Defining yourself simply means knowing who you are, what you stand for, your identity, your values, your rules, and your expectations for yourself. It is about you identifying the standards and foundation upon which your life is built. Nobody can define you but yourself, and it is the definition you give that determines your pace, accomplishments, and achievements in life. It affects the direction you head in and where you end up as an individual.
It is simply what you believe about yourself. And belief controls everything.
WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT?
Defining yourself is one of the most important things you can do to give yourself the best chance at success.
- it determines how you will act and respond to life situations. For example, it can determine how you respond in the time of challenges whether you will fight or flight. Think about it- if you have a rule that you see your goals through no matter what when things get hard and you find it hard to see a way through you will never give up because you have defined yourself as a fighter.
- It blocks out people’s negative opinions about you. The danger of not defining yourself is that the people around you and your subconscious will define you and take control of the outcome of your life from you.
- It separates you from the challenges you go through.
You are not your challenge; it is just an occurrence happening in your space. Many people have resorted to defining themselves by their circumstances, for example, if you do not have a job, you constantly refer to yourself as “I am unemployed” and gradually develop an entitlement mentality, if you are going through financial difficulties, you can unconsciously begin to lose confidence in yourself, and enthusiasm to take new steps, begin to see yourself as a victim, nurture and display negative emotions and tick at little things, simply because you have defined yourself as financially incompetent or you are seeing yourself through the eyes of your financial struggle.
- You become your best you. If you have defined yourself as I am a person of integrity, it does not matter what the compromise put before you will hold on to your values and standard, if you have a rule that you will see your goals through no matter what, then even when things get hard and to find it hard to see a way through you will never give up.
HOW TO DEFINE YOURSELF
- Get clarity of where you are now. You need to know where you are now so you can take steps forward.
- Ask yourself what do you want to be and how do you want to define yourself based on that? What kind of person would you be that you will be proud of?
- Let go of your old identity because it does not serve you. It is that simple. The disadvantage of a wrong definition is that it only limits you from living your best life.
Decide that going forward no one will define you. That power solely belongs to you.