If you took away the roles you play, the expectations you meet, and the version of you that other people have come to rely on, how much of yourself would you still recognize?
That question gives me pause because most of us have spent years becoming someone. Maybe you’re the competent one, the successful one, the dependable one, the peacemaker, the person who keeps everyone happy, or the one who always seems to have it together. You’ve probably gotten pretty good at being that person, and chances are other people have come to expect it from you.
But somewhere underneath all of that, you may also know there’s more to you than the persona you’ve become so good at presenting.
Who are you when you’re not being who everyone else needs or expects you to be?
That’s the question behind the Become Who You Are Meant to Be Month.
I created this month because we spend an enormous amount of time managing our lives and surprisingly little time thinking about our own development. We work, take care of people, deal with problems, fulfill family and career responsibilities, and keep driving ourselves beyond exhaustion.
It’s hard to stop and realize that have become so good at being what others expect us to be that we have lost sight of the person we are meant to be.
So What Does It Actually Mean?
Becoming who you are meant to be doesn’t require moving to an ashram, quitting your job, finding your one true purpose, or completely reinventing yourself.
It means:
- Getting curious about yourself again. Not the roles you play, but who you are underneath them.
- Knowing what drives you. Your predominant need tells you a lot about what gives you energy and when you’re moving away from yourself.
- Noticing where your energy is going. Are you developing your authentic self or putting more effort into maintaining your adaptive persona?
- Developing capacities you haven’t fully used yet. There’s more available to you than the strengths you already know how to rely on.
- Choosing development throughout your life. You’re not finished your development just because others see you as successful or reached a certain age.
And What Doesn’t It Mean?
It doesn’t mean:
- Finding a secret destiny you somehow missed. There isn’t one correct life you were supposed to figure out.
- Becoming someone completely different. Development is about becoming more of yourself, not somebody else.
- Fixing everything that’s “wrong” with you. You’re developing potential, not repairing a defective product.
- Adding another achievement to your list. You can be incredibly successful and still be living mostly from your adaptive persona.
- Waiting for your authentic self to magically unfold. Potential needs your participation. You have to develop it.
That last one is most important.
Two Agendas, One Path to Become Who You Are Meant to Be
The authentic self is a fully formed person hiding inside us, waiting for the right moment to appear.
In the Striving Styles Personality System, our self-actualizing system directs energy toward the development of the authentic self, while our self-protective system directs energy toward the adaptive persona we created to cope, belong, succeed, and feel safe.
Both have their own agenda. The interesting question is which one has been getting most of your energy.
You can spend years making the adaptive persona stronger. You can get even better at being responsible, pleasing, accomplished, independent, needed, impressive, or in control. Other people may even congratulate you for it while something inside you becomes increasingly dissatisfied.
Or you can listen to that little nudge that says, There’s more to me than this.
I think that nudge matters. It’s the seed within our authentic self calling us toward development, reminding us that there are still capacities to develop, experiences to have, and parts of ourselves to bring into our lives.
What Are You Waiting For?
One of the easiest things to do is tell ourselves we’ll pay attention to our own development later. When work settles down. When the kids need us less. When the relationship is better. When we retire. When we have more time, more energy, more money, or fewer things demanding our attention.
The problem is that life rarely clears the calendar and announces that it’s finally time to become who you are meant to be.
We can’t rely on magical thinking either. Knowing there’s more to us doesn’t develop it. Reading about our personality doesn’t develop it. Understanding why we behave the way we do doesn’t automatically change how we live.
At some point, we have to participate.
We have to notice when we’re strengthening the same old persona instead of developing something new. We have to listen when our predominant need tells us something is off. We have to take the capacities of our authentic self out of the realm of possibility and start using them in our actual lives.
There may never be a perfect time to become who you are meant to be. There is only the point at which you decide to stop waiting and start developing.