The Season of Becoming
There’s a moment in everyone’s life where the ground shifts under your feet.
Sometimes it’s loud — a crisis, a loss, a deal collapsing, a partnership blowing up, a door slamming shut you thought would stay open forever.
Sometimes it's quiet — a Sunday afternoon when you realize your life is running on autopilot and you’re no longer holding the wheel.
But the shift always shows up.
And when it does, you’re faced with a choice:
Do you double down on who you’ve been… or do you step into who you’re becoming?
I’ve lived that crossroads more than once.
Leaving Los Angeles for Chicago.
Leaving a 30-year run in product manufacturing.
Leaving the comfort of “what I know” for the uncertainty of “what feels aligned.”
And every time, the same truth hit me:
Becoming isn’t a moment. It’s a season.
A long one.
A messy one.
And the most important one you’ll ever walk through.
Let me explain.
The Trap of What Used to Work
There’s a dangerous loyalty we carry to our former selves.
The version of us that solved old problems.
The version of us that built the early wins.
The version of us that survived things we didn’t think we could survive.
We start to assume:
“If it worked before, it must be the path forward.”
But that’s not how growth plays the game.
I built my career building physical products. Actual things. You could hold them. You could turn them on. You could measure results in watts, lumens, efficiency, and cost savings. It was clean, logical, numbers-driven — and I loved it.
Then the pandemic hit.
The entire model shifted. Demand collapsed. Supply chains froze. The world rewired itself overnight.
Suddenly, the tools that carried me for decades became nearly useless in a world that needed something different from me.
That’s the moment most people cling to the familiar.
And that’s also the moment it quietly starts costing them their future.
For me, it became the beginning of the next season.
The season of becoming.
Becoming Isn’t Growth. It’s Shedding.
People think growth means adding: more skills, more knowledge, more habits, more hustle.
But becoming usually starts with subtraction.
Letting go of the identity you’ve mastered.
Letting go of the expectations other people still have of you.
Letting go of the responsibilities you never actually signed up for.
Letting go of the patterns that protected you but now confine you.
It feels like loss at first.
But it’s actually space.
Space for the next version of you to breathe.
When I pivoted fully into real estate, data, writing, and the Resonance ecosystem, the first thing I had to confront wasn’t the market.
It was me.
I had to stop holding onto the guy who built LED solutions before LEDs were cool.
Stop holding onto the operator who thought grinding was the only way forward.
Stop holding onto the belief that my value came from doing more instead of becoming more.
And slowly… painfully… powerfully… I shed.
The Signs You’re Entering a Season of Becoming
You’ll know you’re stepping into this new season when three things start happening at once:
1. What used to excite you now feels heavy.
Not because you’re tired…
but because your spirit is done with that chapter.
2. New ideas start showing up uninvited.
You wake up with them.
They hit you in the shower.
They whisper when you’re driving.
They follow you around like a shadow.
3. You can’t quiet the feeling that “something bigger is calling.”
And you’re not crazy.
That’s the new version of you knocking on the door.
This is when most people panic.
Because becoming doesn’t arrive with instructions.
It arrives with questions.
And those questions force you to choose:
fear or frequency.
The Courage to Outgrow Your Own Life
One of the hardest things I’ve ever done was admit that the life I built — the one I was proud of, the one people respected, the one that worked — was too small for where I was heading.
Not wrong.
Not bad.
Just too small.
We’re conditioned to protect the life we already have.
But the people who create real breakthroughs share one uncommon trait:
They’re willing to outgrow their life before it’s comfortable to do so.
They know the bridge from “who I am” to “who I’m becoming” is built while you’re walking it.
Every step feels like a question mark.
Every next move feels like new territory.
Every day demands courage.
And that courage compounds.
That’s what launched the Resonance Series.
That’s what birthed the newsletter.
That’s what sparked the podcast.
That’s what built PrimeTracers.
That’s what opened doors to deals, partnerships, opportunities, and new levels of alignment I couldn't even see from the old vantage point.
But none of it happened because I had the perfect plan.
It happened because I refused to stay the same.
What This Season Wants From You
If you’re reading this, odds are you’re already in some version of this transition.
Maybe quietly.
Maybe painfully.
Maybe excited but uncertain.
Maybe all of the above.
Here’s what this season is really asking:
Choose alignment over approval.
Choose intention over autopilot.
Choose expansion over familiarity.
This is the season where you stop chasing the life you think you should build…
and start building the one that actually matches your frequency.
It doesn’t happen overnight.
But it does begin with one move:
Tell the truth about what you want now.
Not what you used to want.
Not what you’re expected to want.
What you want now.
That one shift changes everything.
The Final Word: Let Yourself Become
Life isn’t asking you to hustle harder.
Grow faster.
Or prove more.
It’s asking you to become.
To rise into the version of you that aligns with the future you keep imagining.
To make room for the opportunities that keep circling your orbit.
To set the frequency for the next chapter of your life.
Becoming isn’t easy.
But it’s worth it.
Because the person you’re growing into?
They’re ready for a life the old version of you couldn’t even dream of holding.
Let this be your season of becoming.
ResonanceX is the writing and podcast ecosystem by Raymond Sjolseth, exploring alignment, capital, and intentional building.
