Searching for yourself.
By Hannah Preikschat
Hannah is a dreamer, a book enthusiast, and an aspiring author. She's happiest when she's making other people laugh (or when she's napping). You can usually find her with her nose in a book, daydreaming, and eating homemade cookies.
Something that has bothered me for the past few years is that I really don’t know who I am. Which is kind of weird, right?
I mean, I’m with myself twenty-four hours of the day. You would think that I’d have a pretty good idea of what makes me tick, but instead I’ve come to realize that I actually don’t know all that much about myself.
I think that this is the case for a lot of us. We know what our favorite color is and our favorite ice cream flavor and if we’re a dog person or a cat person. But we don’t actually really know ourselves.
We don’t spend enough time getting out of our comfort zones and learning new things about us. We don’t spend enough time reflecting on what we like about ourselves (and we spend WAY too much time focusing on what we don’t like). We spend so much time with ourselves, but we barely spend any time actually developing ourselves and learning about who we are.
Self-discovery is a lifelong process and it’s not just going to happen overnight, but I’ve really been trying to start the journey! I think that if I’m going to spend the rest of my life with myself, I may as well develop and be happy with who I am.
I want to know my strengths and my weaknesses, what scares me and what fills me with joy. So, without further ado, these are my top five tips for finding out more about you!
Spend less time on social media.
Social media can be a great thing sometimes, but it also leads to a lot of comparing ourselves to others (which is never a good thing! You should be focusing on how great you are, not on how much greater you think everyone else is).
Plus, nothing really productive gets done when you’re scrolling through Facebook. Yeah, looking at memes and watching lifehack videos can be fun, but they’re probably not going to add anything meaningful to your life.
Do things that scare you.
Something that I’ve found in my own life is that if something seems both scary and exciting, it’s probably something that I should do.
Maybe acting seems cool to you, but you have really bad stage fright. Or maybe you want to try writing a book, but you don’t think that you’re a good writer, and you’re worried that nobody would read it.
If there’s something that you want to try, go for it!! The worst thing that can happen is that you fail, learn, and do better next time. The best thing that can happen is that you find a new passion that makes your life a bit more interesting and a lot more enjoyable.
Let go of what’s not working for you.
If there’s something in your life that doesn’t make you happy, don’t feel bad about getting rid of it.
Donate old clothes that you don’t like anymore. Cancel the yoga class that you’re not enjoying. Get rid of the things in your life that don’t bring you joy, so you have the opportunity to find new things that you like.
Be alone for a while.
How are you supposed to get to know yourself if you never spend any quality time with yourself? While it doesn’t have to be a big chunk of time, try and set aside a little bit of time every day where you can just be alone.
Maybe you want to take yourself out for coffee, or maybe you just want to read your favorite book for a few minutes. It really doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you have a little bit of time each day where all you have to think about is doing what makes you happy.
Don’t feel bad about not knowing who you are yet.
Remember, self-discovery is a lifelong thing. Nobody has all the answers, and we are constantly learning new things about ourselves!
The only thing that matters is that you keep making little steps. As long as you continue to learn and continue to add to the list of all the great things that make up you, you really can’t go wrong.