Before You Can Become You, You Have to Know You (01)

Welcome to the very first episode of The Becoming You Project — a podcast about reinvention and realignment, and reclaiming all that it is to be you. 

In this debut episode, Jess Callahan invites you to explore a question that so many of us eventually face:
 “Is this my life… or the life I was taught to want?”

We talk about what it really means to "become you"—not as a self-help cliché, but as a radical and necessary act of coming home to yourself.

We’ll look at the invisible map society hands us:
Be productive. Make people proud. Never ask for too much.
Check the boxes, keep the peace, follow the script.

But what happens when all of that still leaves you feeling… off?

This episode visits ten questions we should ask ourselves if we want to gauge how self aware we really are. Questions like – 

1. How does your body communicate to you that it’s headed into overwhelm?
2. When do you feel the most like yourself in life?
3. What is the core wound that you’re healing in your lifetime?

Whether you’re deep in burnout recovery, walking through a season of change, or craving more authenticity and clarity in your purpose-driven life—this episode is your invitation to go inward.

To download the core values finder, follow this link: https://www.jesscallahan.com/core-values-finder

For more from Jess Callahan, visit: www.jesscallahan.com

Or let's connect on --

Instagram - @jesscallahan_

Substack - becomingyouproject.substack.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey there, I'm Jess Callahan and this is The Becoming You Project. This is a podcast about reinvention and finding your voice and your purpose. It's about redefining success on your terms and small acts of rebellion against the systems that keep us overwhelmed. Because your path to becoming you has ripple effects that shift the world around you. So let's dive in. Hey guys, welcome. I'm so excited to be here. This is the very first episode of the Becoming You Project. And I really wanted to get started today by talking about what Becoming You actually means and just dive in a little bit deeper into this whole idea of self-awareness. So how do we know that we are living authentically? How do we know that we are showing up as the truest version of ourselves, and it's not just something that we're telling ourselves. Because this idea of living authentically can be something that feels really uncomfortable. And truth be told, we are all really wired to avoid what feels uncomfortable. And so self-awareness can be something that we tell ourselves that we've done, we've checked that box, but really there's so many more layers to peel back So many of us live our lives by this invisible map, and it's not a map that we chose ourselves. It's a map that we were more or less handed in our upbringing, and it's a map that's been passed down generationally for centuries. But we're told that if we follow this unspoken series of instructions, this map, that we get to live the good life. And so we are agreeable. and productive and we strive to make people proud. We climb the ladder. We're grateful. We are always so grateful and we are very careful that we never ask for too much. And we do it. We play the part. We check the boxes. We fill in the blanks. We are sold on this idea that the good life means that we have great career. We find a relationship. Maybe we have kids. We get this house with a white picket fence. And maybe the idea of the idyllic house is changing, but owning a house is definitely on that list. Hustle on that list and finding balance. I'm using air quotes here. Finding balance also on this invisible map. But somewhere along the way, this feeling starts to creep in. Maybe it starts as like a dull ache, a quiet knowing, this like void that takes root in the deepest parts of you. And the more you try to ignore it, the more it grows. And it like, it presents us this small voice inside of us that asks us, is this my life or is this the life that I was taught to want? Right? And why am I so tired even when I'm doing everything right? I'm using air quotes there, right? And why does it still feel like something's missing? And that, my friend, is where the Becoming You Project begins. It begins in this moment when we decide that it's time to stop following the invisible map. It begins in the recognition that... People-pleasing is really just a way of deluding ourselves, of deluding our personalities, our perspectives, and ultimately the unique gifts that each of us has to share with our world. And we do it so that we don't offend anyone. We don't share our perspectives and opinions. And I think a lot of times we don't even let ourselves form real perspectives and opinions because we're so afraid of offending someone because we have been taught that we are supposed to appeal to everyone. But when we shed these layers and we really like follow this path, commit to this path to becoming our truest selves, we know that we'll find deeper meaning. We'll begin to live our purpose. And then we can make these soul connections that light our worlds on fire in the best possible way. Think about a snake. A snake doesn't shed its skin because it's broken or something's missing. It sheds its skin because it has outgrown the old layer or the past version of itself. It is literally a biological necessity to shed its