As a little girl, I’d often watch award shows, admiring how the women proudly walked the red carpet on their way to being admired and recognized for their work. I’d think, “Wow, it must be amazing to ‘be someone’.” I was enchanted by how happy, confident and fulfilled they looked, as they were being praised by millions of people for their work.
Admittedly, this idea of success and celebrity status that I had as a little girl carried over when I began pursuing a career in my twenties. While I did not choose the entertainment business or feel the need to be recognized my millions of people, per se, I did desire to feel like “someone” in my work — to be well-known, admired and valued. But, what did “being someone” really mean? Ultimately how you answer this question is important if you want to feel that your life and work has purpose.
You Help Write the Story of What it Means to “Be Someone”
Every day, as you strive, seek, pursue, enjoy and go about your daily tasks, you are essentially writing the story of your life through your thoughts and actions. Yet, there is also a story being divinely written through you. It is at the intersection of these two stories that you have the opportunity to build a life, moment by moment, of meaning, happiness and fulfillment. And a significant portion of these moments is spent working.
In fact, you’ll spend around one hundred and fifty thousand hours of your life either working, thinking about work, or planning and striving for the next step. That’s decades of your life in search of purpose and fulfillment just in your business or job alone.
That means, if you desire to feel genuinely happy in and with your life — to feel like “someone” — you must be clear on who you are, what you do and how you uniquely make an impact in the world. You also must find a deeper connection with — not just your own goals, desires and wishes for your work — but also God’s goals, desires and wishes for you.
Finding Who You Are in Your Pursuit to “Be Someone”
If you’ve ever questioned your path, looked to others to determine your success, doubted your worth, or desired to make a more profound impact through your work, then you’ve likely been on a personal pursuit to “be someone.” We all are to some degree. This is a significant part of the journey.
As a child, you want to “be someone.” You look to your family and those around you to help you determine many aspects about who you are. As an adolescent, you want to “be someone”, often looking to your friends and peers to find your place and help determine who you are. As a young adult, you want to “be someone” — you strive to find your way into a career, get married and start a family.
And then at mid-age to retirement, you begin to ask deeper questions about your life, your work and the purpose in it all. You desire to “be someone” in the eyes of your clients, colleagues, peers, children and family. You desire to be someone of success; to be looked at as someone who has it all together. Yet within you, there is also an understanding that these are not the only things that define who you are as “someone”.
In truth, you shine a special and unique light in the world and it is this mid-age time of work and family that you shine it in ways that form a significant part of the substance that makes up a life that is satisfying, meaningful and fulfilling.
Be More Than “Someone” in Your Work — Be You
Let’s focus for a moment on your work (as a business owner, sole proprietor or employee) because your work is a significant part of helping to define who you are, and it makes an important contribution to how fulfilled you feel in your life.
As you seek and pursue to be someone in your work, what you are actually seeking is to touch upon your higher purpose and understand what it means to, not just “be someone”, but to be you. God has a plan for every human on Earth. That means God created you with the intention and knowing that upon coming here, you would make a difference in your own unique way.
Every great work that you do and every great accomplishment that you have is done so through a collaborative effort between you and God. What this means is that you play a fundamental role in bringing about positive change in the world; and God plays a foundational role in making it all happen as a part of his higher purpose uniquely for and through you.
With this perspective, to “be someone” is not defined solely on what you do or who others define you to be; it’s based on something deeper.
You were not created to be just anyone; you were created to be you.
You may not be a celebrity, make loads of money, or be “someone” in the eyes of millions of others, but you are a unique individual and divine creation nonetheless who brings tremendous value to those around you. It’s important that you bring that to light.
So, the big question is not “How can I ‘be someone’?”; but rather, “How can I be the ‘someone’ I was uniquely created to be?”. In other words, it is about determining how you can use who you uniquely are to make a significant and positive impact. From my experience, it begins with understanding the deeper meaning behind who you are, getting clear on the true value of your work, and knowing how to connect with God’s unique purpose for you. When you focus on these three areas, you’ll find that you don’t have to be a celebrity to “be someone”; you just have to be you.
