What Does it Mean to Find Yourself?
This is something that many people wonder about at some point in their lives (if not multiple times, as life is constantly happening around us, shifting the ground beneath our feet and our sense of self with it). The question of how to find yourself when you’re feeling lost is often incredibly overwhelming, if not wholly impossible, to navigate, but I promise that the work of finding yourself is much simpler than it feels right now!
One of my favorite quotes for a long time was:
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
~George Bernard Shaw
But the more I learned about purpose and living life fully expressed, the more this quote felt inaccurate. It’s true that life isn’t about finding yourself, but I don’t believe it’s so much about creating yourself, either.
It’s about remembering who you’ve always been and doing the work to step more fully into who you’re here to be.
(As in, living your purpose in life!)
The great news is that our purpose and who we’re here to be has been hard-coded into us since before we were born, and there’s always a thread to find our way back to our truest self, even if we’ve been “lost” for what feels like forever. Your truest, most aligned self is right there, buried beneath years of conditioning, personal and professional expectations, and that never-ending to-do list that distracts from our heart’s desires.
While it doesn’t always feel this way, if you’re feeling lost, it’s a great sign that your whole being is ready to come back into alignment and start living the life you’re here to live!
Why Do We Get Lost in Life?
You were born into this world as a beautiful and brilliantly unique soul with a particular purpose hard-coded into you.
You were also born into a particular family system, whether that was your parents and siblings, grandparents and cousins, or even the foster care system. You had attachment figures that began shaping you based on their personality, lens, beliefs, and values. You may have been in a family system or culture that prioritized the teachings of a particular religious system and doctrine that also began influencing you.
Most of us then end up in an education system of some kind. For many, that’s the school system, from kindergarten to college and beyond. Sometimes, that’s training or mentorship. At some point, you begin to learn how to be and behave to get the grades, be successful, or earn something that says you’re “good enough” to live and work in this world.
Then we go into the world and bump up against even more systems! Medical, corporate, bureaucratic, political, cultural, patriarchal, etc. The systems are never-ending. And while this isn’t a conversation about eradicating, replacing, or reconfiguring systems, it is a conversation about how they cause us to stray far from who we really are.
The reality is that all man-made systems are inherently biased in favor of the person or people who created them (or whom they were created for).
If you’re “other” inside that system, not only does it not work for you, it causes harm. It leads you to believe that something is wrong with you and that the only answer to staying safe, secure, successful, and having love and belonging is to conform, actively losing yourself in the process!
So, if you’re asking how to find yourself, just know that it’s easy for anyone and everyone to get lost in this life due to the surplus of systems we experience from literally day one.
You’re not alone in this.
You’re not broken, weak, or naive.
You’re just a human being who was never given the tools to stay true to yourself while navigating many different systems designed to make you less of your true self so that you better serve the opressive systems.
What Are the Symptoms of Being Lost?
Feeling lost can manifest in various ways, often with a deep confusion and uncertainty about your direction or purpose in life. It can cause anxiety about the future because you feel like you’re on a runaway train you can’t get off of, and everyone expects you to keep showing up and plugging along in the roles that you’ve fallen into over the years.
As this anxiety and confusion grow, sadness and depression can set in, leaving you with a sense of hopelessness and a loss of joy from what you once thought were your favorite things. When everything starts to feel flat or heavy, panic can begin to set in, and you may start to believe that everything external needs to change, leaving you more overwhelmed and unsure of where to begin figuring out how to find yourself!
You may feel plagued by indecisiveness, where even the simplest choices feel impossible because nothing seems right. Overthinking becomes a constant companion, leading to mental exhaustion as you analyze and re-analyze your life, trying to find clarity. All of this can contribute to a loss of motivation, leaving you disinterested in pursuing goals or engaging in activities that once excited you.
The physical toll of feeling lost is real and can include fatigue, where you feel tired even after rest, as a result of emotional and mental strain. Restlessness is also common, as unease makes relaxing feel hard. Changes in appetite or sleep patterns might also occur, and you may find yourself eating too much or too little or struggling with insomnia or excessive sleepiness as your body reacts to the emotional chaos.
Additionally, feeling lost can lead to procrastination, where you delay tasks or decisions simply because you’re unsure what to do. You might avoid situations or people that could force you to confront your feelings, retreating instead into distractions like binge-watching TV or excessive social media use to escape from the discomfort. Inconsistency in your actions might become apparent as you shift between different goals or activities without fully committing to any of them, reflecting the inner turmoil that keeps you from finding a clear path forward.
As you can see, feeling lost can be emotionally, physically, and mentally draining! But the good news is:
You can’t know that you’re feeling lost if you don’t have some sense—no matter how small and distant—of what it is to be whole, aligned, and fulfilled. Whatever symptoms of feeling lost you’re experiencing, they’re a great sign. In fact, we believe that the more broken, lost, and beaten down you feel, the closer you are to everything you desire—every expansive emotion, beautiful dream, and big vision! Why?
Because you’re no longer in the comfortable ruts and routines of your life, mindlessly moving through each day habitually and without feeling your truth. It’s messy, disorienting, and painful beyond belief to feel like you’ve lost yourself, but it’s the start of something wonderful.