skin in order to keep growing. So the first step of This whole idea of becoming you is really where I want to focus time for the rest of this episode. The first step to genuinely knowing ourselves is having the courage to recognize how much we don't actually know ourselves. And I know it sounds sort of contradictory, but it is. It's really easy to just tell ourselves that we know ourselves. another box that we checked, you know, it's like, I know that self-awareness check, but like self-awareness is a lifelong journey. It is a path that we commit to following for the rest of our lives because we're constantly changing and shifting and evolving. And we live a different version of ourselves every year, every week, every day sometimes. And Without being really in touch with that process and how we're changing and where our edges are shifting, we don't know ourselves and we don't know that we are living life to its fullest and getting the most out of life. We're not being honest with ourselves and so we're not able to show up in a way where our light can shine the brightest. There's a research study that I read a while ago and it changed my life. It changed my entire perspective on self-awareness and my own self-awareness. So Tasha Yorick, she's an organizational psychologist and she did this research study that involved more than 300 organizational leaders. And the study found that high self-awareness correlates strongly with Things like performance, trust building, how well these leaders communicate with others and make decisions. It found that leaders who are self-aware are more promotable, better at managing teams, less likely to derail their own success, but it also leads to better relationships, lower stress levels. And so even though the research comes through a professional lens and success really means something different to everyone, one of the most powerful findings is really relevant to all of us. It's in this idea of there being a self-awareness gap. So her research found that if you were to ask a large section of the general population if they're self-aware, 95% of people would say yes. But the research actually says that only 10 to 15% of people have true self-awareness. And so she says that that means a huge number of people are lying to themselves about themselves every day. And I think that that's shocking in some ways, but also not shocking at all because I do I think that I think that this is one of the biggest lies that we tell ourselves in our lives I think that we I think it's deeply uncomfortable for us to go inward to really be like introspective about the things that drive us that shape our behaviors and I think that the idea of like facing our shadow is really uncomfortable and so we just you know it's an automatic response we're just like yep I know myself cool and But we don't go any deeper. And some of us do. But even then, I think that we reach this inner plateau, sort of like this inner depth that we have to revisit with intention if we want to go deeper. And the deeper you go, the more meaning that you're able to derive out of your life, the more fulfillment that you get, the more this void of something missing disappears because all along, as we search to fill this void that something is missing and we fill it with these yes projects and we take on new roles and we take new courses and we're just constantly taking on more to fill the void, but really the thing that's missing is us. It is our connection to the self and Okay, so I came up with a list of questions that we can each ask ourselves to gauge how well we know ourselves. And it's not, this is by no means like a complete list of questions. These are just, you know, in the work that I've done and in my own journey, these are the questions that I think have been the most profound in helping people peel back new layers in this like quest of becoming closer to our authentic selves. The goal here isn't to really expose how much we don't know ourselves. It's more of an invitation to just introspect and to take a little bit of time to go deeper in some of the areas that maybe we didn't realize that we maybe like lack self-knowledge or just some areas that we could just like focus on, invite into our meditations, do some journaling around, do some active research and inner investigation on where we really stand on some of these things. So I'm going to go through the questions with a couple of examples, and I'm excited to hear what you come up with. I'm excited to hear if you're able to peel back any more layers or what you've learned about yourself on your own journey of self-discovery. Here's the first one, and I think that this is really It's another one that we pretty quickly have an answer to, at least like in the discussions that I've had with other people. But I invite you to kind of take this a little bit deeper, sit with this a little bit more. Okay. