You have to get lost numerous times to find yourself, sounds cliche, but there’s truth in that. Sometimes getting lost helps you to get discovered. There are moments when you’re not sure if you’re even on the right track and what do you have to do to ensure that you are. Finding yourself is never easy that is why I wrote this post on how to do it. I have realized that sometimes all you need are a few tips to find yourself and that is why I named this the ultimate guide.

It shows you how to rediscover who you are and truly find yourself. The year is almost over and as I look back on the past months, I contemplate what I have actually achieved. I started projects that failed because of bad planning, no strategy and due to me getting caught taking cookies from too many cookie jars.

I started the year knowing that I was capable of achieving great things and I ended the year, not sure what I achieved in the first place. I got lost discovering myself, all my projects cooking up in my mind didn’t make it out in one piece. So, yeah it has been a rough couple of months. Now I’m realizing that I had it all wrong.  

Failure isn’t the end of the road

I thought once if I got what I wanted everything would fall into place. Was I dead wrong? I went back to school to study entrepreneurship, it required me to live with my cousin and I believed that my life would be better. Was I wrong? Fast forward, a couple of months later, she kicked me out of her house and that’s when things shifted. Did I fail?

It’s a question we ask ourselves all the time, trying to figure out whether we’re worthy of success. My brother saw me as a failure, that was a heavy blow to my ego and things shifted again. I wasn’t in control of my circumstances, but up to that point, nothing had worked out for me. I was jobless even though I had graduated at the top of my class, had to go back to school, only to be back where I had started.

That was hard to swallow. My whole life I was hoping someone would fix my mess, I worked endlessly, but I believed that when the time was right things would work out. I believed that all I had to do was find the right job, things would work out. When that didn’t happen, I released a book that barely made a $100. That was crushing, I had a blog that didn’t have any subscribers. 

I canceled my domain name, did another blog that failed just like the first one. What this has taught me is that failure doesn’t define who you are, it builds character. I started the year afraid I would fail and now I relish into it because without it I wouldn’t have come this far. Sometimes the best way to discover who you are is to allow yourself to fail, it’s only then do you understand who you are and what you want. 

Failure isn’t the end of the road, once you fall, you start have to get back up. This is one of the best tips to actually finding yourself. I was so lost and that is why I spent time looking for the best ways to find myself, it wasn’t easy doing it. I was so lost, it has taken me time to understand what it takes to actually find yourself. 

Finding myself wasn’t easy, I also had to understand one blunt truth that failure is inevitable. Often, we forget that no matter how much effort we put in, we can’t escape failure. It was a lesson I had to learn when I was finding myself.

Fear Will Hold You Back If You Let It

Here’s the nugget of truth, fear is the enemy that keeps you at bay. It is the voice that prevents you from pushing back. I have spent most of my life afraid of things that were not in my control and that’s normal. Most of us do that so often, we don’t realize it even when it’s staring at us point blank. Fear will hold you back as long as you let it. It will cripple you because only then can it be a placeholder.

There’s no such thing as a fearless person or someone that has a fear deficit. We are all afraid of something, even successful people have their own book of fears that keep them up at night. Big difference is they don’t let it hold them back. When you let fear be the dominant voice then you will never achieve what you want to because you’re too scared. Too terrified of appearing weird, crazy and a failure.  Fear will make it a lot harder to find yourself and push yourself back up. 

Starting From Scratch is Just The Beginning

My first blog I was trying to emulate other bloggers, give their perspectives and I was lost. So confused with what I wanted my blog to be about and called. Doing that isn’t bad, after all the gurus say that you need to follow what others do. That was the problem though, I was trying too hard to be like everyone else and so my blog wasn’t authentic, not in the way I wanted it to be. Sometimes the best way to find yourself is to start at the beginning. 

I had to start from scratch and that was a hard thing to do. I had to close my eyes, understand what my story was and do it the best way I can. What I had to realize is everyone has their own journey, their own story and they have to be authentic. They have to do what’s best for them and tell their version. That’s the beauty in life, figuring out what tells your story and starting from there.

Realizing that we all have to go back to the drawing boards even after it blows up in our faces. That we have to be honest. My story is I had to accept that going back to basics wasn’t the end. Yours could be accepting the truth about a situation, figuring out that you can do something and realizing that relationships will always be hard.  

We all have to start from scratch at one point in our lives because that is how we find ourselves, it definitely won’t be a walk in the park. But in the end it will be worth it.

Work With Passion

I want to do things that matter, that has always been true when it comes to me. The amount of money I have makes no difference if I’m not making an impact. If tomorrow I forget that then I’m just as lost as I was when I started this journey. Sometimes we loose ourselves in what we do and forget what matters. I lived in South Africa for six months, did a lot of things that I was terrified to do.

One of the things I did was climb Table mountain, I’m terrified of heights, and doing that made me come close to death. Standing on top of the mountain, looking down, made me ask questions about myself, like I can’t believe I was bold enough to do that and can I do it again. It made me ask myself whether I was more terrified of the idea than the action. Finding yourself isn’t easy and that’s why with everything you do, you need to work with passion. 

Life is about living boldly, asking questions no one would dare ask and discovering yourself. When you work with passion it will easier to find who you are. You will know what you love and hate, seems simple, but it isn’t. A lot of us wake up and life has become a routine, we have forgotten what made us happy and it isn’t the aroma of coffee in the morning.

We have forgotten how to be passionate about work or it could be that many of us do jobs that we don’t love. I’m not saying quit your job, it pays for rent and you don’t want to do couch surfing. But find what makes you tick and pursue it. I have learned along the way, that it is easy to get caught up in a routine that you loose yourself along the way.  

If passion is one of the reasons that is making it hard for you to find yourself, I wrote a blog post about the reasons why people are terrified to go after their passions.

One Step At A Time

Before you run a race you need to exercise, you can’t jump hurdles before you learn how to brace yourself. Before you go on self-discovery, you need to brace yourself. Then you take baby steps, that way you don’t get overwhelmed with all the things you have to do. This year made me realize that I have to be kind to myself, forgive myself for mistakes I have made.

And I made plenty. I had to fall flat to understand how easily it is to slip into a dark place and that you have to give yourself time. So much has changed within this year, relationships that started strong are now fragmented. I lost friends a long the way, the truth has hit me in the face and dreams that were floating over my head have been ripped a apart. Am I stronger than I was on the 1st of January 2018.

Yes, I am. This year will end and three truths will hold firmly in my mind. The first is that my failure is a learning curve, the second is that I have to be smarter with every decision I have made and the third is that I discovered new things about myself. If it helps keep a journal, track down your thoughts, experiences and be kind to yourself. That’s the most important thing, no one can tell you who you are or where you are going except you.

No one can direct your path expect you. No one can guide you expect you. It takes time to find who you are especially when you got lost in the storm.  

If you want more tips on how to find yourself, there’s this great article from Mind Body Green. It covers mostly what I wrote here on how to find yourself, but a lot of the tips they have are also great. We spend our whole lives trying to find ourselves and it is never an easy thing to do. Not because of the time it takes, but it is due to not realizing the dedication required to find yourself. 

Finding yourself like riding a bicycle takes time, it takes understanding that you will have good and bad days. That there will be moments in your life when things don’t work out the way you want it to. Finding yourself is only half the battle, the next is understanding who you want to be and fighting for yourself every day.

This is part one of finding yourself, part two will come out soon. What experiences have you gone through that have made to figure out who you are? Comment below and I will reply back as soon as possible.  

                                                                          KEEP   PUSHING

                                                                               VANESSA