A New Way to See Your Life: The Framework That Helped Me Connect It All

Your callings, your career, your closest ones — this is the way to make sense of them all.

When I became a mom a few years back, my life changed completely. The immediate aftermath of welcoming a tiny new human was a deadly concoction of exhilaration and exhaustion. But as things began to stabilize, a more subtle, yet powerful, question emerged —

Who was I now?

While motherhood gave me profound joy and meaning, I struggled with my sense of self. I was uncomfortable with the unsaid assumption that motherhood should be the natural priority henceforth.

My drive for navigating technical challenges was as vibrant as ever, and I was looking forward to going back to work. I also realized that if I didn’t spend time on music, it made me unhappy and surprisingly irritable. I still wanted to have stimulating conversations and explore new cafes and make time for things that I enjoyed before.

I was riddled with self-doubt and occasional guilt – Did my enduring love for math and music make me a less devoted mom? Was I now expected to slightly deprioritize my career and creative passions as the “realistic” thing to do? How could I justify pursuing music when every moment was filled with a mountain of urgent tasks? Was neglecting my own needs simply 'what moms do'?"

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The Need for a New Framework

I wanted to solve this identity crisis for myself (again!). Growing up, I saw most people thinking of their academic education and career as the main track and putting all the focus to excel there. I never quite related to that because I always had music as an integral component that I also wanted to excel at. And then after becoming a mom, there was a new dimension to my identity where I again wanted to grow and be better.

So how do I make sense of all these things that are important to me?

That’s when I felt the need for a new framework, one that captures the things meaningful to me without any preconceived notions or expectations.

Everything meaningful in my life is a PATH I am on.

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What is a PATH?

I think of a PATH as an acronym that captures the essence of what makes a pursuit truly meaningful:

• Passion X Play: A path is at the intersection of passion and play. You're excited about it, drawn to it, curious about it. It feels like play and often comes naturally to you. For example, during my PhD I used to really look forward to reading new papers on cryptographic zero knowledge.
  

• Aliveness: A path makes you feel alive, energetic, and you often enter a state of flow. For example, I often lose track of time immersed in my music practice or whiteboarding a technical problem or playing lego with my kids 😀
  

• Trajectory: You see a trajectory of learning, growth, and excellence. This often comes from our inherent desire to keep getting better. And this desire manifests even more in pursuits that are meaningful to us.
  

• Heart: The path matters to you deeply, becomes an integral part of your life and eventually may get tied to your identity. I now introduce myself as a techie and musician and mom!

And multiple paths define me, hence the term PolyPath! 🙂

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The power of a PATH

When I started looking at my callings through the unified lens of a PATH, it gave me new clarity and joy. It gave me a new framework to recalibrate my life based on my current phase and needs.

What helped me tremendously was to examine the four elements of any PATH to understand what is already strong and then try to intentionally work on the things that might be weak –

1. Tech path: For my job or career, the trajectory piece has always been strong since companies always incentivize career growth. I decided to reclaim the passion and aliveness. Tactically, that meant making sure I spend time on things that naturally excite and energize me (e.g. reading the latest on privacy tech or scheduling crypto brainstorming sessions) while cutting down on certain projects and meetings.
   

2. Music path: For my music, passion and aliveness have always been pretty strong but trajectory, not so much. So I corrected for that by having concrete goals for myself (intrinsic and extrinsic) such as bettering certain vocal techniques or setting timelines for certain digital releases.
   

3. Parenting path: I try to prioritize aliveness by intentionally scheduling interactions with kids that energize both of us whether it is doing a silly dance or baking a pizza. Trajectory is also important to me in terms of consciously thinking about how I can be a better mom — through reading parenting books or observing my kids better or getting ideas from other parents. 🙂

And all the three paths have my heart since they are all core to my identity! ♥️

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Reclaim the PolyPath in You!

We often tend to create false hierarchies in our mind on how important something “should be”. These are based on social conditioning or peer pressure or just internal beliefs that may no longer be relevant.

Don’t forget to account for your inner voice!

You may be called to express yourself through multiple identities – that’s not a bug but a feature.

If you stifle the things that bring you genuine joy and aliveness, they don't disappear. Instead, they often resurface as restlessness, quiet dissatisfaction, or a nagging sense of incompleteness. You'll go through life checking the boxes, but you might miss out on becoming the radiant, energized force you could be – the truest version of you.

Don’t suppress the paths that define you, be an unapologetic PolyPath!

So, audit your life PATHs today! Examine the passion-play, aliveness, trajectory and heart in each of them. Which elements are the strongest? Which ones are weak? How can you rebalance those? And if you need more ideas in designing a life true to your paths, sign up HERE for our upcoming event 🙂