So, let this land:
You’re not so lost that you can’t be found again.
Your life is not so much of a mess that it can’t be rebuilt in a beautiful new direction. You’re not so broken that you can’t piece yourself back together and find a joy and sense of purpose like you’ve never known. All that you desire still exists and is 100% accessible to you, and in this guide, we’ll be covering how to find yourself so you can experience all of it.
Why Finding Yourself Is So Important
Each of us has a unique purpose in life, and that purpose is about contributing to the world in the way that only you can, at whatever scope and scale feels suitable for you.
Purpose is about contribution, and true purpose is using our unique, idiosyncratic gifts in a way that supports our own life as well as the common good. We wholeheartedly believe that living your purpose—your fullest expression in this life—is the greatest contribution you can make. You’ll often never see or understand those ripple effects, but that doesn’t make your existence as the person you’re here to be any less vital.
You can’t live your purpose if you’re lost because when you’re lost, you’re usually living someone else’s version of life.
That might be society’s version, what your parents wanted for you, or your partner’s dream. It might be an idea of what a “good life” is based on the education or cultural systems you grew up inside of, or it can be what our subconscious has deemed “safe” and “achievable.” Whatever it is, it’s not truly aligned with who you’re here to be, which means you’re not contributing in the way you’re inherently designed to in this lifetime.
That’s a travesty!
The world doesn’t need more people who are conforming to the status quo and falling in line with what the systems demand of us; it needs more people living their fullest expression and doing the work they feel called to do in the way that feels most aligned for them, and these times.
That includes you!
How to Find Yourself
The process of finding yourself is fairly simple, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy.
In fact, much of this work will trigger resistance, avoidance, and even self-sabotage because the life and way of being you’ve found yourself in is likely a result of your subconscious winning strategy.
Your winning strategy developed you from a very young age to keep you as safe, secure, and successful as possible and gain you love and belonging. Within the first five to seven formative years of your life (before your conscious mind and the ability to accept and reject information came online), you learned that certain behaviors, ways of being, and actions resulted in either success or failure. Success being more safety, security, love, and belonging, and failure being less of those or a total loss of the people and things you needed to survive.
As a child, you were wholly dependent on the adults in your sphere to stay alive. So when this programming was formed, it wasn’t just, “I need to be cool, so Suzy and her friends like me, and I’m popular at school.” It was, “I need my parents/grandparents/guardians to continue feeding, watering, clothing, nurturing, and protecting me from the elements and potential threats.”
As you started to grow up, you began to test the waters. You began to have a personality, preferences, and bits of autonomy, and with that came desire. You wanted things. Things like candy, seeing a movie, that new cereal with a prize in it, being the teacher’s favorite, having other kids like you, etc. As you strove to get those things you wanted, you (falsely) learned that some things are possible and others are not.
Maybe your mother snapped at you about the cereal request and even grounded you from TV that night for asking her again. Maybe you showed the other kids your favorite toy, and they laughed at you for still liking that “little kid show” it came from. teacher’s favorite, but you got the answers wrong so many times that she told you to stop raising your hand unless you were sure, so you didn’t waste the class’ time. You fell short of what you wanted, but you also perceived yourself to be losing safety, security, love, or belonging in the process, and your subconscious mind wrote this desire off as unsafe and impossible.
It was no longer worth the risk to the subconscious to try and have it, and instead, it began focusing its energies on what you could “win” at.
Maybe you couldn’t hang with the cool kids at school, but you could use your math smarts to get in with the “nerdy” kids. Maybe you couldn’t be the teacher’s pet, but you played soccer really well, so you focused on winning with the P.E. teacher instead. Maybe you couldn’t have the cereal you wanted, but if you did all your chores and homework before your mom asked, she gave you an extra scoop of your favorite dish.
You started to see where you could “win” and through which behaviors.
Life went on, and this winning strategy only became more deeply ingrained. You don’t think about or consider certain things because you (falsely) learned long ago that whole sets of desires and ways of being are simply off-limits because you failed once or going for it threatened your sense of safety, security, love, and belonging. This strategy is important to understand for so many reasons.
Within our context, it’s relevant because:
When you operate from a winning strategy, you’re actively aligning with what your subconscious believes is necessary to stay safe and secure, not with who you’re here to be and the work you’re here to do.
Your subconscious winning strategy is important to understand before we get into how to find yourself because, while the work is relatively simple, you’ll be bumping up against your subconscious programming as you dig into it. When you bump up against your subconscious programming, you hit the Terror Barrier, and it can feel like everything is suddenly going wrong and that it’s unsafe to keep moving.
The Terror Barrier is a concept I learned from a mentor (who learned it from Bob Proctor), and it’s truly a game changer when moving against your subconscious’ attachment to the known and familiar.
Here’s a graphic to help you understand the concept:
Essentially, as you move through daily life, you experience a normal range of highs and lows. This is tolerable to you because it’s regular life happenings that you know you can manage and survive. Then, you decide to make a change. You start healing and growing, figuring out who you’re here to be, and working to create different outcomes.
To your subconscious mind, change = certain death.
