What sort of person do I want to be today?
As I make my way ever slowly towards the scary age of 30, I am occasionally reminded of my early teenage ideas and predictions for what my life, or I, would look like at this age. Would I be running around with a flock of smaller-Joes causing havoc at every turn? Would I be the professional footballer my 8 year old self had dreamed of? Would I not have a clue what I was doing and continue to feel lost, the ever-present fear of a 20 year old me?
As I have learned over the last few years, this strange period of the early to mid twenties is a pivotal time for working out who you are. Some may have a good idea, some may have no clue. Regardless of this answer, we all have an idea or a picture in our head of who we want to be.
Such is the nature of our current society and culture that unfortunately, there is a constant pressure to progress and to be more than what we are. Many struggle with the idea that they are not good enough, and it is challenging to fight the uphill battle into accepting who we are. I have written previously about positive self-talk, our identity, and trying to be happy in ourselves.
However, as nice as it is to accept who we are - which I still stand by - there are certain caveats to this point that require a special lens to analyse. As great as the other cohort of early adults think they are, no one is perfect. While it is important to accept the core parts of us that we know we can’t change, for example our anatomy, our core personality traits, our past - there are parts of our self that could use some tweaking.
For example, we all have let the inner voice in our head convince us to do something we know we shouldn’t have - buy that overpriced piece of clothing, eat that 17th slice of pizza, stay up later than we needed to - and these decisions can ultimately end up harming us, albeit in a very small and occasionally insignificant manner. Yet, should we ‘accept’ these parts of who we are - our lack of judgement, our moments of weakness, our mistakes?
For me, the answer isn’t a simple yes or no. We cannot simply outright accept all of our moments of weakness or lack of judgement, for we risk harming ourselves, the ones we love, and negatively impact our life. On the other hand, we cannot criticise ourselves for every single mistake or moment of weakness we have, as we risk succumbing to the other end of the spectrum that involves poor confidence, lack of identity and negative feedback loops.
So what is the answer? I don’t think there is one perfect answer. Instead, I try to follow a mindset and ask myself a simple question of :
‘What person do I want to be today?’
This has a few key points to it:
I make sure the answer to this question is always someone that I know is achievable for me. For example, I would not answer this question with “Today, I want to be an Astronaut.” As interesting and exciting as it would be, it is impossible for me to achieve today (and realistically ever). Rather, “Being someone that works hard at work and holds himself to his own high standards” is something I know I can achieve.
The answer has to be something that requires effort, for the question to be effective. I would not answer it with “I want to be a person who turns up to work”. Feasible, yes, but it does not challenge me or divert away from my normal routine. On the other hand, answering with “I want to be someone that finishes all of my chores, writes a blog post, goes on a run and to the gym, cooks an inventive dinner and completes an hour of meditation” is technically feasible, but the effort it would require is far too high, which would instantly put me off.
The question is focused on today. It is not “What person do I want to be in life?”, which in my experience, goes hand-in-hand with a lot of worrying and overthinking. You cannot complete all of the steps to this question in one day, no matter how hard you try. It also can make the tasks that follow too challenging, as there is no set timeframe or measure of whether we are making progress. Adding the today aspect of the question takes the pressure off, and avoids the risk of negative self-talk if we don’t achieve what we wanted. If I don’t be the person I wanted to be today - not to worry, I will try again tomorrow. Whereas if I don’t be the person I wanted to be in life - that starts to generate feelings of doubt, lack of self-worth and so on.
The answer to the question is someone you actually want to be. It can feel and sound trendy in your head to answer with “Someone that practices chess” or “Someone that runs once an evening”. Yet, if you don’t actually care or want to be any of these things, and you’re just answering it because you think this sort of person would be likeable, or make you feel better, then it’s a wasted exercise.
I have found asking myself this question every morning upon waking a useful reminder for me. Examples that I have answered with recently are
A good boyfriend who puts in extra effort to make my partner feel loved
A leader within my team at work
Someone who cares about their health and makes good choices with food
Someone who puts their all into their workout and makes the most of the time available
Someone who cares about their home environment and reflects this in the cleanliness of their flat
I am not perfect, and I am more than happy with that, but sometimes I just need a gentle kick up the bum to achieve what I want to achieve. If I simply accept every single part of me, unfortunately my less-than-ideal habits will take over as I move into default mode. I may decide to just half-ass a gym session because I am feeling a bit tired. I may not clean my flat because I am feeling lazy and would rather sit in bed watching T.V. I may not be a leader at my work because ‘someone else can do it’.
Asking myself this question in the morning, but also throughout the day, enables me to re-focus my behaviour for the better. I do not belittle myself for not achieving it, but without it I might not be making the steps moving forward that I know are important to me.
To really maximise this exercise, the answer to the question should tie in with something that you know makes you feel good about yourself. For example, I don’t answer the question with ‘A leader within my team at work’ just because it’s a goal of mine, rather I know from experience that when I have been this person, it makes me feel really good. I have a sense of pride, of achievement and of purpose. It makes me want to work even harder, and ultimately I enjoy my time at work more. Yet unfortunately, as much as I would like to have this aspect of my behaviour cemented in who I am, I am not at that stage in life yet. I don’t automatically behave as a leader at work, and thus I need to have a gentle reminder to strive for this.
I have found this exercise is a nice middle-ground between accepting who you are and criticising yourself for who you are not. It can take time to practice, and some days will be better than others, but I am confident it can help you in your journey of happiness.