3 Steps to Excavating the Real Version of You
On choosing life vs having it chosen for you, and what happens when you dig past layers of trauma, dogma and events
G’day champs, happy Monday!
2 things before we start…
Apologies for running behind on this one—moving house, a lot going on at work, trying to balance things has proven difficult, but it won’t happen again!
This idea was originally published 8 months ago. I wanted to revisit it because it is a theme that keeps coming up for me and so many of my peers. I have added some extra sauce to give you a bit more to chew on.
Ok, let’s dive in, shall we!
Like a lot of 30-year-olds from my generation, I had no idea who I was.
Not in the existential, crisis-mode kind of way. More in the quiet, creeping way. Like I’d just... become whatever life needed me to be at the time. Like I had evolved and morphed for survival so many times that I had no sense of who I really was.
The undercurrents of life events had shaped me.
Each moment, carving out a unique pathway for my energy to flow.
At 16, I was the golf kid.
Then a traumatic accident happened, and I became the rapper. Then a poker player. After that, a music business guy followed by an ASX Day Trader, which rolled into the guy who couldn’t figure out what he was doing.
Sprinkle in a few moments of being the MMA guy and the Podcast guy, with a quick detour back to the rap guy, and we’re basically at the present day.
I’ve been mostly not choosing.
Not choosing who I am, not choosing what is important, not choosing where my energy flows, not choosing who I want to be.
Thankfully, I have had some awareness around this. Not much, but some.
This awareness has helped me become a little more intentional around some of the more important pillars in life.
Career. Family. Residence. Relationship.
All approached with a lot more intent… let me explain.
When we enter this world, we are little, uncomplicated things.
Balls of joy… pure joy.
No labels. No expectations. No story about who we’re supposed to be.
Just unadulterated consciousness, our true selves, if you will.
And then, slowly, the world gets to work.
Parents. Teachers. Friends. Heartbreaks. Wins. Losses. The job you took because it was “good enough”. The relationship you stayed in for far too long. The version of yourself that just... stuck around because it was easy.
In this way, the world sculpts you. And you let it.
Not because you’re weak. Because nobody taught you to pay attention, nobody taught you intention. Nobody taught you compounding, or momentum, or second and third-order consequences.
You’ve been taught emotion and reaction. Do first, think later.
At some point, you’ll be faced with 2 choices…
Sit back and let that shit keep happening—life’s been pretty effective at doing the driving so far, so maybe just leave it be.
Or you can take the chisel back, take the wheel back (choose your analogy)
I know it’s going to be harder, but I know which one I’m choosing.
However, choosing and moving are very different, but these 3 steps will have you moving in the right direction:
Step 1: Raise your awareness
You can’t change what you can’t see.
We’re all walking around completely unaware of the lens we’re looking through. The assumptions we’ve inherited. The beliefs we never chose. The habits that we’ve morphed into our identity.
These traits that we believe make us, us, are invisible to most—the first job is to slow down long enough to see them.
Different things work for different people:
Meditation
Journaling & writing
Long walk without your phone
Reading something that challenges how you think
Sitting in silence and actually letting the uncomfortable thoughts show up
It doesn’t matter what tool you use to get there; just move slow enough to see the truth, however ugly that is.
Raise your awareness until you see the blind spots.
Step 2: Honest assessment
Once you can see clearly, you have to be willing to look.
Actually look.
And when you’re looking, speak plainly about what you see. Don’t be hyperbolic or emotional about it. Don’t be understated or overly optimistic.
Just spit them facts, raw and real…
Not the watered-down BS you tell the workmates at brunch.
Or the half-baked motivational shit you roll out for yourself after another week of getting everything wrong.
No. The real, hard, honest truth.
How’s your health, actually?
How are your finances, actually?
Who are you pretending to be, and why?
Are you happy in the relationship, or are you just comfortable?
Are you doing work that matters to you, or work that just keeps the lights on?
Some of this may not be fun. That’s ok.
That’s the point.
You’re not doing this to feel bad about yourself. You’re doing this so you know where to start.
You can’t fix what you’re pretending isn’t broken.
You can’t solve what you can’t quantify.
Step 3: Massive, committed action
This is what really separates the boys from the men.
Raising awareness is great. An honest assessment is amazing. Feeling the discomfort of being real with yourself is brilliant…
But then you wait… I wait… we wait…
Wait for the right moment. Wait until you’re ready. Wait until life settles down a bit.
Here’s the truth, though, gang… that moment is not coming!
Ready is a feeling that arrives after you start, not before.
The action doesn’t have to be dramatic. But it does have to be real, and it does have to be now, and it will look different for everyone:
Ending something that ran its course
Having the conversation you’ve been avoiding
Signing up for the thing you’ve been putting off for two years
Starting the thing you keep telling yourself you’ll get to eventually
Whatever it is—do it wholeheartedly. Not halfway. Not with one foot out.
Your future self doesn’t care whether you felt like it or not. They just want to know you moved.
The version of you that existed before the world got its hands on you is still in there.
It hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s just buried under layers of existing.
You don’t need to excavate the whole thing at once. You just snatch the chisel back and make one intentional strike today.
Then another tomorrow.
Then keep going until you have sculpted something worthy.
Alright, that’s it from me this week, gang!
With gratitude,
SAV
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Every week I show up and tell the truth about the work—the good, the bad, the ugly. I would love for you to join me!