How To Get Clear On Your Identity

Hey guys, welcome back to this week's whiteboard lesson. In this video, we're going to answer one of the greatest questions you'll ever have in your life. Who am I? So stay tuned.

One of the greatest reasons people have a hard time answering the question who am I? Is because they never actually take the time to ask the right questions or gather a complete picture. Far too often we're judging ourselves, or identity if you will, on attributes of how we look or how we dress or how a friend or a family member thinks of us. Well, unfortunately that's not a complete picture. There's a whole lot more to every single person on this planet than just how they look and how they dress. So what I want to do today is I want to walk through the ABCs of identity to help you get a better understanding of how to discover who you are and hopefully put that to work for you. Alright, so let's go ahead and jump in. First of all, we want to talk about awareness. Now if you've been following the journey principles for any length of time, you know, we put a lot of emphasis on self awareness and the primary reason we do that is because a lot of folks do not take the time to actually dig into who they are, how they're made and how they were shaped. And we have several whiteboard lessons on influences and a few other things. So go check those out if you have a second. But in the meantime, think of self awareness as yourself interacting the world from the inside out. Okay. A lot of times that will be things like your personality. So personality styles, are you a person who's driven? Are you an analytical thinker? Are you someone who is more of a support role and likes to help people from that? Are you kind of a party looking for a place to happen? Right. What type of personality style do you have? Okay. What type of values do you have? So value systems specifically, are you someone who is a high economic in that, hey, roi, I'm always looking to get constant ROI on everything I've got. Are you much of a more of an altruistic thinker or a feeler, so to speak, where you're always looking for ways to give. Alright, are you an individualistic who wants to stand out? All of these are different levels of value systems that you need to get clear on to help yourself understand some strengths and some struggles you may have. Okay. Because every single person in each of these categories has areas that they're really, really strong in and those things you want to amplify and grow and other things that are kind of taking you off guard, right? Things like some of these styles are good with details, some aren't. Some are good with people, some would rather be away from people. These are all areas of self awareness you want to get understanding on. You want to understand what drives you, okay, you know what drives your initial urge to be successful in any given area. You know what drives you to take the time on certain things and then avoid other certain things. These are areas of drives and motivations. You want to make sure you kind of spend some time there.

Those are areas of your identity. The ABCs of identity are really about the attributes of identity that make you you. The next thing we're going to talk about the gifts and the talents, right? What comes natural to you, what comes easy. What are the things that you don't have to work so hard to kind of create. For example, I'm a creative thinker, right. I think in word art, which is why we chose to do the whiteboards to begin with. This helps me understand, okay, Some of you may be better at literary works. You may be better at reading something, you may be better at looking at text and studying that way. Others of you may be heavily involved in media. All of these are different areas of what comes natural. A lot of times your purpose is where your passion and your purpose kind of intersect with what comes natural to you, so to speak. So you want to take the time to figure out what these gifts and talents are. And one of the best ways to do that is to actually use some of the resources that we've actually got at the journey principles. Make sure you go to journeyprinciples.com resources and and get this assessment to help you uncover what these gifts, talents, strengths and blind spots are. Again, it's a holistic approach. The ABC's identity is all about understanding you at a greater perspective. Why? Because you are not just the way you dress or the way you look or the way you communicate. Right? There are lots of different things and lots of different things that make up your self awareness and your access as it comes. Okay? So as we're kind of going through that, we also want to get an understanding of our overall belief structure. How did we become the person we are today? Right. Why do sons and daughters pursue their parents approval on a regular basis even if they repetitively haven't gotten it year after year after year? What's that innate driver that makes you want to earn that love and that trust? Okay, you want to figure that stuff out because that's probably a blind Spot. It's probably coming out in some other kinds of insecurity or something. So, first three are the internal world.

Notice that each one of these things, the awareness, the beliefs and the values and these gifts and talents, all of this is on the inside of you.

This is what the world and people around you can't see. This is what drives your decision making, okay? Which then drives your actions, Right. Make sure you spend some time understanding these areas so you can have a complete picture. Alright? Go ahead and move on to the external side of things. On the external side of things.

Another area of identity that pops up is your profession and or your hobbies, right? This is the way in which you want and desire and long to interact with the world. Right? Great graphic artists want to design art. Right. Great attorneys want to litigate. Well, people that are influencers, they want to be a spokesperson, if you will, for transformation and change, right? Music artists want to release new CDs and ELPA CDs nowadays. MP3s nowadays, right. They want to release that stuff and hopefully change someone's life. In what way do you most want to discover your own profession? Right. A lot of times we do what we have to do today to get to where we want to go tomorrow. For example, long before I ever created the Journey Principles Institute, I spent a lot of time with my larger construction company. Okay? That taught me a great deal, right? It set the stage for the business that I. That Journey Principles Institute, which, which I love to do because I love to help you notice that there was a start and a finish, which means occasionally your hobby, which is something that you're crazy passionate about, will turn into a profession at a later date. Far too often we spend way too much time, unfortunately, trying to figure out what we're supposed to be and everything. Today.