It’s wired to keep you in the known and familiar, fighting tooth and nail against anything else. So when you make a move to go for more or transform your life, suddenly, everything seems to go wrong. Life gets harder, your depression rears its ugly head again, you’re overbooked and burned out, and suddenly, everyone needs you for something. The car breaks down, your laptop is on the fritz, and an enormous and unexpected bill appears in the mail. Anything that can go wrong does.
This is the Terror Barrier.
Suddenly, the highs and lows are off the chart, chaotic, and happening all at once. You revert since it’s such an intense experience (whether one thing happens or multiple). You decide it’s too hard, not worth it, or not the right time. Worse yet, you see it as a sign from the Universe or God that you should stay where you are. You go back to the known and familiar, even if it’s painful and unfulfilling, and this resets your experience and creates a reinforcement loop.
This means every time (or even just one time) that you try to make a change and revert after hitting the Terror Barrier, you reinforce your winning strategy. You see the chaos and roadblocks as proof that some things are possible and others are not, further activating this belief system and way of operating and pushing what you want further away.
It’s important to understand that nothing is wrong despite how chaotic and challenging the Terror Barrier can be.
All that’s happening is that you altered the pattern and changed something, and your subconscious is fighting like hell to get you back to “safety.” That’s it. The Universe isn’t giving you a sign, your core wound stories of being damaged or incapable aren’t true, and life isn’t out to get you. Your subconscious is simply creating chaos or finding things to fixate on to get you to stop. If you notice this happening as you do the work to find yourself, be sure to download a copy of our free guide that comes with worksheets to navigate the five types of Terror Barriers:
Stop Self-Sabotage and Navigate the Terror Barrier With Far More Ease
Five actionable worksheets to continue moving forward, no matter what crops up.
5 Steps to Find Yourself
When it comes to figuring out how to find yourself, here are some steps that will help make this easier so that you’re not crashing into your subconscious’ resistances and self-sabotaging behaviors:
1. Get to know yourself by deconditioning from who the world told you to be.
As I mentioned, you were born into this life with the seed of your purpose hard-coded into you (who you’re here to be). But you were immediately thrust into a series of systems, many designed to actively strip you of who you are so that you conform to the status quo. That looks like instilling beliefs, ways of being, attitudes, values, goals, and more.
This is conditioning: the process of training or accustoming a person to behave in a certain way or to accept certain circumstances.
If you’re asking how to find yourself, the first step is deconditioning: reversing the previous conditioning of behaviors and your acceptance of certain circumstances as the only way that things can be.
Within our body of work, we call this phase alignment.
The truth is, you’re always in alignment; the question is, with what?
To find yourself and live your purpose, you must show up as your most fully expressed self and live in total alignment with what feels right and true for you. But that’s not as easy as it sounds because you have a lifetime of conditioning, subconscious programming, limiting beliefs, fears, traumas, unresolved grief, and unprocessed emotions that are holding you back from knowing your truest self and living on the frequency of your desires.
Additionally, you may have tons of obligations that make it feel impossible even to begin realigning yourself! Whether it’s relationships, professional obligations, or communities you’re a part of, people have expectations of who you are and how you’ll show up—all of which can be terrifying and challenging to start separating yourself from.
Here are some ways to start deconditioning:
Understand your unique personality and energetics.
To live your purpose, you must work with yourself, which requires a deep understanding of who you are and how you’re wired. Knowing yourself fully makes it far easier to step into who you’re here to be because you’re not trying to be someone or something you’re not. It also makes it far easier to discern what’s right for you on the way to creating a life that’s aligned with who you’re here to be. Everyone will have an opinion, and there will be lots of shiny objects trying to distract you along the way. Your subconscious will crop up and work to get you to stop.
Knowing yourself makes you unshakable.
Take some time and space to build a solid relationship with yourself, even if you think you already have one. That can mean taking a step back from people in your life, just for a little bit, to whatever degree feels best. It can be taking yourself on solo trips and excursions, or even just a solo date night once a week. It can look like making time every morning before the day gets a hold of you to journal, meditate or pray, read and reflect, or spend time with yourself and your heart. Having a simple morning routine is a great way to ground into your truth and your visions so that you can be unwavering when the world starts throwing stuff at you!
In addition to spending time with yourself in whatever capacity works for your life, we highly recommend understanding your personality type and unique energetic wiring. We’re huge advocates of the Enneagram for personality typing because it describes patterns in how people interpret the world, manage their emotions, and what ultimately motivates their actions. We also use the Human Design system for energetics and understanding how you best make decisions and move forward in life.
Say yes to the things that make you feel like you.
What a profound way to live, right? Say yes to the things that make you more of who you are, not the things that make you feel small, less than, or like a tiny fraction of yourself. Say yes to the things that bring you alive, not the situations or experiences that close you down, dim your light, or stagnate your soul. Say yes to the people who make you feel truly seen and heard, not those who make you feel worthless or like you have to be who they want you to be to “earn” love, acceptance, safety, and security. Say yes to the things that expand you, not what others think you should be doing, but that your heart can’t get behind.
Saying yes to these things requires that you’re in tune with your intuition. Intuition is your ability to understand something immediately without the need for conscious reasoning. Most people get far too caught up in their thoughts to recognize their intuitive hits, and that’s unfortunate. Your intuition is a sense or knowing without any logic to “back it up.” It’s that feeling that something’s right or wrong, fitting or unfitting, safe or unsafe.
