Uncovering your ideal self

Who are you when you’re at your best? Now is the time to uncover your ideal self and get to the roots of who you are.

by: E.B. Johnson

In this life, we are encountered with ups and downs, as well as setbacks and challenges, every single day. Life is little more than a series of choices. Attaining that happiness we want so much requires that we make the right decisions, and that we make choices which are aligned to our core truths. You have to know who you are to be happy, but outside of that you have to be the ideal version of yourself.

You need to know who you are.

We can hardly get anything that we want in this life if we don’t know who we are. You have to know who you are to get the right partner to attract the right opportunities. To get the best opportunities and the best relationships, though, we have to be the best version of ourselves we can possibly be. That requires digging deep and confronting our core beliefs and our core needs.

You cannot thrive until you uncover and realize your ideal self.

It’s time for you to uncover your ideal self. The longer you hide behind the expectations of family or society, the more unhappy you will become. Now is the moment to question the beliefs you hold and create new ones that reaffirm your sense of self (Boyatzis & Akrivou, 2006). You’ve got to analyze your current identity, shed old patterns and fears, and find better ways to recognize the full extent of your talents and strengths. When you peel back these layers, you’ll find who you really are, and beyond that your ideal self.

How to uncover your ideal self.

Want to improve your level of happiness? Want to increase your chance of getting things right, or getting what you want? Become the person you want to be and embrace your ideal self. Break out of the patterns. Analyze your current identity and shed old beliefs. Elevate your strengths, deepen your compassion, and learn to align yourself to the people and the things that really matter.

1. Analyze your identity

As we move through this world, we encounter experiences and people which shape who we are and how we think about ourselves. Fundamentally, this adds up to create our identity. Our beliefs, our values, our needs, and experiences all collide to paint a picture of self that we invest in every time we make a decision or establish a new relationship. Sometimes this identity fits our happiness, but when it doesn’t we have to stop and reassess.

Sit down on your own and analyze who you are right now in this moment.You have to know who you are so that you can make the right improvements and set the right goals for yourself. Be honest with yourself. Are you the person you actually want to be? Or is there room for improvement?

Your ideal self may look radically different from who you are now, or it may already lie closer than you imagined. There are no right or wrong answers. Becoming a better self, though, is absolutely a matter of survival. Life is hard, and it requires us to make tough decisions each and every day. In order to make the right choices for ourselves and our loved ones, we have to live within an identity that brings us strength and comfort at the same time.

2. Critique your deepest beliefs

Our identity is built on a foundation of beliefs; beliefs about self, about others, even your beliefs around success, happiness, and love. We can hardly form a new, ideal identity when we’re standing on rotten foundations (or beliefs that don’t fit us or the life we authentically need). In order to become a better version of ourselves, we have to critique our deepest beliefs and shed the ones which no longer fit our happiness.

Take some time for yourself and use that time getting familiar with your beliefs. Each day, spend a few minutes questioning everything you believe and where it came from. Compare these beliefs to your honest values, and the things you really want from your future.

What beliefs are holding you back? What beliefs are causing you to limit yourself or see yourself in a negative light? You don’t have to hold on to the things that were passed down to you by people who are not you. No one else has the right to dictate your life but you. It’s time to choose beliefs which enable you to love yourself and go after the things you want. Let go of other’s people baggage so you can live freely.

3. Elevate your strengths

To be our ideal self, we have to be brave. But how can you be brave when you’ve been living your life in fear or in the shadow of someone else’s happiness? The best way to kick-start this ability is by elevating your strengths. When you focus on what you’re good at, you build up confidence. And that is the launching point for authenticity in self and in life.

Get out of your head every day and focus on your core strengths. What are you good at? What comes naturally to you, or fills you with a sense of pride in self? Every time the negative voices creep in, counter them with a reconfirmation of what you’re good at and what you’re most proud of.

By focusing on your strengths, you will empower yourself to strive for more and seek improvement — rather than staying stuck where you are, as a version of yourself you can’t love. It’s easier for us to respect and love our strengths, so start there. There’s no reason to take the hard road first. Once you love the good parts of your inner self (or your body) it becomes easier to accept your flaws and accept yourself for the complete package that you are.