Life is a level of processes, right? And as long as your process is keeping you going to the next level on a regular basis, you're basically unstoppable because you're making consistent progress. Right? My construction company taught me how to build myself. That's where I learned the need to go out and search for information to change me, okay? Which then taught me to change others, which then brought me to the Journey Principles. You understand, These are key ways in which you can kind of discover these areas, right? So a lot of people will get stuck, hey, I'm not in the job or the profession I want, okay? Well, are you being faithful? What you have and then having a roadmap to kind of make that better, Right? That's an area of your external side. A lot of people, unfortunately, will take the time to become their work, right? You see a lot of homes, unfortunately, with parents, fathers and mothers who are always gone, thinking they're providing, thinking they're providing, thinking they're providing, thinking they're providing, thinking they're providing, only to discover that their family feels alienated and alienated. You see what I'm saying?

Your profession and your hobbies are a piece of you. It's not all of you, which is why I'm trying to help you understand in the ABCs, it's a wholeness approach. There's a whole lot more that makes you. You. All right, Hope that kind of helped. Hits the button there. All right, next one. Exterior appearance.

Exterior appearance. How you dress, how you look. It's no secret I'm not a very tall guy, right? But if I ran my life, unfortunately, focusing how short I was on a regular basis, I would never, ever be able to help people. In fact, I would probably become incredibly defensive and always like, really kind of Napoleonish, so to speak, right? When it comes to your identity, give yourself some grace. Love who you are in this moment, right? You were made a specific way because you have a specific value you bring to the world. And you want to make sure that you take the time to discover that, right? So if your hair is not the way you want it, or maybe you don't have enough money right now to go dress the way you want. Just give it time. Give it time, right? You would be surprised that most people think that people are constantly judging us. Here's what I'll tell you. That's probably a little of an epiphany. We spend far more time judging ourselves against what we think other people are judging us on than other people do actually judging us.

Think about that.

Don't chase the affirmation and the appreciation of other people, okay? Spend time becoming self aware. Spend time honing your beliefs and your values, your gifts and your strengths. Spend time aligning those to kind of get into the profession and hobby that's going to take you places, even though you may not be exactly where you want to be right the second. Okay? If you're just aware of these things, that will help you move forward. Don't focus on the outside. Don't focus on the book cover. Focus on the contents, okay? So if you're constantly developing the inside of the book, when it comes time to show the world what's on the inside, you'll be ready. Because your self esteem is not going to be captured by your exterior appearance.

So many of us get so lost our outside cover, right? I would love to be six foot one, my kids are. But guess what? It's not going to happen. Okay? What I can do is I can not focus necessarily on that, keep myself healthy and then develop myself to become the next phase which is bringing value to the world.

I think that a lot of people unfortunately focus way more on this and this as a primary driver. In other words, every choice they make, it comes through one of these lenses. And as a result of not having a wholeness approach, inevitably what happens is they get lost in these different identity traps.

They don't want to take chances, they don't want to take a risk, they don't want to step forward.

The greatest gift you will ever give to this world is sharpening the inside.

To then influence the outside.

What gift, what talent, what can you bring to this world that really nobody else can do? Or maybe it's a skill set that someone else has that's similar to yours, but because you're you and your internal lens has already been cleared, it'll come out in a different way. There are people that will watch this video and hopefully love it. There may be one or two people that don't particularly care for it. That's okay. Why? Because my voice is for those that really want the information to learn how to become unstoppable. And not everybody's on that track record and it's okay.

So it doesn't matter if you are a stay at home parent, which is by far one of the most difficult and rewarding as well as important jobs on the planet, or a multi million dollar CEO. Each of them have different values to bring the CEO shaping business and culture for the future. The homemaker is shaping people for the future.

So think about these different areas. Look at your internal life and your external life. Consider the different ways in which you need to get sharpened. Consider the different ways in which you need to learn and grow and then do it and then simply become amazing. All right, I'll see you in the next video. Take care.

Hey, it's Connor with the Journey principles. If you enjoyed that lesson about your emotional identity, you should grab our free ebook linked in the description of this video. It's all about self awareness and should help you take the next step. Also, please do us a favor and like comment and subscribe. If you want to see more life mastery content, we'll see you on the next video.