When you’re disconnected from your intuition, knowing what you should do in important situations (especially when they’re scary) can feel impossible. Should you move in with the person you’ve been seeing? Should you take that job offer and start a whole new career? Is it time to have the surgery? How can you answer from your heart and soul when you’re too busy weighing the pros and cons or spiraling around the many how-tos and what-ifs? Logic and rationalization have their place, but intuition is a power beyond measure and is essential when trying to find yourself.
Checking in with your intuition is a matter of checking in with your body and energy. What do you feel when a big decision or opportunity is presented to you? Not what you think you feel or think you should feel. What do you physically feel? When you get a “no” from your intuition, you may feel tension, tightness, and physical stress. You may feel closed off or have an actual physical resistance to the option in front of you. When you get a “yes” from your intuition, you’ll feel open, energized, excited, fluttery, and expansive. You’ll feel drawn toward and pulled into this option.
If you need support, check out the following self-coaching guide:
Free Guide: Reconnect With Your Intuition
Get instant access to this powerful workbook and also receive our Tap Into Your Intuitive Guidance process.
Stop denying yourself and your truth.
All those small ways you deny yourself and your truth add up. It becomes a habit to bend and fold until you fit into what others want or need—to betray yourself and who you’re here to be until you no longer remember who that person is. Slowly spiraling into a deadening that leaves you feeling lost, empty, depressed, and anxious. Not living in full alignment with your truth and who you’re here to be will kill you. It will make you sick physically because you’re sick spiritually. You’re sick at your core, with all the truths, contributions, and creative expressions suppressed, metastasizing deep inside your very being.
Doing the work to step into who you’re here to be can feel like certain death because of the fear of rejection and abandonment, the losses you may have to endure, and the limiting beliefs you’ll have to overcome. But becoming all you were made to become will save you, as Stephen Cope writes. It will bring you alive in ways you can’t even imagine.
So what do you do?
You start showing up more fully, telling the truth in every moment. You let go of the people, things, experiences, places, and spaces that don’t feel aligned. You trust yourself and your intuition, having your own back in every situation. You lean into what tugs at your heart and calls to your soul. You settle into the discomfort of learning an entirely new way of being. You commit to living your life fully aligned and fully expressed. You show up as you, fully and completely. And if you don’t know what those things mean for you and your life, you do the work to figure it out!
Go deeper into deconditioning with the following podcast episode:
2. Do the work to uncover your true purpose and callings.
Finding purpose in life doesn’t have to be difficult, and there are several ways to pursue it regardless of your present circumstances or available resources (time, money, energy, etc.). After decades of doing this work, we know that purpose feels like a massive, impossible feat, but we promise that it isn’t only for “special” designated souls or some big secret.
Finding your purpose in life, just like answering how to find yourself, is a process. One that can be learned and lived to create completely different outcomes in every area of your life.
There’s a simple formula for stepping into our purpose in life:
Align: As I shared above, we’re always in alignment; the question is, with what? The first step to living our purpose in life is doing the work to align yourself with what’s right and true for you, deconditioning from who the world told you to be. This means letting go of all the fears that come with change—loss, judgment, failure, and even success—so that you’re free to explore who you really are and how you actually want to show up. To come into full alignment, you need to create more freedom and leverage in your being. This means knowing yourself and living accroding to your unique energetics, repatterning your subconscious winning strategy, reconnecting with your intuition, and clearing and unresolved grief and trauma that’s still affecting you.
Activate: When you’re aligned and showing up in your fullest expression, aspects of your highest self become more available, allowing your purpose (and how it wants to express) to reveal itself. But activating your purpose is more than just clarity about what it is; it’s about energetics and embodiment. Your purpose doesn’t become active in your being until you operate from the frequency of your desires, trust in yourself and your inner knowing, and allow your legacy and vision to lead you forward. This work involves pinpointing your passions and purpose, uncovering the work you’re here to do, moving through the Terror Barrier more quickly, and understanding the energetics and embodiment of living your legacy. It also requires a deep level of trust in yourself and a willingness to believe (and move as if) life supports you.
Actualize: Once we’re clear on our purpose and how it wants to be expressed, we have to actualize it through a very specific type of action that goes against much of what we’ve been taught about manifestation and goal achievement. Actualize means “to make real.” In our context, that means taking your purpose from an idea and vision to work toward and making it a reality in your life right now. Collapsing time and no longer waiting on external circumstances to change before you can access the opportunities, experiences, and influence you desire. Actualizing requires creating context to support your calling, shifting your way of being to reconfigure the world around you, and beginning to build your personal or professional legacy projects.
The more you live this formula, the more fulfilled you’ll feel.
Read our book on finding your purpose in life!
Explore the deeper truths within your soul, realign yourself with who you’re meant to be in this life, and find more meaning in the thread you’ve been weaving.
3. Cultivate more confidence in yourself and how you want to live.
We all want confidence, but many of us struggle to feel it. We see confident people walking around with ease, loving their lives, and we think, “Wow, I wish I could be that confident!” They’re cool and comfortable in their skin, and everyone respects that about them.
