Excavating the Real You: Finding Yourself and Your Path to Authenticity

Being true to yourself puts you in better alignment with the universe and opens more opportunities in all aspects of life.

Key Takeaways:

• Finding yourself is the first step to joy in life.
• It requires delving deep into your personality to see what makes you tick and why.
• Discovering yourself helps you find your purpose in life and what you value most.
• It takes time and a willingness to be uncomfortable to unearth your authentic self.

It’s easy to forget your authentic self in the hustle and bustle of life. The daily grind has a way of taking over your every thought, leaving no room for your passions, interests, and desires. You become more about earning money and getting stuff than feeding your soul and discovering what brings joy.

Surprising to many is that nurturing your authentic self and allowing it to flourish impacts all areas of life, including career and financial life. This guide explains what it means to find yourself, why it’s so important, and some actionable steps you can take to further your journey.

Finding yourself and self-awareness

What it means to find yourself is different for everyone, but it typically revolves around the reason you exist and your life’s purpose. Looking for these existential answers requires going on a journey of self-discovery to uncover your values, principles, and the things that matter to you most.

Much of this personal journey is learning to ignore our critical inner messages so that we might hear our authentic voices. When we are self-aware, we have stronger relationships, make better decisions, and are more confident and creative.

As vital as self-awareness is to happiness, people are often afraid to take this journey. Self-discovery can seem selfish to people who confuse it with indulgence, and it can seem like a waste of time to those who think they’re already living their purpose but have never stopped to take the time and evaluate whether they truly are.

If you’re considering taking the steps necessary to find yourself, good news! You’ve already started your journey. However, there are a few more steps to complete.

Steps to self-awareness

Understanding yourself better doesn’t require any complex techniques or expensive therapy sessions. The only prerequisite is time and a growth mindset. Here are a few things to help guide you to your true self:

Growth mindset

No growth or discovery takes place without a growth mindset. To cultivate a mindset ready for growth, you must be mindful and focus on positivity. Question what you do in your usual routine and look for ways to do those things differently for a new learning experience. Keeping your mind in growth mode is a constant reminder to be on the lookout for the life lessons happening around us all the time.

Understand your past

Making sense of your past is the only way to uncover your true self. It’s also one of the biggest reasons people avoid this journey. It is time to shed childhood beliefs and automatically accepted ideology and develop a thoughtful and honest personal set of values, principles, and beliefs.

It can be painful to rehash the past, but it’s necessary to create a joyful future. What happened to us isn’t as important as how we deal with it and how we fit it into the narrative of our lives.

Concentrate on what you want

Humans tend to focus on the negative. When something terrible happens, the day is automatically ruined. Imagine if it were the opposite — all it took was one little positive action to occur, and the rest of the day would feel wonderful, no matter what else happened.

Concentrating on what we like and want in our lives draws those things to us faster than constantly speaking on the negative aspects.

Own your power

You can harness your power when you start letting go of all the social constructs, family ideals, and negative self-images you thought were your personality. When these things begin to fade away, you find the power to take control of your life.

Set goals you can hit

No matter how clearly you see your future, you can be knocked off course with unrealistic goals. Set goals that are attainable with hard work instead of pie-in-the-sky dreams that should happen further down the road.

A big part of hitting your goals is holding yourself accountable. If you want to lose 20 pounds this year, don’t let yourself off the hook for those weekly workouts.

Finding meaning and purpose

Discovering the meaning of your life becomes clearer when your values and guiding principles are uncovered. Once you understand what means the most to you, it’s time to decide what to do about it. For some people, it is to fight injustice; for others, it is to cultivate a garden in a small corner of the world.

Look for the things that give you the greatest sense of humanity, and consider how and why they impact you.

These integral steps will set you on a journey of self-discovery that will change your life and those of the people you love when you become more in tune with who you really are.

Excavating the real you is the most important job of your life. Continuing to grow and evolve as you age keeps life exciting and meaningful. As poet Mary Oliver said, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Get started on your journey of self-discovery today

Digging deep into the real you is a tough job, but it’s absolutely worth it when living your dream life. I base my teachings on what I’ve found to be true about personal transformation and how it affects every part of life. Take a look at my LinkedIn and Twitter pages to see what personal transformation looks like firsthand and what it can do for you!