DISCOVER YOU. BUILD YOU.

We live in a world full of competition. Everyone wants to be better than the other and in this process, we lose our true identity. We find ourselves drifting, wanting to be like the other and even better when we are supposed to be unique, different and living “OUR” dreams. Some of us live the dreams of other people and become stuck or “out of air” at the end. Are you who you want to be? Are you following YOUR dreams? Are you doing what you do because you love it or because another person is making money from it?

Many times, we find ourselves being unhappy about the way we turn out and how things turn out for us. Self-happiness is key to living well. And one of the only ways to attaining self-happiness is being the truest version of you. “Be yourself and be happy” is such a vague adage. What does it mean to be you?
I heard a funny tale of how a man married a woman and how after their first night together, he saw her without for the first time without make up and asked “where is my wife? This is not the woman I married” and asked her to go back home. Why? She has masked herself every time. She didn’t take the risk of letting him see her true beauty because beauty comes from the inside and anyone who’s not shallow will appreciate that.
If you’re ready to find you, then these will help you keep it real.

• Accept yourself first: Truth is, you cannot be yourself if you don’t know, understand and accept yourself. Find time to understand your body, your emotions, your rough sides and smooth sides. Find time to consider what makes up the essence of who you are and don’t fight it. Also contemplate your life and choices. Act according to your likes, what you want to do, what you want to achieve. Define you based on your own terms not the terms of another person.

• Conflicting values: just as we have different sources of values , we all come from different social and educational backgrounds, societies, culture, religions and beliefs FINDING YOURSELF is finding your values. And in finding your values, don’t be surprised if some of them seem to conflict. This is a natural result of taking on broad values from other variety of sources. What matters is that you continue working through these conflicts to resolve what values feel most true to yourself. You should understand that you have different values for different aspects of your life.

• Let yourself grow; one of the most unhealthy and imbalanced approaches to being oneself is deciding you are who you are based on a moment or period of time, after which you spend the rest of your life trying to still be that person from the past rather than being you, but still letting yourself grow. Growing with the passing of each season and decade. The value of yesterday is not the value of today. Do not let issues of the past hinder your growth. Most importantly, do not FIXATE ON YOUR PAST. The past is the past and let it remain there.

Forgive past errors and behaviors you’re not proud of. Learn to accept mistakes you’ve made and accept your choices. You had reasons for making mistakes and it probably made sense at the time. Stop harassing yourself in the present for a mistake you made in the past. Instead learn from them and continue to grow.

• Find and Focus on your strengths; overtime, these may change and also, the definition of yourself but do not giving up finding and focusing on your strengths. They adequately balance out your flaws and are the principal reason for not comparing yourself to others. Focusing on your weakness will drag you down physically and emotionally.
Comparison leads to resentment. Comparison also leads to criticizing others and it is proven to be that those who always criticize themselves and others have low self-esteem. Comparison will leave you envy-struck and spending and you’d end up spending too much time admiring others for their characteristics and achievement and not yours. Comparison will not help if you’re trying to discover and nurture yourself.

• DEALING WITH OTHERS*
  - Be honest and open. What have you got to hide? You should understand that no one is perfect, everyone is learning and growing. If you feel shame and insecurity about any aspect of yourself and you feel you have to hide that, whether physically or emotionally, you HAVE to come to terms with it and learn to convert your flaws into down-to-earth acknowledgement of your own imperfections. OWN up to your imperfections and learn to work them out. Stop having to give excuses for your imperfections.

• Don’t compare yourself to others. You don’t know who is who, and you don’t know if they’re being entirely honest or true about themselves. You see them portraying happiness and the right public figure but you don’t know what’s really going on behind their facades in their supposed perfect world. By comparing yourself, you give their image portrayal too much power and reduce your self-worth based on a mirage.
  Instead value yourself and accept your personality and also, embrace your flaws because we all have them.
  

• Stop caring about how other people perceive you. Stop being a people pleaser. Accept that not everybody will like you. Always wanting everyone’s love and approval is a pointless exercise that can harm your personal development and CONFIDENCE. It is next to impossible being you if you’re constantly seeking approval from everybody and trying to always fit in. Trying to impress others by changing yourself will lead you to self-denial. Instead try to focus on building your talents and strengths. I advise you pay attention to people who mean you well and agree with you about what you want to do with your life.

• Surround yourself with positive people, people who respect and regard your choices, opinions and values. People, who wouldn’t bully you, share the same beliefs and views as yourself and are interested in your growth.
  

CULTIVATING YOUR TRUE SELF

• Treat yourself the same way as you’d treat your best friend. Who’s closer to you than you? Give yourself the same kind, thoughtful, sweet, respectful treatment that you give people you care about. Spoil yourself and do what you do best. You are responsible for yourself.
• Develop and express your individuality; whether your sense of style, your kind of music and even your manner of speaking. Be a character, not a type. Communication skills are very important too for people to understand you better
• Do not be unfair to yourself. Comparing yourself to mentors and leaders and people you find as inspiration and motivation to yourself is belittling. That person has worked and is just eating the fruit of his/her labour. Groom yourself to be as successful.
• Be different and like it. Accept your own style. Being unique is cool.
• Don’t give ear to disregarding comments and mockery from people. Be happy that you’re who you are and don’t let anyone spoil your mood. Don’t let the words of others define, shape, torment and kill you.
• Stand up for yourself. You deserve just as much. Don’t let others bully you.
• Stand up for others too.

I hope you’ve learnt one or two things on discovering and building yourself to your desired point. You only live once; you have the right to live this one life well. Have a great Monday!