I was always an outcast because of the way I looked and dressed growing up. For example, when I was younger I was overweight and that gave my peers a way to attack me. Growing up it felt like I was always the one who was different and didn’t fit in with the crowd. When it came time for somebody to be ridiculed and made fun of yours truly was the target. I always felt like I didn’t belong anywhere and there was a lot of depression and feeling of anxiety in my life. I was always the one who was alone, without friends in a state of unease.
There are points in our life where we have to make choices, they change the direction our lives go in. Right now, I could be writing something from the same point in my life as then. What a sad state it would have left me in, had I not been able to take that chance and change my course.
Today I am happy, and mentally healthier. I eventually learned to embrace who I was, that allowed me to find my own personal style. I realized that I didn’t need to fit in with everyone else or live up to their expectations of who I should be. I was unique and that was okay. In truth we are all unique. No two people are the same, no matter how hard they try to be, they can never achieve that goal. For me it meant that I started to dress how I wanted to dress. There was no need to style myself how everyone else wanted me to dress. I started to feel more confident in myself and empowered. At the same time I found my own voice. What I realized was that I was never really alone, I just hadn’t found my tribe yet. And while I say tribe, what I am really saying is that I found a place where I fit it. A tribe can be a group of two, you don’t need a big one. When I finally found my tribe, I felt like I belonged somewhere because those people I chose to share my time with understood me, they recognized me and my virtues, we allowed one another the freedom to be who they wanted to be and respected them for it. I felt like I had finally found a home to call my own.
This encouraged me to sit down and write out a couple of points that had become clear. I jotted them down in my diary so that I wouldn’t forget them. Those lines have been read so much since then that the page finally came loose one day. No matter, the words had become ingrained in me.
Remember:
- If you live someone else’s version of your life, you will never be truly happy.
- Living your life like somebody had planned for you is self-destructive and in the end impossible.
- If you’re continually striving to be someone else, you’ll never be able to be yourself.
- Don’t even attempt to be somebody else than who you are. Chances are good that the person you are trying to be is trying to be somebody else anyways.
- You will never realize your greatest potential if you are not honest to yourself.
- When you are so hooked up on who you want to be seen as you really can’t focus on what needs to be done.
- You’ll never be able to find your own voice if you’re always attempting to sound like someone else.
- Just like everything else that makes you who you are, your voice is important. Discover what it is and use it to express yourself.
- If you are continuously following someone else’s style, you will never be able to find your own.
- This adds up to your own personal style, your way of seeing, handling, and overcoming the world and the different things that it throws at you in your life.
- If you’re continually trying to fit in with someone else’s tribe, you’ll never be able to find your own.
- Are the cool kids keeping you out of their circle? Then why do you want admittance so badly? Find people who accept you for who you are.
- You will never be truly happy if you do not become who you were born to be.
- Everyone has a need to be who they are meant to be. Sometimes the person that stands in the way the most is one in the same. Stop standing in your way.
All of this allowed me to flourish both in my personal life and professionally. It finally allowed me to be true self and I was finally able to reach my full potential. Today I have no trouble finding my own voice and find pleasure in my own personal style.
For me, the first time I realized that I was free to make my own choices, I felt liberated in a way that is hard to put into words. And trust me, it has been years since that first epiphany and I have trued numerous times to take it down in words. The anxiety was gone and it felt like I could finally breathe. There is nothing like the feeling that you can be yourself without caring what anyone might think. I didn’t have to conform to anyone else’s standards or expectations of who or what I was. No. It isn’t an easy process getting there. But the reward is too great to avoid trying. The reward? Being able to dress how you want to dress, act how you want to act, and be who you want to be. Today that means I am finally free to be me. And just me. And you know what? I like being me!