We all have preconceived notions about who we are, who we’re supposed to be and who we want to be. What we all generally forget to include is where we’ve been, what we’ve been through and how far we’ve come from where we’ve started. We may not end up where we thought we would be, but we’ve ended up exactly where we were needed at the times that we were supposed to. Someone once told me that life isn’t a race and they were absolutely right. Everyone goes at their own pace. Everyone does things differently. The universe is setting the pace for each of us as individuals, so who are we to tell the universe that it doesn’t know what it’s doing?

For the longest time, when it came to who I was, I focused on what others told me. I let my own identity be defined by people who really didn’t know me that well. I focused on the negatives and brought myself down. I let myself become a scared, nervous person who didn’t want to try anything new for fear of failing. As I started my own family and continued to work towards my own personal goals, I realized that my identity wasn’t shaped by what others thought of me but from what I thought of myself. I could be that strong, confident and intelligent young woman that I’d always wanted to be while keeping my fun loving side as well. I started to focus on that and with a much more solid support system, I even started to believe it a little bit. Instead of focusing on the negative things, I instead started to focus on positive achievements.

When it came to who I was supposed to be, most of the influencing factors in that came from well meaning family members. While I’m sure they had the best intentions at heart, the consistent pushing for only top tier performance began to take a toll. Soon, I became particularly observant about my shortcomings when it came to sports, school or even my own personal writing. I strove for perfection that I would probably never achieve. While everyone only encouraged me to do my best, my own mind had this idea that my family members would be disappointed if I did anything below perfection. This was obviously not the case. Eventually, I realized that I was going to drive myself crazy with this perfectionist attitude and that doing my best was all that I could do. Who I was supposed to be, was again shaped by my own perceptions. The person I was supposed to be, was already the person that I was.

Both of the realizations about who I was and who I was supposed to be helped me to figure out who I want to be. In high school, when you start talking about your future, there’s a lot of pressure. Do you know what you want to be? What field should you go into? I knew right away that I would go into a field centered around English Language and Literature but I had no idea what I wanted to be when “I grew up”. I now know what I want to do but does that determine who I want to be? The answer is no. The career that I’ve chosen to go into suits me but it isn’t who I want to be. The person I want to be sets a good example for her son, is loyal, caring, friendly, loves to have fun, is intelligent and family oriented.

So, I guess the point of all of this is just to say, ditch your negative notions of who you are, who you’re meant to be and focus on the you that you want to be. There’s always time to grow and to become the person that you’ve always wanted to be. Don’t let others badly influence the way you think of yourself. Chances are you’re pretty great just the way you are.