STOP TRYING TO FIND YOURSELF
Wherever YOU go, there YOU are. Think about that. The implications are huge. You can go anywhere in the world, drop into a different environment, or enter a new group – You can travel to the Brahmaputra or Timbuktu – at the end of the day, for better or for worse, you will still be you. You can’t FIND yourself. There is not some better, happier version of you out there waiting to be discovered. This idea of FINDING YOURSELF is flawed. Your SELF is not OUT THERE. To find yourself, you must travel in.
GO ALL IN
Who are you? If you don’t know, you must find out. Imagine trying to get to a new place without knowing where you are. Travel from HERE to THERE is impossible if you don’t know where HERE is. Similarly, travel from who you are to who you want to be is impossible if you are unclear about where you are starting. To find out who you are right now, you must get real. You must begin to observe yourself with the goal of discovering what you react to and how you react. This is called a Reality Check. GO ALL IN. Building an awareness of these things can transform you. Instead of being a leaf in the wind, you can take a step back, give some thought to who you want to be in that moment, and choose your path. This is where true change starts. When you can stop doing what you have always done, you have started down the path of finding yourself.
CREATE YOUR ‘SELF’
Once you’ve gotten real about who you are right now, you can begin to choose who you want to be. Through this process of getting real, you may discover that you are operating on a set of values that aren’t your own. Or you may find that you don’t have a clear set of values at all. In either case, creating your SELF means that you must begin to choose or discover what matters most to you. In this process of mindfully adopting some new values – or of reaffirming some you already had – you are finding yourself. You are creating a map and choosing a path. You are becoming clear about where you are and where you want to be. When this is complete, when you have identified and aligned with your core values, you have found your SELF.
