Who Are You Becoming?

In the last post, we explored the question beneath all the others: Who am I?

Once that question begins to open — once you start hearing something more true beneath the roles and expectations — another question naturally follows.

Who am I becoming?

Not as a pressure to figure something out. But as a quiet sense of direction — a pull toward something not yet fully formed, but not entirely unknown either.

Becoming Is Different From Achieving

We’re generally better trained to think about achieving than becoming.Achieving is about outcomes — goals reached, milestones hit, progress measured. It’s concrete and satisfying in its own way. But it can miss something important: the kind of person you’re turning into in the process. It’s possible to achieve things that don’t feel aligned. To succeed by every visible measure and still feel, quietly, that something is off. The question “Who am I becoming?” shifts the focus. Not from the work, but toward the person doing it — and whether that person is moving in a direction that feels true.

The Pull Toward an Ideal Self

Richard Boyatzis’ work on intentional change offers a useful frame here. In a 2015 paper with Kylie Rochford and Scott Taylor, The Role of the Positive Emotional Attractor in Vision and Shared Vision, they describe two states a person can occupy when building a personal vision. The positive emotional attractor (PEA) opens you to possibility, creativity, and growth — it’s activated by connecting to your ideal self and what you genuinely want to become. The negative emotional attractor (NEA) is its opposite: triggered by pressure, obligation, and the gap between where you are and where you think you should be.What makes Boyatzis’ model particularly useful is its distinction between two kinds of change. Some change is driven by the gap between where you are and where you think you should be — anxiety, pressure, a sense of falling short. That kind of motivation can work, but it’s often exhausting and hard to sustain. The other kind is drawn by a positive vision — a sense of who you want to become and what that version of your life might feel like. That pull tends to generate more energy, more persistence, and more genuine alignment with who you actually are. The difference matters. One says: I should be further along. The other says: There’s something I’m moving toward.

When the Gap Between Real and Ideal Becomes Undeniable

I worked with someone not long ago who was successful, by most external measures, in a highly structured analytical role. He was capable. He was respected. He met expectations reliably. But something wasn’t right. He described a growing sense of disconnection — not from his colleagues or his organization, but from the work itself. It didn’t feel like him. What made it harder was the weight of expectation. This was the kind of role he was supposed to want. Leaving it felt like a statement about his judgment, his ambition, maybe even his identity. But alongside that pressure, something else was quietly present. A pull toward work that was more creative, more expressive, more aligned with how he actually experienced the world. Not a fantasy — a direction. Over time, through a lot of honest reflection, he made the move. Not impulsively — carefully, and with a clear sense of what he was moving toward rather than just what he was leaving behind. He shifted into a creative field, and the change in him was visible not just in his work but in how he talked about his days. That’s what Boyatzis means by the pull of the ideal self. It’s not naive optimism. It’s a well-grounded sense of who you are at your best — and the courage to let that vision do some of the navigating.

Holding the Vision Without Forcing It

One of the more counterintuitive things about this kind of aspiration is that it works best when held lightly. If you try to force a vision into a rigid plan too early — pinning down every step before you’ve learned enough to know what the steps should be — you risk committing to a map that doesn’t match the territory. What tends to work better is staying connected to the direction while remaining open to how it unfolds. New experiences will refine your understanding. Conversations will surface things you hadn’t considered. You’ll find that what you thought you wanted shifts slightly as you move — and that’s not a sign of confusion, it’s a sign of learning. Becoming isn’t something you decide once. It’s something you participate in, over time, with increasing clarity.

A Question Worth Living With

Rather than trying to map out your future in detail, you might start with something simpler:

If I were living in a way that felt fully aligned — with who I am, what I love, and what I feel called to — what would be different?

Not everything. Just a few things. How you spend your time. What you say yes to. What you stop carrying. Pay attention to what feels both energizing and meaningful. And ask yourself what one small step might look like — not to resolve everything, but to begin moving in a direction that feels true. Aspiration, at its best, is less about having a destination and more about being willing to move toward what calls you.

And if one question feels like a good place to carry forward, it might be this:

What stories or patterns might be shaping my thinking — and are they still serving me?

That’s where we’ll turn next.

Further Reading

• Richard E. Boyatzis, Kylie Rochford, and Scott N. Taylor, “The Role of the Positive Emotional Attractor in Vision and Shared Vision” — the freely accessible paper underpinning this post’s framework. The PEA/NEA distinction is clearly laid out and worth reading in full.

• Richard E. Boyatzis, Melvin Smith, and Ellen Van Oosten, Helping People Change: Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth — the most accessible book-length treatment of Boyatzis’ intentional change work; practical and directly relevant to anyone in a coaching or leadership role.