You Don’t “Find” Yourself, You Create Yourself
Take action in three areas to discover your purpose.
It’s a common path for many millennials. ‘’Looking for themselves’’, like after months of trekking off the beaten path you’re suddenly going to find your higher self with a goatee sitting crossed-legged on a mountain in the Himalayas, ready to tell you all about what you should be doing with your life.
If that was the case, I’d sign up for that in a heartbeat. I’d love to get all the answers served to me on a silver platter. But unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way, no matter how tightly we hold on to that sweet illusion.
Yesterday, I was talking about this to a guy I had just met. He told me he had many friends who went on this search, but in reality, it was just traveling in a fancy disguise. He had watched his friends go on soul-search adventures and coming back months later, never really any closer to the answers they were seeking.
That’s because there’s one tiny flaw in this whole idea.
If you don’t know what you are looking for, it’s impossible to find it.
You are told — by society/your brain/your parents — to find yourself. Figure it out for a while. See who’s taking shelter behind your skin. But in practical terms, you have no idea what it is you’re trying to find.
You Can’t Find ‘’It’’ If You Don’t Know What ‘’It’’ Is
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for getting to know yourself. I strongly believe getting to know yourself, your values, your passions, and your interests is the key to living a fulfilling life. It’s great for your health too: studies have shown over and over again that having a purpose can add years to your life. At the end of the day, if you don’t know what sets your soul on fire, it will be hard to keep that fire going throughout your life.
If you do know what makes you feel fulfilled, it’s much easier to pursue that. Makes sense, right?
Let’s get clear on what we’re looking for here. ‘’Finding yourself’’ sounds really mysterious and magical but the way I see it, the three most important things to discover about yourself are your values, your passions, and the impact you want to make. And trust me, you won’t find them under a rock. You are the creator of your life, and the key to finding these things is to take action.
#1. Your Values
‘Values’ sound a little abstract and you may not be entirely clear about what they are, but you have them. They are what guides you through life, and why you do the things you do.
I did an exercise a couple of years ago to discover what my values are, and it made a tremendous difference in my self-awareness. I found a similar exercise online, which you can find here. You’ll end up with a handful of core values that you find most important in life, and you’ll have an idea of why you do the things you do.
If you’re curious about mine, I’ve categorized them into four categories:
- Most important things in my life: Health and Loved ones.
- How I make decisions: Trust (trust in myself, the Universe, and my path) and Happiness (what makes me the happiest?).
- How I approach life: with Optimism (just makes life better), Creativity (creative expression through art, music, and writing and creativity in my way of thinking about things), and Flexibility (go with the flow).
- Where I want to go: Freedom (financial, emotional, and spiritual abundance), Growth (I want to keep growing and learning forever), Harmony (I want all parts of my life to balance each other out in harmony. Balance is always key for me).
#2. Your Passions
Your passions and interests are what make you excited to get out of bed in the morning. Before we dive into discovering them, there are a couple of misconceptions I want to get out of the way first.
- Your ‘passion’ is not some mystical holy grail that suddenly makes you forget about everything else in life.
- You can have multiple passions. Watch this awesome TedX Talk by Emilie Wapnick to get an idea (it’s my favorite).
- Your passion can be anything. It can be sports, music, collecting stamps, helping people with their problems, making latte art, going on hikes, reading, spiritual development, mindfulness, cooking nice food, eating nice food, bird spotting, making deep connections with other people, or anything else. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that your passion can’t be your passion.
The funny thing with this ‘’finding yourself’’ is that it sets the expectation that you’ll just wake up one day and realize that you love birdwatching. It doesn’t work like that. Typically, this is the sequence:
Has no feelings towards birdwatching → Tries it → Likes it → Tries it again → Learns more about different kinds of birds → Does it many times → Gets passionate about birdwatching
It never starts at the last stage, even though that’s what many people seem to think. It may start with an interest or curiosity, but don’t confuse that with passion.
The key here? Trying different things. Try as many things as you can. Some of the things you try, you won’t like. Some of them, you will. And a few of them; you’ll go crazy about. There’s no way of knowing which is which until you try it out.
#3. The Impact You Want to Make
You were lucky enough to be born, and now you have a very short time on this planet. What impact do you want to make in that limited amount of time? Whose lives do you want to have touched?
In the end, you’ll naturally gravitate towards the impact you want to make. Are there topics you care more about than the average person? That’s a great indicator. The key here is to not overthink and overanalyze it.
You don’t need to be rescuing orphans from burning buildings to make an impact.
You might want to make old people feel less lonely every now and then. You might want to try and leave a better planet for your grandkids. You might want to start a wildlife rescue. You might want to write a book to leave your lessons behind. You might want to just be a nice person to strangers — you never know what impact a kind deed can have on a complete stranger.
The Key To ‘Finding Yourself’
Getting to know yourself is important. That’s why I find taking a year off to go and explore who you are a fantastic idea. But it completely depends on how you fill that year.
If you go about it with no clear plan, chances are you won’t find what you're looking for. But if you truly dedicate that year to diving deep, getting to know your values, trying out new activities, pursuing interests, cultivating passion, and learning what impact you want to make on this planet — you’ll go far.
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw
