“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”
~ Aristotle
When all is lost, and you are deep in the sea of confusion, knowing how to find yourself again, involves building a sense of self-importance and a sense of self-competence.
Discovering your true self will help you put a lot in focus. In this article, you will learn the secret to knowing how to find yourself spiritually, and tap into your spiritual energy when life comes at you with tough times.
The gospel of self-discovery is a message everyone has heard or read about at one point in their life or another. We are often reminded that we didn’t come to this world just to go with the flow but to carve our own path to happiness and purpose. Weirdly enough, not many people discover their purpose in life but go through life in a shell.
Have you ever been in a situation where you are completely lost as to what is going on around you? At a point, it seems like you have everything all figured out, and then, in a flash, everything is gone again – you are back to being confused and unproductive.
The cycle seems not to have an end and you literally do not know what to do. If you can relate to that, then this article is for you.
This problem is more peculiar to youths and teens. Many young people, especially in their 20s, are still on a journey to discovering themselves and their purpose.
There are way too many distractions and they seem to be covered by a cloud of confusion. This is a terrible phase and if you are there, I would advise you to be careful. You are very vulnerable and without proper care, you would fall.
Self-discovery is quite easy, continuing the discovered path is the tricky aspect. So, I’ll be using this medium to talk about how to find yourself and fuel the passion for what you have discovered, it’s no good making a discovery and keeping it buried.
In this article, I will explain 10 ways through which you can find yourself in life. Grab a cup of coffee and let’s do this!
How to find yourself
1. Meditation
Meditation is a general knowledge in learning how to find yourself. Sometimes, all you have to do is to take a break from all the noise, just free your mind and think.
This allows you to reminisce on the times you were at your happiest, the times you were most fulfilled. It could be when you helped an elderly cross the road or speaking to your family or a walk through the park.
These memories could trigger a discovery about yourself that was never noticed maybe due to the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
2. Trying Something New
Remember that the reason for wanting to learn how to find yourself is to perfect your journey to self-discovery. You are still unsure of what you have within you, and so, you should open up your mind to trying different things till you figure it out.
I have a friend who on the path to self-discovery, decided to name her journey “try something Tuesday”, where she tried something new every Tuesday for 6 months. This was to help her know what she loved and what she didn’t.
So basically, what she did was create a list of what she wanted to try and did try it starting on the assigned Tuesday and then she’d keep it up for 6 days and on Monday, she’d review the task and decide if it is what she could continue with or not.
At the end of six months, there was a considerable change in her life. She had a better relationship with her parents; she was more emotionally intelligent and focused and to top it all, she discovered her dream career and followed the path.
Now, I’m not saying that you should do the same thing but you have to try something new as often as possible until you discover what makes you tick.
Try out different sports, read books, go places, meet new people, or just take out time for yourself and relax, it helps. Because if you remain stagnant and stick to your old habits, you might not find yourself but go through life on the terms dictated by others.
3. Build Relationships With Others
In your journey to learning how to find yourself, you must realize that building relationships with others is compulsory. The phrase “a tree doesn’t make a forest” will always be relevant because a lot of our decisions and strength are fueled by our environment: our family, friends, colleagues, etc.
So, I advise you to build strong relationship with someone who has discovered their purpose, you will surely learn from them.
This is one of the reasons people build a mentor-mentee relationship with someone who has attained a level they want to get to.
Not just mentorship, you can also become friends with such person, surround yourself with positive energy and vibes, you tend to get a lot more done that way. Also, learn to cut off from relationships that do not help your purpose, some people might consider this selfish, but it’s your path and your self-discovery, and self-care is not being selfish.
4. Take Care Of Yourself
For you to find yourself in life, you have to be sound in all areas of your life, mentally, physically, emotionally, and even spiritually. If your life feels off, you will be massively distracted in your journey to self-discovery.
So, eat good food, regularly go for medical checkups, talk to someone if you’re emotionally unbalanced. Just do all you can to be healthy at all times. As you may know, I am a self-care enthusiast. So, self-care is highly paramount to me.
5. Give Yourself Time
They say Rome was not built in a day, well, neither is self-discovery. That’s why it’s a journey. As you continually strive to find yourself, have in mind that it might not be in an instant.
This will help you not to put yourself under undue pressure and unnecessary frustrations.
7. Learn To Differentiate Between What You Want And Who You Are
The path of self-discovery is to find out who you are and our selfish desires can sometimes cloud that.
All some people want in life is money so they do all they can to get it, they kill their passion, they sometimes do what they loathe and even what is illegal just to get it. The main aim of finding yourself should be happiness or fulfillment.
Now how we can differentiate between desire and fulfillment is by asking the question “once the desire has been met, will it bring fulfillment?”. You can project into the future and consider this factor.
Some people don’t earn much but are happy, really happy. So, don’t let your desire cloud your purpose, sometimes they match, and sometimes they don’t, but the ball is in your court.
8. Give Yourself Feedback
All in all, you have to find out what’s best for you and one of the ways of doing that is giving yourself feedback on how a particular task or project affected you, did it make you better? Do you feel better? Is it something you would want to continue?
Do you want to explore it? The answer to these questions would determine your next line of action.
9. Be Quiet
Finding yourself requires that you are quiet. You should be able to listen to your inner self. Truth is, you know yourself more than anyone else.
Your instincts and inner voice can guide you in finding your real self. While doing this, you might end up cutting off some of your close friends. It would be painful but at the end of the day, your inner sanity is all that matters.
10. Don’t Dwell On Your Past, But Reflect On It
The past is only dead until the life you give it. If you are going to find yourself in life, you have to be able to let your past go. Do not allow your past to take over your current life and decision-making.
You can learn from it, but do not allow it to take over your life. Remember that the past is just a fragment of your life’s journey. Do not dwell on it. You have a lot ahead of you if only you would open your mind to finding yourself. You are too busy with your present to be focused on the past.
11. Be Honest With Yourself
Honesty is key. Knowing how to find yourself is hinged on honesty. If you are genuine about your bid to know who you are, you must be honest enough to admit to your flaws and inconsistencies.
Accepting your flaws does not make you weak, rather, it makes you strong. You cannot right your wrongs if you do not accept that they are your wrongs in the first place.
Now, I must state here that this requires real discipline. If for instance, you are meant to be doing something in your schedule plan, and a distraction pops up, stick to it.
Do not allow yourself to be distracted. You are on a journey to finding yourself, honesty is paramount at this point.
Finding yourself in life is hinged on your passion, motivation, and discipline. We can’t talk about finding your purpose without talking about what fuels it, passion.
Passion is an integral part of self-discovery, from the beginning to the very end. Even the zeal to find your path and discover yourself is fuelled by passion.
Passion makes you stick to something; passion births consistency. Passion works in hand with other factors like determination and motivation.
Just like you fuel your goals and purpose with passion, your passion needs fuel too, and this is where motivation comes into play. Motivation gives you the drive to always keep going no matter what.
Lastly, in your bid to know how to find yourself, you must understand the power of discipline. You should never underestimate the power of will. You must first be willing to go on this journey of self-discovery. And when you do so, you must be resolute about getting the right level of discipline to go along with it.
In conclusion, there are different ways you can go about your life, either just flowing with the waves of life without a particular goal or carving a path for yourself and following your path to happiness and fulfillment, it all lies in your hands.
ACTIVITY PLAN
Go to Pg. 124 of The AfamUche Self-development Journal (Here: The Life Compass Workbook) and recite every single line on the page. Remember, you need to be honest with yourself to make it work. There are other self-discovery exercises and activities you can attempt in the workbook that will draw you closer to your highest self so do well to check the Workbook.
FOR YOU
Hey there! Thank you for reading this article. I believe that you must have learned a thing or two regarding how to find yourself. Again, while finding yourself might seem like a herculean task, it is quite simple if you want it to be.
No matter how grave your mistakes are, you should be rest assured that you can always find yourself again. Do not give in to the deceitful thoughts that you are completely lost.
You are not. You are on a journey to self-discovery and with the tips stated in this article, you should be able to work things out for yourself. Love and miracles.
Sending in my love and light… Uche. Feel free to send me a direct message on Instagram or an email if you are having several challenges trying to discover yourself and I’ll surely help in any way I can.
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