What do you strive to be?

What do you want your title to be in three years?

This is an interesting question that I've received a lot in meetings or training sessions over the past few weeks. Knowing the nature of the role you aim to be in is an important question to answer, but I believe there is a more significant question that this one doesn't encompass that everyone must answer to themselves first.

What do you strive to be?

Instead of looking at what you’re doing, it looks at the nature of how you will go about tackling it. What do you want your impression to be at a given work place? What impression do you want to make on friends, family and in relationships? What attributes do you strive to “own”? What type of person do you want to be?

For me, the answer to this is accountability. I want everyone I interact with to leave and know that I will follow through & get the job done. I value accountability over ambition because you can be a go-getter without delivering on every promise.

It is definitely possible to strive for more than one attribute as well, but choosing a primary and secondary quality helps you prioritize actions in many components of your life.

So what do you want to be? Actionable? A leader? Expert on a specific subject? Whether it’s a noun or an adjective, narrow in on some attributes and set goals around them.