Hi Reader,
Since I’m working on ~becoming~ My Ideal Self, I thought I would first introduce you to some of the people who have inspired me and shaped my idea of My Ideal Life. Before I do that, I wanted to share with you a little journaling exercise I did that helped me find these people.
Disclaimer- I’m not a mental health professional or anything. This is a fun self-reflection prompt that may or may not do much for you.
How It Started
In this day and age with social media, we have access to so much all the time. Different lifestyles, never-ending trends, and everyone seems to be trying to sell you something.
Once, I thought I wanted to be a CEO boss lady who always travels the world, and another time I thought maybe I wanted to be a homesteading traditional wife with a bunch of kids. Once, I was very into glam fashion, and then I wanted to be an organic-cotton-wearing minimalist. I had a gymrat phase, counting macros and living off protein supplements, and I had a whole foods vegan moment.
I figured eventually something would stick and I would figure out who I really was. The only thing that ever did stick was that all of these phases made me feel confined. I wanted freedom. I wanted the freedom to be myself. But how could I be myself if I had no idea who I was?
I wanted to figure out who I really, truly wanted to be, at my core. Not what I was influenced to be, not what was popular, but what would actually make me happy. I figured no one could possibly know me better than I know myself, so I turned inward.
That’s the process I’m going to walk you through today. Warning: you are going to have to be in a thinking mood to do this. You don’t have to journal it if journaling isn’t your thing- you could write it in a note on your phone or just keep it all in your head, though you might want to write it down to keep track of things. Whatever works.
Let’s Begin
Reader, we’re going to be making some lists.
Step One
We are making a first draft list. This list is just to brainstorm, to get your thoughts flowing. You may not even need to do this step- feel free to read ahead to step two and see.
I want you to think about people who make you feel strongly (good or bad), or who you find yourself thinking about frequently. Emphasis on STRONGLY. I want the people who stand out somehow, the gut reaction of “oh, I hate her/I love him/god, yeah, she did that thing/oh, I can’t get enough of her.” If your feeling is “yeah, she’s pretty cool/eh, he seems like a good person” then that probably isn’t a person to add to this list.
A note on “I hate them” and other strong, negative emotional reactions: If it’s someone that any human with basic empathy would also not like, you can leave those people off the list. They are probably not relevant to the exercise.
Example of someone to leave off: Dictator who committed mass genocide, person who committed a life-altering crime against you, antagonist who only exists to harm the other characters.
Example of someone to keep on: character who you find annoying who holds the team back, person at your job who you find impossible to work with.
Think about characters in books, movies, shows, comics, or video games. Celebrities or social media stars. People you know in real life or people you’ve heard about, like at jobs, school, or in your community. Historical people or mythological people. People from your professional field, hobbies, or powerful people in the world.
You don’t need to come up with someone for every prompt up there; that’s just to help you think. You may also think of people who don’t fit any of these categories and that’s fine too!
If you can’t think of anyone at all for this, then this particular exercise won’t work for you because we will be reflecting on our lists. I’d still invite you to read through the exercise though, because maybe someone will come to mind later.
Step Two
Time to sort the draft list into sublists.
I need you to be honest with yourself here. Nobody ever has to see these lists, so no one else ever has to know how you really feel.
Personally, I had an aversion to admitting that I didn’t like certain people. I thought it was better to ignore my feelings rather than put my energy towards negativity. That may be true in regular day-to-day living, but it isn’t particularly useful for self-discovery.
I ended up with 4 lists.
- Women who annoyed me and I couldn’t really place why. There were people I knew in real life, content creators, celebrities, and characters. Oftentimes they were beloved by many fans. For me, something about them honestly just pissed me off.
- All the characters in books or shows that I was “in love with” i.e. attracted to.
- The characters or people I kept thinking about. It wasn’t an obsession- I wasn’t necessarily thinking about them every day- but something kept bringing me back. In some cases, it was as simple as one single thing that they said that stuck with me. There was no singular feeling; I was impressed, inspired, curious, thoughtful, and comforted.
- People I did not like, only these ones I could justify. I knew exactly what it was about them that bothered me.
Feel free to categorize your list into whatever makes the most sense for you. You may find that more names come to mind now that you’re sorting, so feel free to add those.
Also, don’t feel the pressure to put everyone on your draft into a list. In my case, I had some book characters or content creators that I really liked- some of my favorites, even- but I didn’t feel any strong type of way about them beyond that. You could put them onto another list if you want, but I left them off my final lists.
What It All Means (maybe)
If you’ve followed my list format, then maybe you can relate to my own conclusions. This is what I determined from my own:
List 1: People who irritated/annoyed me = people I was jealous of.
I came to this conclusion when trying to defend to myself why I didn’t like them- “it’s not like I’m jealous, I just don’t like them.” Then it smacked me in the face. There is no real reason to feel strongly about someone if you “just don’t like them,” unless, of course, you feel threatened by them in some way.
List 2: People I’m attracted to = qualities I wanted in myself.
This list surprised me. I thought it was going to be pretty straightforward: common features in people I am attracted to. Instead, I came to realize that while, yes, they had things I found attractive, they were attractive to me in ways that I want to be attractive to others. You know how people say you should be the sort of partner that your ideal partner would be interested in? It’s a bit like that.
List 3: People I keep coming back to = insight onto the life I would like to be living.
This is the list I wanted to share with you, the list that clued me in on what my dream life looks like.
List 4: People I don’t like = a mirror, showing me parts of myself that I don’t like.
I once read something about how we insult people with what we find insulting. Like, someone might say “you’re ugly” because society has told us all that being ugly is a bad thing to be, so it’s insulting. But imagine someone came up to you and said “you’re so smart and thoughtful and funny” while trying to insult you. You’d probably be like “…. thank you?” It wouldn’t bother you because you wouldn’t know to find those things bothersome.
If that example doesn’t click for you, there’s one I see on short form content all the time. If you were blonde and someone came up to you and insulted your blue hair, you wouldn’t pay it any mind. Why? Because you’d know you don’t have blue hair. Things bother us when we already believe them to be true about ourselves.
Similarly, I think we are strongly bothered by things in other people that we don’t like in ourselves.
(List 5: People you like but don’t feel super strongly about = qualities you appreciate in friends.
I don’t have this list myself, but I would imagine if I did, I would find that the qualities in these people are similar to the qualities in my closest friends. They might be qualities that I want to look for in others- the types of people I would like to be surrounded by. There is likely some overlap of qualities you’d like in yourself, too, but don’t they say we become a mix of the people you spend the most time with?)
What To Do With This Information
Save your lists, Reader. I’m going to do a separate post on how to use these lists in a productive way. I fear if I add it to this, you’ll be reading forever. But in the meantime, feel free to reflect. Move your arrangement around, sort the lists differently, add or subtract people. Remember, nobody else ever has to see these. You can be fully honest with yourself.
I’ll also have a separate post coming on my list, where I will introduce you to the women who inspire me.
Till the next!