4. Dismiss your greatest fears

Fear is a powerful emotion, and it’s one of the hardest to conquer. Our fear can make us powerless and take over our lives if we don’t face it with courage. You have to find a way to put your fears in the background, and you have to find a way to turn their sound off at will. Then you can empower yourself to live bravely in your truth as the ideal version of who you were meant to be.

Give yourself permission to banish the fear from the core of your life. Once you dismiss this fear, you take power away from it. Kick it out of the driver’s seat and relegate it to the trunk of your life. Appreciate your fear for what it can tell you, but don’t let it have the loudest voice in the room anymore.

Don’t mistake this for delusional positivity. You will never completely remove the fear from your life. What you can do is change the power dynamic. Envision yourself as the lord of your castle, and that castle is everything that you are — inside and out. Your fear is an emotion, and your emotions are your servants. You control them, and they owe their existence in the castle to you. Act like. Take control of your fear and become the lord of your territory.

5. Cultivate limitless compassion

There can be no denying the power of compassion when it comes to uncovering our ideal self. This journey of uncovering can be a long one, and it’s one that’s filled with ups and downs. Even as your ideal self, you will make mistakes. Embrace the ups and the downs, and commit to loving yourself despite the setbacks. Give yourself room to mess up and permission to grow in spite of it.

Be compassionate with yourself and compassionate with those whom you value in your life. Whenever you slip back into old habits, choose the kind response — rather than the biting self-criticism. Allow others room to change around you too and make allowances for their own adjustments as you become a different person.

You need a well of limitless self-compassion in order to effectively move through this world in any state of happiness. You can no longer afford to punish yourself or lash out in negativity when you make mistakes or get things wrong. Choose to see these things as learning opportunities, and double-down in your investment to be kind to yourself. Get back on track with compassion and don’t pull yourself backward with negativity and a lack of personal empathy.

6. Always seek all-out alignment

We become disassociated from who we are, most often, because we don’t maintain alignment throughout our lives. Alignment is crucial in cultivating happiness from the inside out. To be aligned means investing your time and energy into people and experiences that match-up with your values and your needs. When we pursue what others want, we end up with someone else’s happiness — and that’s not enough for the ideal self.

Seek always to align your relationships, your goals, your needs, and even your career around your central values, morals, and beliefs (Gan & Chen, 2017). You’ve spent so much time figuring out what really matters to you in this life. Knowing isn’t enough. You have to actively put yourself on track to those things.

Don’t waste time with people who don’t have the same needs, values, or goals as you. Stop wasting your time going after things you don’t really want, or things that don’t bring you both reward and sustaining happiness. Head in the direction of those things which are central to your authentic state of being. You should always seek all-out alignment in everything you do and everything you build in your life and in your future.

Putting it all together…

Getting anywhere in this life requires effort, but it also requires loving ourselves. To do that, we have to become the ideal version of self that is easier and more accessible to love. When we become better, stronger, and more self-assured, we become better able to build stable and happy relationships and opportunities for ourselves and our families.

Start by analyzing your current identity. What do you like about yourself? What do you not like so much? You can change the person you’ve become, if you want to. Critique your beliefs and get rid of those outdated and ill-fated ideas which are holding you back in life and in love. Elevate your strengths and make them a focal point in learning how to appreciate and prioritize yourself. Get your fears out of the front seat and be brave in pursuing your needs and your goals. Be compassionate with yourself, though, and know that fear will always be there and that’s okay. Above everything else, seek to align yourself always with the people and the things which make you genuinely happy. The more authentic we are in building our lives, the easier it becomes to be our ideal self.

• Gan, M., & Chen, S. (2017). Being Your Actual or Ideal Self? What It Means to Feel Authentic in a Relationship. Personality And Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(4), 465–478. doi: 10.1177/0146167216688211
• Boyatzis, R., & Akrivou, K. (2006). The ideal self as the driver of intentional change. Journal Of Management Development, 25(7), 624–642. doi: 10.1108/02621710610678454