An article I wish I read last year.

What does it mean to find yourself?

Once you find yourself, you realize that everything you have gone through, is what has made you the person you are. You learn your true values, wants, and needs in life. You become more aware of who you are and accept your feelings, thoughts, true personality, and goals. 

How do you realize it?

There’s no right or wrong way in finding who you are. It can take one experience, or a lifetime to realize what you value in yourself. Taking some time to focus on your personal experiences and visualizing your ideal self, can help. Try new things, new experiences, discover new places, and find new hobbies to enjoy in your spare time. These will all help you discover what you want in life. 

The benefits 

There will come a time when you finally realize and accept yourself as a person. You are who you are and should never feel the need to change yourself to please others. When you are happy with the person you are, surround yourself with people who accept you and care about you. Surrounding yourself with people who genuinely care about you and your wellbeing, will help you grow even more as a person. Positive environments will benefit your mindset. Be with people who support your goals and value you as a person! 

My experience 

For a lot of my life, I found myself trying to fit in with the wrong crowd. I was constantly putting myself into situations that would never benefit me and hurt my mental state. I was often trying to fit in with people who I thought I had to “impress”. I always pretended to be somebody I wasn’t, just to be a part of friend groups I thought were going to help me. In reality I was just lonely. I was looking for people to fill the loneliness and replace it with awful, temporary, people. My old friendships never helped me, they hurt me, and put me in places I thought I would never get out of. I was in relationships that made me question who I was as a person. There were times where I thought I was the problem, and I guess I possibly was. I created these issues for myself by surrounding myself in bad environments and with people who really could care less about me. After years and years of dealing with this, I finally distanced myself from a lot of people and worked on my own personal mindset. After helping myself and focusing on me I found friends who value me and surrounded myself with better people. I noticed so much change when I finally cut out all of the toxic relationships and bad habits in my life. I hope others will realize that your surroundings affect your mindset so much and positive change is good!