We set those confident people on a pedestal, believing they have something we don’t. Maybe it’s the car or their job title and salary clout. Perhaps they came from a well-respected family, are better at everything than we are, or they seem to have something special in them that makes them so lucky. Maybe it’s their perfect relationship or how they seem loved and accepted by everyone. Whoever they are, we only see the external reasons that we think make them so confident, when really, we’re simply reflecting their own level of comfort in who they are.
It has nothing to do with what we see on the surface or their circumstances. It has everything to do with what they’re focusing on at a deeper level. Confidence can be easily mastered by anyone—including you. You just have to understand what it is to begin this work.
So, when you’re asking how to find yourself, you also want to ask: what is confidence?
Confidence is simply about “owning it,” whatever “it” is for you.
This means you’re totally and completely at peace with who you are in every moment, interaction, and experience—no matter what.
When you “own it,” whatever “it” is for you (your shoes, choices, truths, art, voice, etc.), other people fall in line, and you’ll receive more acceptance, respect, appreciation, and belief.
If you lack self-confidence, other people will reflect that, creating a vicious cycle that drags you down. This looks like sharing what you’re thinking of doing and people responding with doubt, making you feel like nobody believes in you, and you’re crazy for even thinking about it. It looks like being second-guessed, not getting the promotion or response from someone you want, and constantly feeling overlooked.
If you have total confidence in yourself, completely owning who you are and what you’re doing in every moment, other people will reflect that, and your confidence will continue to flourish. Instead of responding to your big, crazy ideas with doubt, you’ll get support and applause. Where you’d usually be second-guessed, overlooked, or not taken seriously, suddenly, people are clamoring for your thoughts and opinions. You get the job you’re “not qualified for,” and the person you want to date, who seems out of your league, is thrilled to go out with you.
Confidence has nothing to do with external circumstances, roles, or material goods—it comes completely from within.
Until you see and understand this, it’s nearly impossible to move through the world with the confidence you desire.
You’ll try to change the externals—getting a new job, buying a “cool” car, and wearing the latest clothing trends—but that won’t achieve what you want. People still won’t respond how you want them to because you’re not actually “owning it” and being true to yourself.
Make a list of the people you believe have the kind of confidence you want. Now, I want you to try to look past what you think they have that makes them calm and confident and notice where they’re simply “owning it.” Maybe they have the “cool” car, but does it genuinely fit their personality and style? Maybe they have an awesome job title and salary, but is that a genuine reflection of how they own their expertise, ideas, knowledge, and contributions at work? The more you pause and look at what the confident people around you own in and about themselves, the more you’ll begin to see that that’s all confidence is.
If you need more support with this, check out our book on confidence:
Cultivating Confidence: Live Life Fully Expressed
It's not about circumstances or surface appearances but a skill anyone can master in any area of life—including you.
4. Stop trying to “fit in” and learn what true belonging really is.
Belonging is important to us as humans because it kept us safe from elements and predators in our early existence. Because of this, people fight hard to belong to places and spaces outside themselves, because we’re never taught the evolved meaning of belonging.
True belonging isn’t about the people who choose us, the communities we’re invited to be a part of, or our titles and roles. It’s not even about the families we’re born into! It’s about belonging to ourselves—knowing who we are and what we’re here to do. It’s having our own back and taking a stand for what feels right and true to us.
When you belong to yourself, you’re always at home.
You’re always content and comfortable, loved and secure. Even in the face of rejection, isolation, redirection, or abandonment, you know you’re okay and will always be. You know you’re loved and lovable. You know you have value, and your worth isn’t on the table for anyone else to name, claim, or take away. You know that your contribution matters immensely, simply because they’re what calls to you and your heart.
Belonging isn’t about finding your place or fitting in; it’s about showing up fully and completely as who you are. No apologies. No polished facades. No bending, folding, or trying to fit. Just you, exactly as you are.
That said, to release your attachment to belonging based on other people’s acceptance, you must address your deeper blocks.
For example:
If you have abandonment trauma, it will feel debilitatingly impossible to face rejection and isolation.
If your core wound tells you that you’re unlovable and not good enough without others choosing you, it can cause depression, anxiety, and inner turmoil to feel like you’re without it.
If your subconscious winning strategy tells you that the only way to be safe, secure, and successful is to be what other people want and need, you’re more likely to sabotage finding yourself.
This means you must prioritize your deeper healing and growth work, whether that’s process work, subconscious reprogramming, coaching, therapy, or something else.
5. Set stronger boundaries and learn when to unplug.
Boundaries are crucial when digging into how to find yourself and your purpose in life because they allow you to protect and focus your energy on what truly matters.
They bring clarity, helping you sift through the noise and distractions so you can zero in on what aligns with who you are and what you’re here to do. Setting boundaries is about healthy, conscious self-preservation, ensuring that you stay mentally, emotionally, and physically well, all so you have the strength and motivation to pursue your callings and build a life you love. You also empower yourself to say no to things that don’t serve your goals, creating space for what truly matters. It’s a way of staying true to yourself, resisting the pull of external expectations, and allowing your authentic self to guide your path.
Boundaries also give you the time and space to reflect, learn, and grow, which is essential in understanding and refining your purpose.
