What Did You Want to Be at Five? Reconnecting With the Part of You That Knew You Could

There’s a question we don’t ask ourselves very often as adults: 

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Not what career did you eventually choose.

Not what made sense financially.

Not what your parents thought you should do.

Not what you became good at.

What did you want before you knew you were supposed to be realistic?

That was the question my guest, Vikki Lange, asked me at the very beginning of our conversation on the #SoRelatable Podcast.

And I had an answer.

The five-year-old who didn't give the expected answer

I was in kindergarten at a parochial school when our teacher asked the girls in the class how many of us wanted to become nuns.

Everyone raised their hand.

Except me.

Even at five years old, I somehow knew the other children were giving the answer they were expected to give.

When I was brought to the front of the classroom and asked what I wanted to be, I said:

A movie star.

That wasn't exactly the answer anyone was looking for.

The principal was brought in. I was given another opportunity to reconsider.

I didn't.

Movie star.

Looking back now as a therapist, there are probably many ways I could understand that moment.

But one part of it feels particularly meaningful.

At five, I wasn't yet willing to give up my own answer just because everyone around me had another one.

And that is where Vikki's work becomes so interesting.

Before we learned to doubt ourselves

Vikki calls that early sense of possibility our “original superpower.”

It doesn't mean that the specific dream we had at five was necessarily our destiny.

Vikki wanted to be an ice skater without ever having taken an ice-skating lesson.

I wanted to be a movie star.

The dream itself isn't really the point.

The feeling underneath it is.

I could do that.

I could become that.

That is possible for me.

There is something wonderfully uncomplicated about the confidence young children can have before they accumulate all the reasons something might not work.

But children don't develop that confidence in isolation.

They are also constantly learning who they are through the people around them.

And Vikki shared two stories that illustrate just how powerful those messages can become.

“I am a nuclear scientist.”

Several years ago, Vikki visited a third-grade classroom.

One boy was sitting away from the rest of the class, filling his math workbook with sophisticated equations and drawings of a nuclear power plant.

When Vikki approached him, he introduced himself immediately:

“My name is Julian, and I am a nuclear scientist.”

Not I want to be.

I am.

He proceeded to explain his plans to her with complete confidence.

Later, when Vikki mentioned to the principal that she had met a nuclear scientist, the principal immediately knew exactly which student she meant.

Julian wasn't keeping his imagined identity hidden.

He was living inside the possibility of it.

Then Vikki entered another third-grade classroom.

A little girl named Anna raised her hand and asked for help.

Her explanation was very different.

She told Vikki she didn't have a smart brain.

Same age.

Same school.

Two remarkably different beliefs about what each child thought was possible for them.

Anna needed someone beside her saying, in essence:

You can do this.

And sometimes that one voice matters enormously.

The voices we eventually carry inside ourselves

So much of our early sense of self develops relationally.

We learn something about ourselves from the way other people respond to us.

A parent.

A teacher.

A grandparent.

A coach.

A mentor.

Sometimes one person who consistently sees something in us gives us a voice we can carry for years.

But the opposite can happen too.

We can learn to stay quiet.

To conform.

To make other people comfortable.

To value their opinions of us more than our own experience of ourselves.

And without really noticing it, we can start organizing our lives around the question:

What will other people think of me?

rather than:

What matters to me?

Vikki understands that experience personally.

She described spending much of her life looking outward—taking care of other people, responding to their expectations, and succeeding in ways that looked very good from the outside.

But internally, something was missing.

She wasn't leading herself first.

When success doesn't necessarily feel like alignment

This is something I imagine many people can relate to.

There are seasons in life when we can be doing everything we are “supposed” to do and still feel disconnected from ourselves.

We might be capable.

Productive.

Responsible.

Successful.

And still sense that somewhere along the way, our own voice became very quiet.

This doesn't necessarily mean everything we've built is wrong.

It may simply mean we haven't checked in with ourselves for a while.

