — just one more time. One more day.

And before you know it, years have gone by and you’re knees-deep in a place you don’t want to be, staring at a reflection you don’t recognize.

It doesn’t need to continue this way.

But don’t hurry yourself with climbing back up where you once were.

See, that’s the mistake I made in my early 20s after I slid down the self-destructive path.

When I hit that rock we call the bottom, I got my shit together and started walking upward. That’s where the mistake was.

Because the path upward took me back to where I wanted to be since I was 13, 14 years old. I never stopped to think maybe, just maybe, I no longer wanted to be there.

I was too busy shaming myself for having hit rock bottom, I took everything I had left to get myself out of it, ignorant to the fact that the hill I started climbing was no longer the hill I wanted to be on.

I was ego-climbing.

The Hidden Lesson: Ego drive

Every time we catch ourselves falling off of a cliff, our ego hurts. Our pride hurts. We are deeply ashamed and we want to be back in the place where the sky was blue and the grass was green.

I’ve done it time and again. With dentistry, with losing all my money and mindlessly grinding to win it back. I never once stopped to ask myself:

Why did I get here? Was it simply because I was taken by self-destructive habits, or was I headed somewhere that deep down I didn’t want to be?

And when I pondered on these questions long enough, the answer surprised me.

Turns out the reason I go through so many different paths in life is because I keep trying to head where I think I should be, rather than where I truly want to be.

You know — the place where my family would be proud of me, my friends would be envious of me and life would be all glitter and shimmering rainbow.

Why? Because deep down, I’m afraid.

It’s easier to go after what other people want because there is social proof that the gold is there.

To have what other people have feels like you’re doing something right.

To have what only you want…

That’s a different story.

Who will be there to validate that what I want is the right thing?

And it sounds absolutely ridiculous to say it out loud.

But that’s what we humans are capable of.

Absolute ridiculousness.

I started writing this newsletter wanting to talk about identity motivation. I wanted to remind you to close the gap between what you are doing and what you desire.

Rather than trying to stick to your work-out goals, identify yourself as the person who is in great shape.

Because when you identify as that person, like how I once identified as a dentist, you will achieve it against all odds.

But like most of my writing, once the word gets on the page, it takes a life of its own.

The truth is, as important as it is to accomplish your goal, it’s equally important to re-evaluate if you still want the same goal.

Your identity will morph and change as you learn more about yourself.

And what you want out of life will change.

Don’t be so rigid and ego-driven that you don’t allow yourself the freedom to walk away from something you no longer want.

So instead of giving yourself a stiff identity like a writer or a successful entrepreneur, think of yourself as a person who will succeed no matter what path they walk on.

What does that look like for you?

For me, it’s someone who

• never stops being curious about herself and the world

• strives to be stronger mentally & physically

• has the discipline to delay gratifications

Those are the only long term goals I set for myself this year.

Because I know that as long as I strive towards becoming that person, everything else will fall into place. I know she will figure it out.

And because for once, I want to give myself the freedom to go wherever the hell I want.

Today, tomorrow and the next 10 years.

Good luck on your goals this year.

p/s this was a weird and confusing article to put into words. If it made sense to you, let me know by clapping here 

Ciao ❤️