Ultimately, boundaries help you maintain balance in your life. They prevent burnout and keep you aligned with your purpose over the long haul. By setting and respecting boundaries, you create a fertile ground for your purpose to take root and flourish.
In addition to setting boundaries with the people in your life, unplugging and stepping back helps you avoid getting lost in other people’s expectations or societal pressures, allowing your true purpose to emerge from your authentic self rather than external influences.
Here are some steps on how to find yourself by stepping back:
Consider where you need to step back. This might be the personal relationships in your life that are stifling and unfulfilling. It could be from mentors or support people because it’s time to blaze your own trail and step into your power. It may be stepping away from social media and online communities that overwhelm you with unhelpful content, keeping you from being happy with yourself and your truth. Whatever it might be, you have to be honest about what’s keeping you from finding yourself and living your purpose, and take action to step back because that’s what you need.
Create the space you need to grow. This may mean anything from moving across the country to ending a relationship to going completely off the grid for a while. It could look like a consumption break to stop digesting media and other people’s thoughts and ideas. It may mean going on vacation and unplugging the entire time. Or it may be as simple as not running your ideas past family and friends until you’re more confident. Be willing to experiment with the space you need to hear and find yourself.
Focus on what feels right for you. When you step back, focus on only the things that feel right for you. Do what you feel compelled to do without worrying about other people’s opinions. Experiment with living life and doing your work in a new and different way. Meet new people and experience new things. Make choices and decisions based on your intuitive hits and not on other people’s opinions. This is the only way to grow and find yourself, and having the space to do it is incredibly important.
Come back if/when it feels like time. Sometimes, you may never return to certain people, communities, mentors, groups, or social media platforms, but you will at other times. There are certain mentors I’ve completely unfollowed who had a huge impact on me when I started, while others I’ve chosen to work with again as I grow and evolve. I left certain communities without a second thought, while others I consciously came back to with a new focus and certainty of self. There’s no one-size-fits-all plan for this work, so trust your intuition. If something or someone who once resonated deeply no longer does, that’s okay! Growth means shedding layers, people, things, and experiences that no longer serve us. You don’t need any other reason besides “this no longer feels right or aligned for me.”
Remember, digging into how to find yourself is a process!
It can happen more acceleratedly when we have support and are willing to do the deeper healing work involved in deconditioning and repatterning our subconscious mind. It can also take time, especially when we have many obligations to untangle from.
Be patient and trust the process, asking for help when needed.
To help you start orienting to this work, here are…
34 Questions to Ask When Trying to Find Yourself
Get out your journal and tackle one question daily, or take the question into meditation, prayer, or a morning walk in nature (whatever works best for you!) These questions will help you explore who you are, how to find yourself and your purpose, and what it means to be aligned.
- What do I truly enjoy doing, even without reward or recognition?
- What values are most important to me, and how do they guide me?
- What are my strengths and talents, and how do I want to use them?
- What activities or experiences make me feel most alive and fulfilled?
- When do I feel most like myself?
- What circumstances bring out my true nature?
- What beliefs do I hold that shape my view of the world?
- Are there any beliefs or values I’ve outgrown or need to reconsider?
- How do I define success and happiness for myself?
- What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind?
- How do my actions reflect my core values and beliefs?
- What triggers feelings of joy, peace, and contentment in me?
- What fears are holding me back from living authentically?
- What kind of people do I feel most connected to?
- Are my relationships supporting or hindering my personal growth?
- What do I need from my relationships to feel fulfilled and supported?
- Who inspires me, and what qualities do I admire that are also in me?
- What am I most passionate about, and how can I incorporate it more?
- If money and time were no object, what would I do with my life?
- What cause or mission resonates deeply, and how can I support it?
- How can I align my career, hobbies, and activities with my passions?
- How balanced do I feel in different areas of my life?
- What do I need to let go of to create more balance and peace?
- How can I better care for my mental, emotional, and physical health?
- What boundaries do I need to set to protect my well-being?
- How do I handle challenges and setbacks, and what can I learn?
- What are my short and long-term goals, and are they truly aligned?
- What steps can I take today to move closer to my goals?
- What dreams have I put on hold, and why?
- How can I overcome obstacles that prevent me from growing?
- What does success look like to me? How can I achieve it on my terms?
- What past experiences do I need to heal or forgive to move forward?
- How can I cultivate more mindfulness and presence in my daily life?
- What does a joyful, peaceful life look like, and how can I create it?
These questions are designed to help you explore different aspects of yourself, guiding you on the journey to find yourself and a deeper understanding of who you are.
Be sure to add any of your own questions or allow yourself to go off on tangents that bubble up as you write, feel, and think through these questions. And, if it works better for you, enlist a friend, partner, or family member to ask you these questions. Sometimes, it takes conversation and deeper prompting from someone else to reveal our truest answers.
How Long Does It Take To Find Yourself?
Finding yourself is highly individual and doesn’t have a fixed timeline.
It varies from person to person, influenced by life experiences, personal circumstances, and your willingness to explore and reflect on yourself.
Life stage: Different stages of life may prompt deeper self-reflection, such as during adolescence, mid-life, or after significant life changes like a career shift, relationship changes, or loss. Each stage might bring new insights and challenges.
