Self Improvement | Accept | Forgive | Experiment | Learn
Become Your Own Hero.
We cannot change the past. Our past has made us who we are. We can change who we are today and tomorrow, to become who we want to be.
This story covers three major things:
- Accept and forgive yourself
- Find your talents or strengths
- Change your future to become who you want to be
Nothing Gets Lost
In this section: why to accept your past and forgive yourself.
Our body, our subconscious is the result of our experiences. We all have scars visibly on our body as well as scars invisible in our psyche, in our mind. Yet without these experiences, wounds and scars, we would not be who we are today. Our body does not forget. Things that happened to us many years ago still form our decisions today. This is true whether you believe it or not.
We Cannot Change The Past
It is almost needless to point that out, right? Unless we have time machines, we cannot change what has already happened. Yet very many of us get stuck on things we did and regret or things we want to undo. Over days, months and even years we think back and imagine what would have happened, if …
This can become very frustrating and even lead to depression! It is a fight that we cannot win. So what should we do instead? How should we cope with such situations we feel bad for or which should never have happened?
Forgive And Accept Yourself
This is essential. We have to learn to forgive. Not to forgive others for what they have done, but to forgive ourselves. All too often we’re are the ones that judge ourselves most harshly. We don’t want to accept how bad we behaved or what we have said or done. We know better, right? Yes, often we do! We are not perfect though. We will never be. Just because we know what’s right does not mean we always follow it.
Especially when we’re angry, stressed or upset we say and do things we regret later on. In such a mood, we sometimes even notice that what we are saying or doing is wrong. Yet we cannot stop ourselves, it’s as if we’re on auto pilot.
We all have to accept this. It’s hard. Because all our dreams of being perfect will become obsolete! We have to accept, that we do not always behave the way we would like to. It is also accepting your body as it is, because you were simply not born with perfect skin and figure like this amazing and successful idol of yours. It means accepting your talents and not forcing yourself to be as good as your hero in a specific area.
Don’t Try To Be Like Your Idol
Believe me, all your idols and heroes have his or her own issues to deal with. They just have other talents. It’s okay to admire them, everybody does that. It inspires us! If your talents match, it’s also okay to follow their path and even become better than they are. Be warned though: most of us will be and remain ordinary. Only very few become famous. And they are unique, but so are we all. For most of us, our talents and our goals just don’t align with becoming famous. Find out and accept who you are. Your individuality and you as a person.
To be honest, there are a lot of successful or famous people that are NOT themselves. They have not yet found who they are and what they stand for. They had reasons and goals as to why to become famous. Yet they are not truly happy or fulfilled, because they have not found themselves. They play by the rules to become successful, but that does not mean they are really happy or fulfilled.
Find Your Talents, Accept Your Past And Forgive
In this section: how to find your talents, how to accept and how to forgive.
- How do we find our talents?
- How do we find out who we are?
- How do we accept what nature has given us?
- How do we accept who we are?
- How do we learn to forgive?
Your Talents
To find your talents, all you have to do is dig through your memories. If you think about all those times where someone noticed something that you’re good at. When you surprised someone with your ingenuity. This very likely reveals your talents. At first they can seem useless as fuck, I admit. Yet you can dig deeper and find the underlying ability you have that others don’t have. Search for what differentiates you from others. Or simply remember the things that you always enjoyed doing and which came off easily, easier than for the people around you.
By the way: If you feel you have no or too many talents, it may very well be that your talent is to be generalist. To know a little about everything and excel at nothing specifically. This is also a talent! It can help to grasp the interconnections, to see the whole picture. That is me for example. I’m automatically drawn to think on a high or abstract level with little detail. I can’t help it. I was never excellent in anything and that’s not an easy starting point to build self-esteem.
Your talent can also show itself in things that you cannot avoid doing. It just happens over and over again, like something is pulling you towards it.
Here are a few stories from other writers that go deeper into that subject:
The Ultimate Guide To Discovering Your Natural Talents and Strengths
Explore Your Strengths If You Want Self Actualization
Accept What You’ve Said And Done
We know we cannot change the past. So we have no choice but to accept what has happened. It gets easier when we realize that we’re not perfect. When we allow ourselves to make mistakes. We cannot avoid it anyway. We’re human.
So the only direction we can go is forward. We can decide what will happen next. We can decide how we deal with what we’ve said or done. We can come up with ideas on how to avoid such situations in the future. We can learn from our mistakes!
How To Forgive Yourself
The first step to forgive yourself is to admit the mistake. We all make mistakes, so we should never be ashamed of making mistakes. Once we’ve admitted that something went wrong and that it’s natural, we can start to forgive ourselves. We can review the situation and learn what went wrong, what we could have done differently. Not to fall into the trap again of feeling guilty for it and hating ourselves for what we did! Rather to learn, to realize what needs to change to avoid this in the future. To forgive ourselves that we’ve made a mistake.
The next step to forgive is to apologize to the people you’ve hurt, for the mistakes you’ve done. Do it immediately after or as soon as possible. Even days, months, years later is better than never! Be authentic however, apologize when you truly feel sorry. Otherwise it might make things worse! A true apology on the other hand can free yourself. It can heal deep wounds, it can revive relationships. It has a lot of power!
For this topic, I recommend this great podcast on how to apologize and how to do it right:
To Become Who We Want To Be
In this section: how to find ourselves to become who we want to be.
With all the above we can already achieve a lot. We can make our life much better. It can make us feel free and “at home”. And the things I mentioned above are all already steps towards becoming who we want to be. They are decisions and actions we make today, to cope with the past. To change how we behave from now on.
Although a lot of people will tell you that you can be anything you want, I believe we have limits. But that does not matter! The reason is simple: You can become the person of your dreams and still be unhappy and unfulfilled! Happiness and fulfilment does not come from wealth or status or success. It comes from doing the things that suit you, the things you love, the things that open your heart.
We Can Change Who We Are Today And Tomorrow
Back to the title image of the story:
“We Are The Result Of Who We Were”
— Pascal Sick
We cannot change the past and we are the result of who we were. This means that who I am today will change who I will be tomorrow. Everything we do influences who we will be tomorrow.
We are formed by all our experiences. We have to embrace the person we were once, even if we know now that we did wrong. If it weren’t for that experience, we would not be who we are now.
Experiment And Learn
To become who you truly are and who you want to be, you have to start experimenting. Try out new things and of course you’ll make mistakes. But as we’ve seen above, making mistakes is normal and we can learn a lot from them.
When did you decide which profession to learn, which career to start? At your twenties most likely, right? Do you think you knew all about the world back then and that your decision was well informed? I doubt it. Yet many of us see this decision as a one-way street. A decision that had to be made and will form the rest of our life.
I don’t think this is true. You can change what you do at any point in your life. Sure, you have engaged in liabilities, you have bills to pay. But that should not stop you from trying new things. To find out who we really are is a lifelong process and it’s never, ever too late to start.
Now To You!
- How did you find out who you are?
- What did you change to cope with past mistakes?
- How did you learn to forgive yourself and others?
- What is your experience on changing your profession?
I’m sure there are a million ways to do this. They are quite unique to us, to our past and to our environment. Yet it may help others to hear how you found yourself, so please do share your experience! I’m happy to discuss in the comments.
Thank you for reading!
To close, I want to share a few links for the hungry reader
Happiness is not what you have, but what you do
Practice Becoming Self-Aware to Drastically Improve Your Life
Seven Ways to Find Your Purpose in Life
Reverse Engineer Your Life to Work for You
