By Dina Aldabbagh

“The appetite of laborers works for them; their hunger drives them on” (NIV, Proverbs 16:26). 

When you envision something for yourself that you do not already have, understand that it is working for you. It can be easily confused that because you observe the gap between who you are and who you feel you’re meant to be, that means you’re less than that, but that’s a misinformed perspective. The fact that you feel that gap is the sign that you’re already bigger than where you currently recognize yourself to be. It’s your body buzzing for change.

Our desires are simply a mirror of who we are. If you desire health, it’s because you are someone who innately feels that health is right for them. If you want to be an entrepreneur, it reflects that you are already somebody who should be. Our confusion, shame, and embarrassment come from when we hold the desire as something bigger than us — therefore making us smaller than the desire, and therefore unworthy of it. 

But please please hear me when I say this: nobody came out of the womb a genius, a marathon runner, an entrepreneur, a millionaire, a great public speaker, or a person with 20% body fat. These are things that are developed. The fact that you feel a pull to develop into this thing is the sign that you are already geared towards it and therefore are already equipped to become it. You are not already “it,” but you are already on the path of becoming it. Your desire alone is the sign of that. 

The desire is what drives you forward. Your ambition to be something else is quite literally half the battle. Where we lose out on becoming everything we’re meant to be is when we begin to shame ourselves for not already being the thing we want and therefore think it’s not meant for us. The other half of the battle is the belief that it is meant for you. If you have ambition and belief, becoming the thing you want is inevitable. 

The trick is not to confuse your hunger to become that thing with something bad — you need it. That hunger works for you; it drives you on. If you look at anyone who’s achieved something great in history, you recognize that there was a level of achievement. There was once a gap between who they were and what they became. “Achievement” indicates that something was achieved — i.e. it was aimed towards, worked towards, and reached. The process of achievement alone signifies that who one is before and after achievement are different.

Now, in the most bare sense this can just mean they have something different, but it’s bigger than that. In any process of change in our lives, we become different. It’s not just our circumstances, our bank accounts, or what we have that change — it’s primarily us. Things change because we change. 

The first step of changing is the desire for something else. If you wanted everything to be the same, there would be no call to change. And change is not to be understated — it can be a grueling process, especially because it’s something you’ve never been before and you’re battling the doubt, fear, and shame that come with changing your identity. But an identity shift is at the core of every change ever. 

In reflecting on my decision to leave the United States and move to Spain, it was driven by the hunger for something different. I would have never made a move that big had I not felt the desire for more. But as I lived and worked in my Chicagoland hometown, I looked around and said, “Surely there’s more to life than this.” Surely there’s more to life than everything I’ve ever known. And there was. And it was great. And it was life changing and formative and excruciatingly painful at times and I would do it over and over again at the cost of my old self every time. 

My hunger for something new and bigger and better out of life drove me forward to make a drastic move that repositioned me across the world. I’m telling you so honestly: I would have never made a move like that had I not felt dissatisfied with my status quo. My dissatisfaction for the current state of things and my hunger for something that felt more right for me drove boldness and bravery. My desire for more was merely the first signal that I was meant for more, and I would’ve never gotten more had I not been hungry enough to go out and get it. 

Hunger is not bad; it works for you. Growing pains hurt — and that’s not to say that growth is constantly painful, but it is to say that there will be inevitable times of pain, exhaustion, and despair. If you’re not hungry enough for something different, you will not endure that pain. That’s just the truth. 

As human beings we’re geared towards comfort, commitment, and ease. I’ve been doing my mascara the same exact way with the same exact makeup remover since I was 14 years old. I’m 24. Once I found what worked for me, I stopped looking. I didn’t care to discover more because I didn’t need it. If for whatever reason my process stopped producing the same results, then I’d have to change. But we are never called to change if we’re happy with what we have. We stay. We remain. We commit. 

Your appetite for more is nothing to shame — it’s something to listen to; it’s trying to speak to you. It’s saying, “There’s more than this for you.” It’s a paradox: that bad feeling is a good thing. That bad feeling like life is not enough? It’s exactly what drives you forward to be bold, to work hard, and to get out of your comfort zone — so that life becomes more. 

Don’t confuse your desire for more to mean that you’re smaller than what you want. If you desire it, it’s because you deserve it. You’re scared because your desire feels bigger than anything you’ve ever known, therefore you don’t know for sure that it exists for you. You may have seen it for others, but you don’t know that it’s a part of your reality. But the key is that the desire alone is your recognition that you do deserve more — it’s the beginning of you claiming your actual standard. 

The scariest part is that you recognize who you have to be in order to have that desire is not who you are today. Therefore it feels unrealistic for you. But not you in the whole of history and future of existence, just the you of today. That’s why you need the hunger. That hunger turns you into the exact person who it is not unrealistic for. Eventually, your desire no longer feels “delusional,” it feels proportionate to who you are — because you would’ve changed. That desire you feel today is the mirror of where you’re meant to be.

UFC’s Ilia Topuria, Lightweight champ, once said in an interview something along the lines of (paraphrasing) “I realized if I wanted an angel [as my wife]…angels don’t live in hell, they live in heaven. So I’d have to become an angel.” He understood this concept that in order to get what he wanted, he would have to change to be the equal match to that thing. 

It’s a recognition of the gap, and this is where most people lose out on what’s meant for them in this lifetime. Recognition of the gap between what you are and what you wish you were is not telling you, “This isn’t who you are,” it’s telling you, “This is who you’re supposed to be.” Do not resent the process of growing up. We did not come out of the womb as everything we were meant to be. 

Only fools and the fearful will shame you for practicing, for being a poorly-executing beginner. Anyone who has ever done anything worthwhile in this life will encourage you to keep developing. So that voice in your head that shames your hunger is not the voice of the successful of the world, it’s the voice of the losers. It’s the voice of the people who gave up and stopped trying and therefore will never reach anywhere further than exactly where they already are. Don’t confuse their voice with your own. 

I’d like to mention, this isn’t a judgment call on the fools nor the fearful; they deserve your compassion more than anything. This is, however, advice to know what voices you’re listening to. The voice you let advise you is a great example of the direction you’re heading in. 

Your ambition is a tool — it keeps your focus sharp and the purpose it provides allows you to endure the necessary refinement process of change. The carrot that dangles in front of you is not your punishment, it is your motivation.