Willingness to explore: The more open you are to self-reflection and exploring different aspects of yourself, the quicker you may uncover parts of your true identity. However, resistance to change or fear of confronting certain truths can slow the process.
Life experiences: Significant life events, such as trauma, travel, or relationships, often play a crucial role in self-discovery. These experiences can accelerate your understanding of yourself but can also add layers and complexity, requiring more time to process and integrate into your true identity.
Support system: A strong support system—whether through friends, family, mentors, or therapy—can facilitate quicker self-discovery. Supportive relationships can offer valuable perspectives and encouragement, making it easier to navigate the process.
Personal growth efforts: Engaging in journaling, meditation, therapy, or self-help can speed up the process. The more effort you put into understanding yourself, the more insights you’ll gain.
It’s important to remember that the work to find yourself isn’t about reaching a fixed endpoint; it’s a lifelong journey, an evolving process that continues as you grow, change, and have new experiences.
There will be moments of clarity where you feel deeply connected to who you are, but there may also be times of uncertainty where you reassess your identity and purpose. This is a big part of the purpose of life—ongoing expansion and evolution! It can’t be measured in set months or years, as life is always unfolding, and the times we live in and what we go through endlessly shape us and how our purpose wants to express itself.
Patience is crucial.
Challenges That Arise When Trying to Find Yourself
Answering the question of how to find yourself is simple in theory, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. You’ll confront beliefs, fears, and past experiences that have shaped you but may not reflect who you truly want to be. This process can feel uncomfortable, even painful, as it requires you to be honest and vulnerable in ways you might not be used to.
Finding yourself means stepping out of familiar patterns and diving deep into the unknown. It involves questioning long-held beliefs and breaking free from the roles or labels you or others have imposed. This can bring up uncertainty and doubt, and you might even encounter resistance from people uncomfortable with the changes you’re making.
The challenges you’ll face are a crucial part of the process. Each roadblock or obstacle you walk through will teach you something new about yourself, your values, and your purpose in life.
They’re where real growth happens, and as you push through them, you’ll better understand who you are. So, when you face these obstacles, remember that they’re not just barriers—they’re the experiences that will lead you to discover your true self.
So, what challenges arrive when trying to find yourself?
First, a whole bunch of fears crop up!
Fear is a normal part of being human and creating change in our lives, and it’s important to remember that everyone experiences it!
Just because you’re feeling fear doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you or that trying to find yourself is something you shouldn’t do. In fact, fear can be a really good thing. Fear can motivate us to take action and make changes in our lives. It can also help keep us safe.
The key is not to let fear hold you back, and it helps to understand the most common fears and why they crop up so that you can effectively navigate your way through them.
The most common fears include:
Fear of the Unknown: Fear of the unknown is simply fear of the unfamiliar. It’s the fear of not knowing what’s going to happen next. This can be a very paralyzing feeling, especially if you’ve had trauma that made you feel unsafe and out of control.
If you’re afraid of the unknown, chances are you’re also afraid of change. After all, change is often synonymous with the unknown, which can be very scary. Change can be exciting, but it can also be daunting. It’s natural to want to hold on to what’s familiar and comfortable. Our subconscious mind is wired to keep us in the known and familiar as much as possible. But if you’re not open to change, you’ll likely miss out on some incredible opportunities.
Fear of Judgment: This is the fear that others will think poorly of us. It’s the fear that we’ll be rejected, ridiculed, humiliated, or ostracized from our community and left to fend for ourselves (one of our oldest, primal, common fears). We might worry that people will think we’re stupid, incompetent, or unworthy. Or, we might be afraid they’ll see us as weak, powerless, or helpless.
We might avoid certain situations and people if we’re afraid of being judged. For example, we might not want to speak up in a meeting at work or raise our hand in class because we’re afraid of looking foolish. Or, we might avoid social situations altogether because we’re worried that people will see us as boring, awkward, or uninteresting. We may even bail on that first date because we don’t want to find out we’re not attractive or lovable enough for the other person to choose.
The truth is that worrying about what other people think is a waste of time and energy. It keeps us from living how we want to and being our true selves. It’s also important to remember that most people are too busy worrying about their own lives and problems to spend much time thinking about us. So, the next time you catch yourself worrying about what other people think, remind yourself that it doesn’t matter. You’ll be much happier and more fulfilled if you focus on living your own life!
Fear of Failure: Fear of failure is the fear of not achieving a goal. It can show up as procrastination, perfectionism, or self-doubt. You might avoid taking risks or trying new things. You might also give up easily when faced with obstacles.
One of the biggest reasons we fear failure is because of our core wounds that say we’re damaged or broken, unlovable at our core, or not good enough. Many people wrongly equate failure with being a bad or wrong person when that’s not at all the case. People fail all the time. Good people, brilliant people, and successful people, too. Failure is part of the process of getting to success, and if you’re not willing to fail along the way, you’re unlikely to succeed at the things you really desire. Especially things that require you to step up and grow or be a beginner.
Fear of Success: Yep, this is a real thing we often overlook. For some of us, fear of success manifests as a fear of taking risks. We might be afraid to put ourselves out there or to try something new because we don’t know what will happen, even if things turn out exactly as we hope. We might be afraid of succeeding because we’re not sure we can handle the responsibility that comes with it. We might also be afraid of the changes that success would bring to our lives, worrying we won’t be able to handle the new level of pressure and expectation or that we’ll have to give up things we love to maintain our success. Whatever the reason, fear of success is a very real thing for many people.