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? And the answer, like the being in the middle doesn't, it's not an actual answer. So I think that there are like 5% of people who are true ambiverts, which sit in the middle. It's a spectrum. We all have some introverted qualities. We all have some extroverted qualities in us. But which side of the spectrum do you fall on? And one of the reasons that this is so important is because whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, really, it depends on it. It also... can help you with like energy management. It depends on how you refill your energy after a long day. So do you refill your energy in solitude or is it being around other people that really fills you up? So like say you've been at a conference all day and you have just been conversing with other people about, you know, the same topic. You've maybe been on your feet. You have just, you're just tired. You're You cannot wait to dot, dot, dot, fill in the blank. So are you really excited to go back to your hotel room to put on some comfy PJs, to read a book maybe, and to just like sit in your own energy to rejuvenate? Or do you really want to go out with colleagues for a happy hour or dinner at a restaurant or a bar and it's that being around other people that really fills you up at the end of the day? I think that when we know this about ourselves, we're able to shift our lives, shift our schedules around making sure that we have the right balance of energy in and energy out. we're able to really own this idea that if we know we're moving into a phase where things are just going to be busy and they're going to drain our energy, we can sort of just accept the fact that we need to, if you're an introvert, you need to really build in time at the end of the day to recoup your energy. Or maybe you've had a really long stretch of energy out, things that drain you and so you need to block off a couple of days where you don't have like outward facing meetings or phone calls you can still do whatever it is whatever work that you're doing create whatever it is that you're creating but you just have different cycles that you ebb and flow with so that you're sure that you can replenish yourself okay the next question is what What are your values? And this is another easy question. I think it's really easy for people to just say, I know my values and then rattle some off. Maybe if pressed further, it's actually kind of a hard process. It's a hard process to go through in order to really figure out what your values are. And I'm not talking about values that have been passed down from like your family or certain groups that you associate with. I think that a lot of times it's easy for us to just attach like what we think our values should be based on our upbringing or, you know, maybe it's like religious groups, political groups. And so, you know, and it helps us avoid the deeper, maybe sometimes more uncomfortable work of figuring out what our own true values are and how do we really like, how do we really like pit some of them against each other in order to come up with this list, a short and really intentional list of what guides us. So I encourage you, if you don't know what your personal values are, I have a values finder that I can link to, or you can just, you can go online and figure out how to do it. But I really like to do it like one of those March Madness brackets, like start with a list of a ton of values and just circle the ones that stand out to you. And then basically like the March Madness bracket, go through the values, kind of pitting them against each other left to right until you come up with your top. Three is usually the number that is advisable, but I think I have five and I'm okay with that. I don't feel the need to... to narrow mine in anymore. I feel really strong about my values and I'm good with five. So you pick the number, only you know what that number looks like, but take the time to really sit and figure out what's important to you. I think that as we go through this process of finding our voices, finding ourselves, these can be sort of like the guardrails to figure out what's that hill you're willing to die on or where, if you're Know yourself through the formation of perspectives and opinions. Your values, that's a really good, those are really good like bumpers sort of to press up against as you start to figure those things out about yourself. Okay, the next one is what are the signals that your body sends you when you're headed into overwhelm? I know from personal experience and then just from being really curious and living in this space for a while now, that there are a lot of us who ignore what our bodies tell us when it comes to overwhelm. We push through because we live in this world where we derive our value from productivity and whatever it is that society calls success. We associate value with success. climbing a ladder of some sort, job titles, how much money we make, output and income. And so we ignore what's going on in our bodies because there's just so much noise. We just keep going. We don't pause. We don't rest. We don't take moments of true silence. mindfulness to really like observe what's going on in our bodies and what the subtle cues are and so that's why so many of us are living in overwhelm burnout even like functional freeze when not to get too techy but it's like it's a part of our nervous system where we just we freeze things feel stuck and frozen and our minds are really overwhelmed and when your mind is living in a perpetual state of overwhelm, it's really hard to do something different. It's really hard to think differently. It's hard to make a different choice because your body is just operating off of like the first thing that makes it feel safe. So in order to really like peel back those layers, we start by listening to the