Getting to know yourself

Have you ever thought about who are you?

Is that very question making you think, ‘good grief’, ‘who cares’ or ‘blimey… who am I’.

The way you think about yourself, the way that you define yourself and the way that society and who your social circles are, all influences ‘you’ and therefore the life you are living.

When someone talks about you, what do they say?

You are a ‘big shot’ in the city.
You are a marketing something or other for a telecoms business.
You run the shop in the high street.
You are the local postman.
You are an army wife.
You are Dottie’s Mum.
You are Pauline’s husband.
You are Steven’s partner.

How are you introduced at a local social event? Have you ever tuned in and noticed. When you get introduced in a way that you don’t feel fits with who you really are, then you tend to remember. Being introduced as someone else’s partner is a classic way of you questioning who you are. You might counter by offering what you do. Reclaiming ‘you’ as an individual through offering out your job description or social status.. But is that who you really are?

When you get made redundant all questions and emotions about who you are, are thrown up into the air, and left there for your emotions to deal with and work through.

If you have lived by your job title, and it’s suddenly taken away. Then who are you?

Are you someone who is going to very quickly get another job. And therefore job title. Your whole driver is get same or even better job title. (And of course start earning money again).

Or are you willing to spend time thinking about you?

Women also talk about this loss of identity after child birth. Suddenly they aren’t ‘Career champion Sarah’ they are ‘Hugo’s Mum’. Some people love their new label, others find it more challenging.

So when your circumstances change. And society decides you are now defined by something else. What do you do?

Think of yourself as a human, not a label

You might not have the job, but you still have all the skills, experience and knowledge. All these things contribute to your label.

And who you are is about what you enjoy, your purpose, what you really want to be doing with your life. Big questions that you don’t need to be thinking about why you are fully focused on your corporate career.

Starting to think about why you do the things you do, helps you understand where you are today. If you are in a job, and you have no idea how you got there, or it wasn’t a career you expected, it’s worth while spending time retracing the things that happened to get to where you are now. Was it opportunity, choice, other people’s influence, circumstances?

If you have big goals and dreams for the future, then rethinking how you progress and your role in your story in fundamental. As the big coaching gurus say “what got you here, wont get you there”.

Things to think about:

Why do you do the things you do? For the love, you are trained, for the money, your passion, you believe in it?
What do you say when someone asks you what you do?
Do you like your answer?
What would you like your answer to be?
What do you want to change about what you do? Circumstances, emotions, happiness, satisfaction, worthiness?

This is just the start of finding out who you are.

Remember all those team away days? And the forms and surveys they made you fill in. The MBTIs, Insights, Belbin type personality tests you did at work?

Well they could give you clues for your zones of comfort, your strengths, your preferred working environment, your work style. They help you to understand the circumstances that you thrive, and the circumstances that will hold you back.

When you spend time on getting to know yourself, it’s surprising how you have answers to what is making you feel stuck or what’s holding you back.