Who Are You Meant to Be? It’s Time to Regroup and Find Out!

Who Are You Meant to Be? It’s Time to Regroup and Find Out!

Life has a way of keeping us so busy, jumping from one role to the next, that we forget who we are and who we are meant to be. Too often we get stuck in ruts, shifting in and out of professional, relational and familial roles, while trying to be who others need us to be. Life becomes about survival and, as we struggle to simply stay afloat, we stop striving to achieve our full potential. We make decisions that are safe rather than in our best interest. 

If this is happening to you, it is time for you to take a time out from living life on autopilot and figure out why you feel you aren't feeling fulfilled with your life, your work, or your relationship — or all of them! Time to remember who you are by taking stock in your current reality and how you are behaving in your day to day life. It starts with changing the beliefs and attitudes that limit you and prevent you from achieving your potential. With so many options and opportunities available, there's no reason to stay stuck for a lifetime being someone or doing something you're bored with at best, or miserable with at worst.

This process isn't just about doing something different. It has more to do with what goes on inside of you. Getting to know yourself, rather than trying to become someone that you admire. The key ingredients are self-awareness, vision, courage, the ability to tolerate criticism and to bear frustration. You don’t want to just change your outer image because you’ll end up feeling the same as you will have the same set of behaviours, emotions and judgments going on inside. This means nothing will really change. You have to be prepared to get in and do the inner work required to live to your potential.

Ready for action?  Here are some steps to ramping up to becoming who you are meant to be.

1. Get to Know Yourself. Developing self-awareness is the first step to reinventing yourself. An assessment such as the Striving Styles™ Personality Assessment will help you know how your brain is organized, your personality preferences, your unique abilities and your psychological needs. It’s possible you have been using only a fraction of your capacity so get to know about your potential and assess what characteristics and skills you want to develop and habits you need to change. 
2. Create a Vision:  If you don't know what you and your future looks like, how can you create it? Imagine what it would look and feel like to be the new you. Vision boards are a fantastic way of letting yourself know what you want to. One complete with pictures, statements for the future, clothes you will wear, money you will make, etc.  Dream the big dream and capture it on paper.   
3. Develop an Action Plan: Using key goals from your vision, write out a step-by-step plan for attaining each of these goals. Identify possible pitfalls or obstacles to your plan so that you can plan in advance how you are going to deal with them.  Take action and work those goals! Even a small step on your plan each day will move you closer to your vision!  
4. Develop Tolerance to Criticism:  As much as they love you, friends and family don't always like it when you start to change. Prepare yourself for criticism, scepticism or even blatant sabotage. You may have to help others adjust to your new self and lifestyle, and let go of those who can't. Most importantly, don't let anyone talk you out of doing what you know in your heart is the right thing for you.
5.  "Fake It ‘Til You Make It"  You can't just decide to be different without working at it. You have to act the part before it becomes natural to you. This is the step that trips most people up because they don't like what they are feeling. Prepare to feel anxious, embarrassed, and uncomfortable as you try on the new you. You are going to feel like a fake, so accept it and don't give up.  

Patience with the process and determination to get to the other side is the only way you will achieve a successful reinvention. Remember that you are working to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be.  You don't have to settle for being someone you don't want to be. You’re never too old to reinvent yourself and get back onto the track you detoured from many years ago.

Dare to dream who and what you could become, then take steps to make it happen. Craft the life you are meant to live as the person you are meant to be.

Anne Dranitsaris, Ph.D.