body and figuring out how the body tells us that we're moving into overwhelm. For me, I really like ignored these signals for years and years. And eventually I ended up in a chronic pain flare up with a fibromyalgia diagnosis. And it took me a really long time to really understand what was going on. It has been the journey of my life to heal my nervous system. And it's something that I will have to continue to do for the rest of my life because I just perpetually and habitually ignored these signs. of overwhelm that just, you know, it led me on this path to no turning back, I guess. Okay. The fourth question is another question that has to do with listening to the body. The question is, what does your intuition sound like? What is your body's yes? And what is your body's no? So that's all one question. So, okay. I'll give you an example. When When my body is telling me that something is a yes, I feel light. I have a lot of clarity and breakthroughs, and I find that there are a lot of synchronicities that start to support whatever path that I'm on. If it's a yes, my own body and my own intuition affirm the fact that it's a yes. If it's a no, I find that this one's a little bit harder to explain, but I'm going to try to explain this feeling in my body that I get this knowing. It's a sense of knowing. So if I'm asking myself a question and the answer is no, when I use my mind's eye to sort of look in the direction of this question, my body sort of contracts and everything feels better. blocked and there's no clarity. There's no, like I have to work really hard to figure out what the next right step is or what the path forward looks like. Everything feels really blocked. And to me, that's a no. Or like if I'm getting some sort of message from, from my intuition and it's something that I need to pay attention to, I feel it right in like the core of my stomach, right where my ribs meet in the front. And I know I get this like, just this like deep feeling and it's like, pay attention here. It's time to listen. And I think similar to, you know, what we just talked about with your body's signals when you're We override our intuition all the time. Not to mention, I mean, I'm gonna go into this in another episode, why we've been so disconnected from our intuition. It's literally this like systemic disconnection that has happened intentionally for centuries. So we've been taught not to trust ourselves and our intuition, but there's also just so much noise in our environment that it's almost impossible unless we are really intentionally listening to the signals coming from our body because intuition really does live in the body first. Okay, the next question is, what is the core wound that you're healing in your lifetime? This one's a little bit deep, but it nods to like none of us leave childhood unscathed. So like so what are what's just like the stuff that you carried with you into adulthood that you need to unpackage and really work with? If we turn to astrology for some context on this one. Chiron is, it's like a minor planet meets a comet. And in the world of astrology, it's known as the wounded healer. And depending on where Chiron sits in your natal chart and the relationship that it has to other planets in your chart, it helps us understand what the core or initial wound is that we've really had to work through in our lives. And the lessons of Chiron are also in this idea that when we heal the wound and when we integrate that healing, we're able to use those lessons in our soul's purpose or in how we are able to help others. So some examples of Chiron wounds might be that you might have wounds related to self-worth or identity or Maybe you have wounds associated with like self-expression or a fear of judgment or being misunderstood. You could have wounds around emotional security. You could have like wounds around like feeling emotionally disconnected or struggling to feel safe in the world. You may have a fear of rejection or wounds related to perfectionism and self-criticism. These are just like a couple of the examples of the wounds that Chiron can point to. Your core wound, you don't have to look at it through the lens of astrology. I will dive into more astrology later because I do really love it as a tool for learning the self better. But either way, this is something that you can do shadow work to discover. You can work with a therapist, but there are core wounds that you are either actively working to heal or they are actively, but subconsciously shaping your life. And so what are the core wounds that you are working to heal? And then how can you use that healing to help those around you? Question six is what are your inner resources? What are you really good at? And in what situations do you shine the brightest? I think that sometimes when we focus on the things that we're really good at, it can be seen as like arrogant or braggadocious. That's such like a ridiculously big word, but okay, you know where I'm going. It's like we sometimes we stop ourselves from really leaning into our strengths at times because we don't want to be seen as being, you know, overly confident in that way, but it's really important that we know what are the gifts that we bring into a certain situation? What are the gifts that we bring into this world? And I think that at the same time, that leads us into the next question, which is