Discovering Yourself

Discovering yourself is a journey. It's a long road that's not a straight path. It has twists and turns and different branches and choices. You can continue on the highway or take the side road. It's all dependent on your choices.

When you're starting your self-discovery adventure, it's important to have a starting point and a plan.

Your plan doesn't have to be rigid - it shouldn't be, in fact. Life gives you twists and turns and unpredictable events. Life might follow your plan, but more often than not, it won't. It's good to have guidelines, though - steps that you can change. If life throws you a curve-ball, your plan should be flexible enough to curve with it.

It's important to begin your journey from a starting point. Just like a road trip, you can't go anywhere if you have nowhere to start from. Your starting point doesn't have to be exceptional, either. Just learn some basic facts about yourself. What do you like? What don't you like? What are your normal behaviors?

Once you have your starting point, start thinking deeply and asking yourself questions. What are your values? What's important to you? Do you need to be kind and considerate? Do you need to give 110% regardless of what you're working on? Do you like things to be beautiful? It's necessary to figure out what's important to you.

From there, you can go further. Evaluate if your current interests and goals align with your values. If so, great! If not, no worries! Either way, try new things. Start by exploring different areas similar to topics you're interested in. If you love reading books, try writing one! If you like watching musicals, try to get involved in production! You don't have to diverge from your current interests too much at a time, but it's important to keep trying new things.

With every new thing you try, you're going to learn something about yourself and you're going to feel a certain way doing it. You might hate whatever it is and learn that you don't like thrills (i.e. roller coasters, horror movies, etc.) and you'll know that's not something that's important to you.

Overall, self-discovery is an on-going process. There's always going to be something new to learn about yourself, and you're going to change over time. Some things that didn't interest you in the past might interest you in the future, and vice versa. Some things that were important to you might not be anymore, and vice versa. What matters is that you're keeping up with these changes as they happen. That is self-discovery. It's an ongoing journey, not a destination.