Be who you want to be

What makes you who you are ? Is it the mistakes of your past,the people around you or perhaps is it how you look at yourself. If you answered the third option then you would be hitting the dot. The belief that we have of ourselves is our identity. That belief can actually be plenty of things in our life that we can come to identify with. Such things can be our careers,our friends/family, our possessions, our experiences and our values. All these aspects of your life can be powerful influences as to the way you see yourself and ultimately how you decide to act.

Identity can be a really tricky thing the reason for this is that when you are trying to make changes in your life the belief you have in yourself can interfere with those changes. Such an example can be a drug addict who is trying to leave drugs. The reason these two thing conflict is because of the belief he has about himself. How can you leave drugs if you're a drug addict? While he might leave the drugs for a bit the constant stigma that he is a drug addict will eventually lead him to do drugs again because that's how he holds himself. 

This is correlated to the saying what we think we are is who we become. So in order to change who we are we must think that we are someone else otherwise we are destined to keep repeating the patterns of that same identity. Let's take the example of the drug addict in order for him to change he must identify as new person. Someone who has nothing to do with drugs it is not enough for him to say I am a recovering addict. When he says that he is basically stating that he is just a drug addict in healing but is still regardless a drug addict. 

In order to change your identity has to be one that drives conviction something that moves or changes your perspective entirely. In this case rather than saying that he is a recovering addict  it would be more helpful to say that he is a man of god one who would never do drugs. If the opportunity came about for him to do drugs he would say that's not who I am that's the old me I am not that person anymore. While telling yourself you are a certain person may just seem like verbal garbage it's much more powerful than you think. Remember what you tell yourself and the words you use can significantly impact the way you carry yourself, the way you feel and the actions you take. This is why it's very important to have an identity that brings you pride and pleasure as oppose to an identity that does not empower you and brings you pain. 

We are who we choose to be at any moment which is an amazing thing. This means if you're not satisfied with who you are today you can change now by simply  identify with who you want to be.

Here are a couple steps to use to identify who you are and where you want to go : 

1. Write down who you are? Anything that describes you it can be metaphors, it can be your skills that you identify with. It can be the labels others have given you it can be your possessions. The important thing here is to ask yourself, "Who am I?" do it several times till you have an idea of who currently are. Don't be afraid to see what you are be curious the first part of changing is accepting what problems you have or where you can improve. 
2. Now make a list of the qualities you would like to have who has these abilities that you could model? Imagine fusing yourself with that person how would that change you. This will allow you to envision the person you want to be. 
3. Grab those qualities, picture yourself like a child who is asked who he wants to be in the future.Get excited, feel yourself living that new you, how does it feel? Write your description down of who you want to be this will allow you to make a clear picture of that person. Don't hesitate start acting as if you're already that person today. 
4. Now make an action plan that will reinforce that you're living that identity. This can mean taking new experiences to ensure that you are that person and also the people you are hanging around with do these people enforce your identity or destroy it? 
5. Lastly, make yourself vocal about your identity and how you plan to live but more than that vocalize it to yourself so you can be that person you want to be. 

If you do these steps and keep yourself committed there is no way you won't start acting like the person you want to be. Anytime you encounter something that the old you would of done just tell yourself that's not who I am anymore this is who I am I don't do those things. Choose to be the new you and live a life you can be proud of.