The Gap Between Who You Are and Who You’re Trying to Be
Why things can feel off even when everything looks like it’s working
A few weeks ago, I caught myself trying to operate like someone I’m not yet. On paper, everything made sense. The decisions were reasonable and the expectations were aligned with where I thought I should be going.
But something felt off and tight - like I was holding a shape I couldn’t quite sustain. It wasn’t dramatic and nothing was obviously wrong. From the outside, it probably looked like things were working really well. But internally, there was friction.
And that friction I think is something many of us experience, especially when we’re growing or trying to step into what’s next. We often live with two versions of ourselves active at the same time.
There’s the current self, shaped by habit, responsibility, and constraint. This version knows what it can reliably deliver. It’s been tested and it has learned (often the hard way) how not to fall apart under pressure.
And then there’s the potential self: the one that senses there’s more. More clarity, ease and alignment between what matters and how we actually live.
These two aren’t enemies, they’re part of the same organism. But when the distance between them grows too large, like when we try to act from the future self without having embodied it yet, something subtle happens.
We become internally dissonant.
And dissonance doesn’t look like chaos, instead it looks almost right. It shows up in the person who gets everything done, but whose spark is dimmed. In the leader who is respected and capable, but who feels constantly stretched like a rubber band that never quite relaxes. In the person who has “made it” but still feels a quiet dissatisfaction they can’t explain. There’s often a sense of carrying more than we should be, without knowing exactly how to set it down.
When the current self and the potential self aren’t on the same wavelength, it creates a kind of internal compression; like a spring wound tight, holding energy but unable to release it cleanly. And that compression doesn’t stay contained, it shows up in conversations, decision-making, and in how we relate to others. It leaks into teams, families, and systems. People feel it, even if they can’t name it. Things slow down, roles blur, and tension builds in ways that don’t quite make sense. All because something inside hasn’t been reconciled.
Coherence isn’t about having everything figured out. It’s about reducing that internal gap until the two versions of you are no longer pulling in different directions. You stop trying to perform your future and start inhabiting your present more honestly and, somewhat counterintuitively, that’s what allows real growth to happen.
As coherence increases, things begin to shift in very practical ways:
capacity becomes clearer
commitments become cleaner
roles start to fit instead of chafe
nervous systems settle in both you and the people around you
You don’t necessarily do more, but what you do, you do with less friction.
I think this is also why AI has become such an unexpectedly effective mirror for some people. When used well, it doesn’t just process information. It reflects back the structure of how we’re thinking, including the gap between who we are now and who we’re trying to be.
In a way, we present both versions of ourselves at once. For someone willing to see that gap and work with it, the experience can feel clarifying.
“Oh. That’s the mismatch. That’s what hasn’t landed yet.”
But for someone who isn’t ready to integrate what’s being revealed, the same interaction can feel frustrating or off.
“This isn’t helpful.”
“This doesn’t get me.”
“Something about this feels wrong.”
The tool hasn’t changed. The relationship to what’s being reflected has.
Which points to something deeper: We can’t integrate what we refuse to see, which is why I keep coming back to colour. A leaf appears green not because green is in it, but because green is what it reflects - everything else is absorbed.
In the same way, the parts of ourselves we don’t want to see don’t disappear, they shape our behavior indirectly.
If we ignore our limits, they show up as overcommitment.
If we reject our need for rest, it becomes irritability or burnout.
If we don’t recognize our value, we try to prove it everywhere and exhaust ourselves in the process.
The colour we won’t see is still in the field. But coherence begins when we’re willing to look at it directly.
And this doesn’t just matter at the individual level. A leader’s internal coherence sets the limit for the complexity their organization can hold. A parent’s coherence shapes the emotional tone of a household. A community’s coherence influences whether differences turn into dialogue or into division.
When individuals are internally compressed, systems become reactive, but when they integrate, systems stabilize. This is why so many structural problems don’t respond to structural solutions. They’re not failures of design. They’re failures of integration.
You might be waiting for the proverbial shortcut or hack here. I hate to disappoinet you, but there is no sudden upgrade on this one. Just a steady process of noticing where you’re overreaching, clarifying where you’re actually most coherent, letting go of roles that don’t fit anymore, and allowing your future self to arrive gradually instead of forcing it into place.
Coherence isn’t something you achieve, it’s something you stop resisting and as that resistance softens, something else does too.
Life gets a little less loud. A little less brittle. And a lot more workable.
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