The Self-Discovery Digest is four years old this month! We’d like to recognize this anniversary by inviting you, as we did in our first post, to examine how you describe who you are. In that first post, we encouraged you to craft a self-definition that went deeper than what might appear on your resumé or Facebook profile. To help you get to this richer sense of who you are, we proposed that you complete the statement “It is important to me that I am…”
Many of our personal characteristics such as those suggested in our first post – generous, playful, and forthright or responsible, kind, and efficient – might not change a much over time. However, life’s ups and downs typically cause us re-examine our self-concept to better capture and integrate who we are historically with who we are currently. Indeed, when we don’t make self-discovery an ongoing process, we can risk our lives being out of balance and find that we are not living in accord with the wisdom we’ve gained from experience. Moreover, updating our self-description to include the behaviors and attitudes we are working towards can help us grow into the person we aspire to be.
So, consider your self-definition with fresh eyes. Use the following questions to help you craft a response to the prompt “It is important to me that I am…” If you like, look back to who you were in 2008 (or some other meaningful date for you) and contrast it with who you have come to be since then. Think about how your life has evolved.
What key relationships have shifted?
What new goals do you have? Which existing goals are no longer a good fit?
What key changes have occurred in your life: personal or professional?
How have your priorities altered, where are you placing more (or less) emphasis?
How can a redefinition of who you are encourage you to move from being defined by standards imposed by others to standards of your own design?
What developmental accomplishments can be celebrated and where are your growing edges?
Self-Discovery Tool Number 55
Create a list of self-descriptors that say something important about who you are. Compare them to how you saw yourself in the past. What has changed, what has remained, and where do you seem to be going? Conduct a regular check-in of your self-definition to help promote and celebrate your growth. Recognize yourself beyond simple labels and re-commit to a more authentic and satisfying life!