What matters to me now?

What am I moving toward?

What am I no longer willing to abandon in myself?

What kind of life actually feels like mine?

Vikki eventually began asking those questions herself.

And from that process came the framework she now teaches.

Awaken. Define. Strengthen.

Vikki's framework has three parts.

Awaken.

Reconnect with the part of yourself that knows you are capable.

Remember what possibility once felt like—not necessarily so you can resurrect a childhood career dream, but so you can reconnect with that sense of I can.

Define.

Identify your non-negotiables.

What values matter enough that they need to become guardrails for your decisions?

What supports your well-being, your purpose, and the person you are trying to become?

The answer doesn't need to be the same as anyone else's.

In fact, that's part of the point.

Strengthen.

Practice using your own voice.

The more clearly you know what matters to you, the less dependent every decision becomes on someone else's approval.

Over time, you begin showing up differently—in your work, your relationships, your choices, and your relationship with yourself.

Purpose before connection

One idea from our conversation that stayed with me was Vikki's distinction between purpose and connection.

For much of her life, she says she focused on connection first and hoped purpose would follow.

Now she reverses that.

She becomes clear about her purpose and then notices which relationships and opportunities support it.

That doesn't mean relationships become less important.

Quite the opposite.

It can make them more intentional.

Because if I don't know what matters to me, it becomes very easy for other people's priorities to become my priorities.

Their expectations can become my expectations.

Their definition of success can quietly become mine.

Knowing ourselves gives us something to come back to.

We don't have to remain who we learned to be

This is one of the reasons I find conversations about self-awareness so important.

Awareness gives us choices.

We may have learned early to stay quiet.

To be agreeable.

To overperform.

To seek approval.

To take care of everyone else first.

Those patterns may have made sense at another point in our lives.

But becoming aware of them allows us to ask whether they still belong in the life we're creating now.

And sometimes the next chapter isn't about becoming an entirely different person.

It is about finding the thread that has been there all along.

That may be what our younger selves have to teach us.

Not that every childhood dream needs to come true.

But that there was once a part of us that didn't hesitate quite so much before believing something was possible.

A question worth sitting with

Think back for a moment.

Before practicality entered the conversation.

Before comparison.

Before you knew which answers would impress people.

What did you want to be?

Then go one layer deeper.

What did that dream allow you to feel?

Powerful?

Creative?

Free?

Helpful?

Adventurous?

Seen?

Capable?

Connected?

Maybe that is the part worth paying attention to.

Because the five-year-old version of you doesn't have to run your adult life.

But they may remember something about you that you've forgotten.

And sometimes reconnecting with that part of ourselves can help us hear our own voice a little more clearly again.

Feel like a little reflection? 

• What did you believe was possible for yourself when you were young?
• Whose voice helped you believe in yourself—and whose voice may have made you question yourself?
• What are the non-negotiables that help you stay connected to who you are now?
• Where are you making choices from your own values, and where might you still be waiting for someone else's approval?
• What might change if you trusted your own voice a little more?

About Our Guest

Vikki Lange is a corporate keynote speaker and consultant who helps professionals and leaders reconnect with their values, clarify their non-negotiables, and strengthen their voices. Through her Awaken–Define–Strengthen™ framework, Vikki explores what becomes possible when we stop leading from outside expectations and begin leading ourselves with greater intention and confidence. Her forthcoming book, The Voice You Leave Behind: How You Show Up Is What Remains, is scheduled for early 2027.   

Visit VikkiLange.com 

About the Host

Susan Regan is a relationship therapist, educator, and host of the #SoRelatable Podcast. Through her clinical work, relationship education, and Relationship Solutions Programs, Susan helps people better understand the emotional patterns that shape how they connect, communicate, and respond to one another. Her work is grounded in the belief that awareness creates the opportunity for change—and that meaningful shifts in relationships often begin with a deeper understanding of ourselves. 

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