like, what are the core challenges that you're working through? I think when we know our strengths and our weaknesses and we know them intimately, it helps us in relationships. It helps us in work situations. It helps us with our own relationship with ourselves and the goals that we set, the confidence we build when we're able to achieve them, or how it impacts us when we fail, depending on what your relationship is with this word failure, it really shapes how we work through life in all of these areas. And knowing our strengths enables us to put us in these positions where we can shine the brightest, but it also enables helps us to understand where those edges are, those growth edges and what we need to work on in order to make improvements in our relationships and our work product and the things that we're creating. So seven specifically, I have, what are the core challenges that you're working through for yourself and in your relationships? So really not, not shying away from the knowing that we all have stuff to work on. We all have stuff that we need to just dive into more deeply in order to peel back these, um, like layers that can be preventing us from having just like deeper, more honest connections with others. Okay. Number eight, this one may or may not, um, you may or may not like this one, but how do you feel about political movements and social issues? And you, you can't say I'm not political because You can't say, I don't like to get involved in this stuff because living life, especially right now, is to be political. When you make a choice to not form an opinion, it doesn't mean that you have to protest or shout it from the rooftops. But when you don't form opinions, when you don't figure out how you feel about certain situations, that non-action is also political. being political. Non-action is still action. And so you have to make a choice. But I think that when we do take the time to understand what it is that we believe and feel about these certain situations and things that are happening, some of this might tie back to your values and finding the edges of your belief systems in order to find your voice. Or maybe it's really just an internal process that helps you Just know yourself better. But I think that when you make these opinions, it helps you understand yourself better. It helps you understand where you kind of fit into this larger society as a whole. It helps you figure out how you're able to do whatever it is that is the work of your life. How are you going to pursue your purpose? A lot of times, political and social issues... shape that. And so it's not until you start to look in that direction and start to really dig into how you feel about certain things that you're able to kind of crystallize what the path to more or what's next really looks like. Okay. The next one is when do you feel the most like yourself? And this is a really loaded question, but what are the things that you're doing or the people that you're around or what are the activities that just fill you with joy and inspiration and they don't drain you. It's a place that you can go. It can maybe be a safe space, a space of comfort, a space of pushing you outside of your comfort zone. But what is it when you start to feel disconnected from yourself or you start to feel the weight of life on your shoulders, or you just start to feel uninspired, where can you go to reconnect with inspiration? For me, I found, I'm going to go back to astrology here, but if you're familiar with astrology, you know that there is a sun sign, a rising sign, and a moon sign. A lot of times we all associate ourselves with our sun sign. It's the easiest one. The sun was in Scorpio when I was born. I'm a November baby, and so I'm a Scorpio. That's my sun sign. And one of the very first things that I really was able to embrace about myself from astrology is I'm a Sagittarius rising, and Sagittarius is, among other things, about life. adventure and the pursuit of knowledge and new experiences broadening worldview. And I've always felt really connected to travel, but over time I started to tell myself that it was really just trivial. It was a luxury. It was something that I would do when I wasn't in hustle mode or needing to achieve and that I would put it on the back burner until I reached my goals. And then I really just started to realize that like travel is the thing that unlocks the the part of me that can connect with inspiration. And so when I travel, I meet a new version of myself. I find out more about myself. I'm able to show up better in my life and push my professional pursuits, but also I show up more balanced for myself and my kids. And that's just my own personal thing. That maybe travel drains you, but maybe it's creativity, picking up a paintbrush. Maybe it's going out with a group of friends and just laughing all night. Maybe it's just spending a night in with your kids, like watching TV. Maybe it is total solitude, a walk outside. It can be anything, but only you know that. Only you can figure out what it is that fills you up. And so I encourage you to find that thing. And again, this is not an easy, you're not just going to Flip a switch, check a box, and you have found it. It's something that you really have to sit with and contemplate and maybe continue to experience life for a while. And then you start to just recognize like, hey, this