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Today, I’d like to talk about redefining you.

I’ve never met someone who didn’t work hard at building their identity. That structure that makes you YOU. The webbing of your purpose.

In fact, I’ve spent my whole life building it. I’ve invested a lot of college tuition and coaching lessons along with devouring self-help books like candy. When the bookstore Borders lined every Main Street and before Starbucks sat at every corner, I’d sit in the coffee shop with a pile of books and a foamy latte.

I decided early on that I only have so much time here on this planet and I want to make an extraordinary positive impact.

Even as a kid, I loved the big hairy questions like why am I here, what is my purpose. I guess I was a bit of a weird child in that sense.

I’ve learned, however, that holding on so tightly to an identity can make it difficult to live in the present, especially when an event so debilitating causes the identity to fall apart.

That event came in the form of a microscopic tick bite with poison so clever that it harvested a concoction that would send my wife to a wheelchair not long after she crossed the finish line of her first half-marathon.

When my wife and I got married, we dreamed of spending our summers traveling the world. We started to make plans to move to San Diego where we’d make PBB come true. 

Poodle

Baby

Beach

Just four weeks after we said, “I do”, the paralyzing symptoms of Lyme Disease poured concrete over our feet. We were stuck in place.

No summer travel. No San Diego. No Poodle. No Baby. No Beach.

It’s been an incredibly hard journey, but I’ve learned to redefine who I am and my wife has too. I’ve learned the power ofThe Yet Mindset. Here’s some takeaways from what I’ve learned.

Three Tips towards Redefining You

1. Focus on What You Can Control

It’s way too easy to list all the things you don’t have: money, time, etc. So when it comes to moving forward in life, focus on the things you do have control over.

For instance, I look forward to one day owning a home near the tropical beach where I’ll get to play fetch with Ben the Poodle and go on long walks with my wife as we breath in the sunset. But that hasn’t happened, yet.

We’re seeing a world-class doctor and following a recovery protocol that takes medicinal wisdom from both Eastern and Western worlds and it has yet to bring about recovery.

What I do have control over, however, is my work. I can take the needed steps to work from my computer and be an entrepreneur. That way, when the day comes that her health improves to a point that we can move, we’ll be able to move quickly.

There’s a lot we don’t have control over, and to someone who likes to be in control like me, it takes a daily effort to push aside what I don’t have control over so I can make room to work on what I do have control of.

2. Add in the Word “Yet”

The word “can’t” will easily pervade the mind when something catastrophic like a chronic illness enters your life.

It’s okay to acknowledge that right now you can’t do something. I mean, if you literally can’t lift your leg because it’s broken, you can freakin’ lift your leg, right?

So add in the word “yet”. There’s a lot that I’m terrible at and working really hard to make happen, so I add the word “yet” in a lot to my daily lexicon.

PBB hasn’t happened yet, but it will.

I’m not a full-time entrepreneur yet, but I will be.

My wife’s not fully recovered yet, but she will be.

3. Build Your Own Support

Forgot the cliche support group. Build a network of people that empower you and support you in your goals.

For instance, my wife and I recently attended a weekend conference called Living Well with Lyme Disease at Omega Institute in New York. There, we met inspiring people and heard empowering stories from other people with chronic illness.

Find your own tribe of people that empower you and keep them on speed dial. You can create a private Facebook group for you all or meet at the local coffee shop once a week.

You’re the one who is ultimately in control of redefining you, but it’s helpful to have helping hands that keep you on the ladder. 

4. Consider a Quest

When Leon was sitting in his small apartment in Los Angeles, he grew so depressed that he thought seriously about ending it all right there.

Instead, he hopped on his vintage motorcycle and drove around the entire world relying on people’s kindness to fuel his quest.

Daring, oh yeah! A bit crazy, sure! But when Leon used the power of a seemingly ridiculous quest to drive him, literally, he found a deep sense of purpose. Moving forward helped him stay positive and he let go. He trusted other people to fuel him. And what he experienced on that voyage is that there’s a lot of love out there. The real fuel for Leon’s trip wasn’t the gas that drove his motorcycle. It was the love he received from the people he met along the way.

Here’s what he had to say when we sat down for a coffee chat:

Enter Leon

Chris Guillebeau helped me see how a quest can help someone drive their sense of purpose. In fact, he wrote a whole book on it called The Happiness of Pursuit. When I sat down with Chris, he told me that a quest goes beyond rational thinking. It’s not driven by material desires or left-brain thinking. It’s driven by the heart and the heart can be a whole lot more powerful than the mind. Here’s a bit of what Chris had to say about why someone may want a quest to help redefine themselves:

Enter Chris

So whether it’s a quest or just taking some time to write and connect your dots again, when something so powerful happens in your life that it literally forces you to redefine yourself, it’s no easy task.

It requires you to do something that many people ignore. It forces you to look inside, take a deep look, and speak to your spirit.

“We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.”

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha