Who Do You Believe You Are?

It’s the beginning of a new year. I always feel a reset happening with the New Year, because it’s a chance to reflect on the last year of your life and decide how it went for you and think about what you might improve on for the New Year.

I know making New Year’s resolutions is kind of cliché, and there are lots of people don’t like making resolutions because they are unrealistic. I guess they are right, it probably isn’t necessary to make New Year’s resolutions. But, I feel like it is necessary to stop and think about your life periodically, what is working and what is not working, and to make adjustments, and the New Year just seems like a natural time to do it.

So, do you make a list like everyone else? You know, lose weight, eat healthy, and exercise more? I’ve done that before, and sometimes I’ve even accomplished a few of them. They are always things I know I need to do better, but I never seem to want to do them. So I psyche myself up at the beginning of the year, and I quit thinking about it a month later!

I read a quote recently which I think it is attributed to Tony Robbins,

“The strongest force in the human personality

is the need to remain consistent

with who we believe we are.” 

Our personality is how we relate to the world, our styles of thinking, our behavior and our emotional responses, how well we adapt to our circumstances, why we behave differently than others in the same situations as well as our consistency in our reactions. Modern psychology has studied why we react the way we do, they argue nature vs nurture, biology vs circumstances, and all the interplay thereof. It’s interesting to read and learn about, but I think people can change a lot about themselves if they are really motivated to do so.

The reason that quote is so interesting to me is it says we are inclined to do what we do based on our view of ourselves!  So, wouldn’t that also mean that if we can alter what we believe about our self, we could change who we are somehow?

If we believe we are not capable of something, we don’t do it, and therefore who we are is someone who doesn’t or can’t do that.  But if we decide we are capable, and act as though we were, we would believe we are capable, and now that is who we are!  We have improved our selves just by deciding that we can and acting as though we can, and now we are.  It’s like wanting something so much that you keep working on it, even though you don’t always succeed, until you achieve it.

Crystal Peak
Mt. Rainier National Park

One example for me is that I started hiking without planning anything. I did know I would need good shoes and I only knew about one trail, and that’s all!  I just started doing it, and I learned more as I went.  I found the Washington Trails Association website which showed me trails and what I needed to take with me to be safe, and I just kept doing it.  Now I am a hiker! It’s part of my identity, and a part that I am really proud of.

Who do you believe you are, and who do you want to believe you are? It’s just a conscious decision to change who you believe you are. For me, I think I am a person who needs everything to be planned. I want things to go a certain way, and if it doesn’t, I am stressed, and I enjoy it less or not at all. The problem with that is that I ruin a lot of things for myself by thinking that it all has to be a certain way.  I think I want to be a person who is ok with whatever happens, and actually enjoys spontaneity!   So, I am making that decision for myself for 2017. I don’t know how I will change that in myself, but I am making a conscious decision to be easier going, less planned, have less expectation and be more spontaneous!  

Happy New Year everyone!