Do you remember being asked what you wanted to be when you grew up? This was often a question my teachers directed to the class at the beginning of a new school year. It was also considered a good opener by other adults who really didn’t know us all that well. What did I want to be?

Well, at eight years old I wanted to be a symphony conductor, a pianist, a singer, a teacher, and I also wanted to be a baseball player! In high school, it was my desire to be a folksinger, writing my songs and poems and performing them to anyone who would listen. By the time I had entered college, I wanted to earn my doctorate in literature and teach at the university level, while writing books and speaking publicly. Couldn’t we do it all?

What Did You Want To Be When You Grew Up?

Well, now that we are older and hopefully a bit wiser, it might serve us well to take pause to reflect upon our own childhood fascinations. Perhaps there was something essentially important, a furtive clue embedded within them, designed to guide us into adulthood with a purpose of its very own. Perhaps there was something there that called out to us, letting us know exactly what we wanted to do.

So now I ask, what did you want to be when you grew up? Was it a doctor or a fireman, a pilot or ballerina? Were you going to be a mom or a teacher, a veterinarian or musician? Whatever it was that you wanted to become, that innate desire was inspired by a soulful feeling inside of you, a feeling that excited you and somehow just felt right. You didn’t have to think long and hard about it; it was something you instinctively just knew. Maybe there was something about becoming an astronomer or a nurse that called out to you.

Whatever it was, it spoke to you in a way that made you feel happy, joyful, and enthused. So, what was it for you? Can you think back to when you were small and recall what it was that you loved to do?

Take a little time now, to let these thoughts dance within your being. It might prove to be useful, as you begin to explore what feels meaningful to you now.

Trusting our Internal Knowing & Inner Calling

As adults, we reflect on the origin of this internal knowing. We question its authenticity because we no longer seem to trust our instincts. We attempt to reason that because someone close to us was a carpenter, or multiple generations within our family have all worked their hands in wood, that this is indisputable evidence why we, too, should desire to build houses or make furniture. But tell me, how would that explain the child who wants to become a neuroscientist, whose parents know nothing of neurology or even human anatomy?

Why, from within a family of lawyers, would a child want to become a wheat farmer and work the land? From where do these seemingly anomalous ideas originate? Environment and biology alone simply cannot offer us a convincingly valuable explanation.

Did it ever occur to you that within those original childhood desires resided a blueprint for what you were meant to do with your life? Could there truly be something more than family genetics or environment at play here, calling out to us from some unforeseen origin?

Could we truly have been responding to an inner Calling, beckoning to guide us within our lives? It is very important for us to think on these things, as our reflections might offer us important insight into an agreement we made before taking the Leap, but can no longer recall.

A Different Path

But what if from the time that you were small, your life didn’t unfold in this way? What if, instead, your life was plagued by poverty or trauma and you didn’t have the luxury of living in a safe environment, feeling loved and cared for? If you were a child who suffered ongoing illness, never having the opportunity to enjoy dreamy thoughts and simple childhood pleasures, could you still have experienced an inner sense that you were meant to do something very special in your life?

It is a fact that an overabundance of trauma and angst occurring at a tender age can damage a developing heart and mind, leaving little room for that young child’s imagination to roam freely. If you were born into poverty or lived with a disabling illness, if you were a child of violence or had no stable family to call your own, then it is highly possible that you lost touch early on with that internal spark, that Genius that was born within you. It may be that you were simply too busy trying to survive within a world that held no regard for your sweet, tender soul.

While this is appallingly possible, it is likely, though, that somewhere within you, there is a place that has safeguarded this feeling, and now it must be carefully coaxed out into the open so that it may become refreshed and renewed. You just need to discover the steps on your path that will lead you to knowing how to do this and embrace your willingness and desire to do so.

Have We Forgotten What We Enjoyed When We Were Small?

It could be, though, that you have simply forgotten what it was that you enjoyed when you were small. Sometimes life has a way of blurring our vision and dimming our memories to those delicately poignant moments, cast to serve as glimpses into our possible future selves. But why would this be?

There are numerous causes for this type of forgetting, an escape from remembering, which often leaves us feeling abandoned and unsafe within our personal world, without our understanding why. Burdened by too much trauma, we might easily fail to see those prescient hints of our innate Genius, leaving us with a falsified and empty impression that life is nothing more than a dull series of random occurrences, strung together in some strange and discordant continuum.

And from within this discord and sense of mediocrity, a debilitating urgency may have reared its ugly head, directing you to grasp after whatever offered you the illusion of pleasure, not knowing when something “good” might pass your way again.

Regardless of the reason, if we have no idea of what we truly love to do, and if we do not experience any sense of personal meaning and value within our lives, this has the capacity to become the causative agent for aberrant behaviors and debilitating addictions. Unfortunately, this problem then becomes exacerbated by the circularity of its nature. When we are occupied by unhealthy habits and behaviors, this in turn shields us from any awareness of the existence of inner directive or internalized Calling, leaving us feeling empty and alone, not knowing how to move forward.

When we come to grasp this understanding, it becomes easier to comprehend how negative emotions of jealousy and competition can become a directing force for us. How can we love when we cannot trust the direction of life itself? Feeling abandoned and lacking in clear guidance, it is as though we were set adrift in a vast ocean with no sail, no rudder, no compass. Feeling lost, there is a yearning that begins to fester within us, a longing for the joy that we have missed out on and fear we will never know, and though we may not even be consciously aware of this, we sense it deeply, all the same.

Our Birthright: The Glorious Luster of Exuberant Joy and Love

Combine all these feelings into one small child and multiply that by several billion people, and we have the makings for a world that is lacking the glorious luster of exuberant joy and love that by design is humanity’s birthright. Sadly, there is a pervasive deficiency of faith and an overwhelming feeling of doubt blanketing our world within a smoky haze of mediocrity, and this is just not how it is supposed to be.

And so I ask, are we humans really like dandelion puffs drifting haphazardly in the wind, having no specific thought as to where we want to go or what we might like to do? Or are we, as a people, more inventive than that, creators of our own lot in life, attuned to some greater inner directive?

©2013 by Heather McCloskey Beck. All rights reserved.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Conari Press,
an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. www.redwheelweiser.com.

This article was excerpted with permission from the book:

Take the Leap: Do What You Love 15 Minutes a Day and Create the Life of Your Dreams
by Heather McCloskey Beck.

Heather offers guidance, stories, and dozens of practical suggestions for how to take the leap into the kind of life you've always dreamed of. If you've forgotten what makes you tick, Heather will help you find out. If you know what it is but aren't doing it, she'll help you clear a path. With Heather's help, you can take the leap from thinking about what life would be like if you could do what you love to doing it. Starting with just 15 minutes. Today.

Click here for more info or to order this book on Amazon

About the Author

Heather McCloskey Beck is an inspirational author and speaker, musician and founder of the global peace movement, Peace Flash. Dedicated to creating Dynamic Peace within our world, Heather is a columnist for The Huffington Post and frequently speaks to audiences across the United States, and is now expanding her reach internationally. With a growing following on her Facebook pages that has surpassed One Million fans, Heather offers both virtual and on-site workshops and events to inspire people to create lives they truly love. Here are a few of her Facebook pages: www.facebook.com/HeatherMcCloskeyBeckAuthor, www.facebook.com/PeaceFlash, www.facebook.com/TaketheLeapBook