feels really good. Like I feel really, really inspired after doing X or fill in the blank. And so you note that to yourself. And it's just, it's a seed that you plant now that you come back to later when you feel those little like sparks of inspiration. Okay. And the last question is, When we're talking about the work that you do on a day-to-day basis, what inspires you and what drains you? What's the work that you could do all day and you would still feel energized and in flow? And what's the work that you avoid doing that you're You might tell yourself that you're not good at doing. It's really just like it is a massive energy expenditure. I'm going to use the example of the working genius. This is one of my very favorite personality type tests. It really has to do with the work of your life. And that doesn't have to be professional work. This can be creative work. It can be work that you do at home, in your family unit, any work that you do. So the idea behind the working genius is that in any like project or work, there are six different phases or types of work and that we all do all of them, but there are two that are a genius and two that are our areas of frustration, which leaves two that are sort of like that in between. So When you're working in your genius, you could do this work forever and it's inspiring and it fills you up. But when you're working in your frustrations, these are the energy drains. This is where you just, you burn out really quickly. And then those like the competencies, the two in the middle are the areas that you can do them. You are perfectly capable of doing them. You might even do them really well, but if you do them for too long, ultimately it will drain you. And so I'll go through them really quickly, but I really encourage you if this interests you at all to Look at the Working Genius podcast. There's a book. There's this whole just like work methodology that you can follow. But the six phases are wonder. And this is the part of the work where you can really like just sit with a problem, you know, trying to figure out whether there's a problem to begin with. Does something need to change? It's sort of this area of like observation and contemplation. The next one is invention. And this is the area where we're just coming up with big ideas, new ideas. They don't have to be great ideas, but just like creating something new. The next one is discernment. And so this is where we have like somebody who's good at discernment is really good at quickly identifying if something's a good idea or a bad idea. It's like a really good... intuitive radar. This person is the one you go to when you really want advice and you know that they are going to give you thoughtful advice, but that's like rooted in intuition almost. The fourth area is galvanizing. And this is the person that like is ready to, it's like this person is a cheerleader. They are, they found a great idea and they want to get everyone else on board. They are rallying the troops and getting everyone excited about an idea or a concept. The next one is enablement. So it's like project management, detail work, checking the boxes. And the last one is tenacity. And this is the person who has that like staying power, is able to see a project through to the end, really like seeing what the final like result looks like, putting that like last little bow on the project. And just to share like a personal anecdote quickly, I found in my own life that, you know, in past lives, I was really like Most of the work that I was doing was in enablement and tenacity. It was like that, that like detail work that it's really important, but it's also not one of my strengths at all. I'm really not good at staying on top of the detail work. I am, um, my strengths are in invention and And discernment. And so I love working with entrepreneurs. I love working with new business ideas, coming up with business ideas, helping people shape their ideas to something that could really like work in the real world. But that's where my energy sort of is, is best supported, um, that's just one way that you can really figure out what work inspires you and what drains you. And this can be helpful for things like, you know, if you're starting a business, what, what do you outsource? It might not be the thing that you think you're supposed to be outsourcing or who do you team up with? How can you fill your gaps? Um, it can also help you at home, like knowing if you need to get some support at home, you know, maybe you're working and you have kids and you just don't have, um, 8,000 arms to be able to like do all of the things that you need to do. It can help you figure out where you need support so that you can really focus on the areas that are your strengths. Okay. Those are my 10 questions for building strength. self-awareness. And I know we went through them really quickly. This is sort of just like a teaser on where I see the podcast going. Each of these questions, you know, opens up a bigger dialogue and invitation for introspection. And I'm really excited to dive deep in all of these areas. So hopefully, you know, you have some You have some things to dive into following this episode. And if you have questions or want to connect on any of this, please, I would love for you to reach out and just hear what's on your mind. Otherwise, I will see you next week. Bye.