How to Find Yourself When You Are Lost

What do you do when you reach that point in your life when you've forgotten who you are?

I recently found myself at this point. I forgot who I was and what I was about. Let me give you some background on who I am as a person. I'm 23 years old, I'm married, and I'm in college. I've always been the brainy girl. The one who knew stuff. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to retain who I am when life changes.

Chalk it up to the stress of college, chalk it up to growing up, chalk it up to whatever you think the cause might be, I was lost.

How did I find myself again? Easy.

I went back to the basics of me. What do I like to do? I like to read and talk to people. What are some of my favorite qualities in myself? My ability to adapt was one of my favorite qualities. But since this was obviously a wrong observation, seeing as how I lost who I was, I decided to ditch that concept. Now one of my favorite qualities is my ability to command a situation and laugh heartily at the unforseen outcomes.

When you are lost it is best to remember how you got to that point in life. So how did I get to that point? I let people push me around and tell me who I was and who I wasn't. I listened for FAR too long to what other people said I was as a person. They said I was a nerd. Now I might be a little nerdy but I am far from a nerd. So over time I turned into that nerd. I started dressing more conservatively. I hid my body behind baggy clothing. I stopped wearing my contacts and started wearing my glasses. I stopped trying to laugh, dance, and smile and started trying to over correct how I acted. Basically, I became a bore.

So to find myself, I shed everything I was at that time. I shed the clothes (not literally but I put them away) that made me a nerd. I still wear the glasses but I alternate between contacts and glasses. I started laughing at the little things in life. And most importantly, I stopped listening to other people.

I started loving what I was doing no matter what was happening. If I was in the middle of work and assigned two large tasks that could not possibly be completed that night. I laughed it off and did what I could on the tasks. If they were not completely done, oh well. I stopped saying yes sir, no madam to people who I knew were wrong. I started re-enforcing who I was and what I felt needed to happen.

So basically, when you lose yourself because of life changes, depression, or just find yourself in a funk, pull yourself out and start at the beginning. If you shed enough baggage, you will see who you really are as a person and not what everyone thinks you are in the crowd.