It’s important to note that the fear of success is usually based on a fear of change or not being good enough. If you’re afraid of success, it means you’re afraid of making changes that could lead to success. And second, you might not feel like you’re good enough or deserving of success. The latter is about our self-worth, which is a bigger conversation.
These fears can feel paralyzing, preventing you from doing the work to find yourself. But what if you could overcome those fears? What if you could find a way to move past them and start living a life that’s true to who you are and your purpose in life?
Second, dealing with past traumas can be a hurdle.
At some point, you experienced too much, too fast, too soon for your body, mind, and soul to process and integrate (the most basic and wildly clarifying definition of trauma there is). Trauma short-circuits your mind, and that makes it hard to process certain situations that parallel the experience or trigger complex anxiety, and you can’t take action.
You see, there’s regular anxiety, which is the fear about something happening in the future, even though you’ve never experienced it. Then there’s complex anxiety, which is fear about something happening in the future because you have experienced it, and it was traumatic.
These traumas must be processed out of your cells, tissues, and being so that you have more space and leverage to move despite them.
When you have trauma and it gets triggered, your brain blurs the lines between time. You don’t know that the past experience isn’t happening right now. You’ve lost the ability to discern that. Instead, you’re in a full-blown freeze state to keep yourself safe from the old threat, and your brain isn’t firing on all cylinders anymore because all of your focus and energy has gone to staying alive. There’s no space when a trauma is triggered and you’re frozen. There’s no space to think, no space to respond vs. react, and no space to choose to move differently and teach yourself that you’re safe and okay. You’re just shut down.
You create space when you process trauma out of your cells and nervous system. You may still get triggered, but there’s far more room between when the trigger occurs and your body goes into freeze. In that pocket, you can center yourself. You can ground in this moment and remind your brain that the trauma is behind you. You’re here now, and you’re safe. Space allows you to regulate your experience and mind, rediscovering your true, trauma-free self in the process.
Plus, when you’ve processed what’s been stored, less charge comes with the trigger. Where you might feel an intensely high heart rate or strong, debilitating emotions, you now feel more manageable emotions, and you’re able to stay calm and collected. This is the power of process work, and it’s why we bring it into everything we do for our clients!
Third, your subconscious fights against releasing past identities.
When you start working on how to find yourself and change your identity, your subconscious often fights back—and there’s a good reason for that. Your subconscious mind is deeply rooted in patterns, habits, and beliefs that have been ingrained in you over time.
These patterns are like a comfort zone for your mind, even if they don’t serve you anymore. They’re familiar; your subconscious clings to them because they represent safety and predictability.
When you try changing your identity, you’re challenging these old patterns and beliefs. You’re stepping into the unknown, and that’s something your subconscious associates with threat and even certain death. So, your mind reacts by trying to pull you back into what’s known and familiar, even if what it knows isn’t in your best interest.
This resistance might show up as self-doubt, fear, or even self-sabotage. You might question your decisions, feel anxious, or procrastinate on taking steps forward. This is your subconscious trying to protect you by keeping you in the known and familiar, but it’s important to recognize that this protection isn’t always helpful! Your subconscious isn’t fighting against you because it wants to hold you back—it’s doing so because it’s trying to keep you safe based on old programming.
But to truly find yourself and grow, you must push through this resistance. You must reassure your mind that it’s okay to let go of the old and embrace the new. It’s about reprogramming those patterns to align with the person you’re becoming.
So, when you feel that inner struggle, know it’s a natural part of the process. It’s literally what it feels like when your cells are changing and new neural pathways are forming! Your mind is adjusting to the new identity you’re creating. With persistence and self-compassion, you can move past that resistance and step into who you’re here to be.
Fourth, navigating loneliness (or the fear of it) is upsetting.
I’ve long said that with growth comes outgrowing—not always, but often.
Loss is inevitable in life, but it becomes even more likely as you step away from the roles you’ve filled and the things that are no longer aligned. This can feel like the worst part of the work, so much so that you may not even want to start figuring out how to find yourself!
As happy as you may believe you are with the people and things in your present life, if you’re not living in alignment and showing up as your true self, you’re not as happy as you can be. That doesn’t mean anything is bad or wrong with those people and things; it just means that to stay in those spaces and roles, you’re likely self-compromising.
When you engage in a healthy compromise, you find a middle ground that respects your needs and the needs of others. It’s about making adjustments without sacrificing your core values or who you are as a person. In a healthy compromise, both parties feel heard and respected, and the solution benefits everyone.
When you’re self-compromising, you start giving up too much of yourself to keep the peace or please others. It’s when you agree to something that goes against your values, desires, or boundaries to avoid conflict. Over time, this can lead to feelings of resentment, loss of self-respect, and even a sense of losing who you are, leading you to ask how to find yourself again and again.
The key difference lies in whether you’re staying true to yourself.
If a compromise leaves you feeling empowered and respected, it’s likely healthy. But if it leaves you feeling diminished or untrue to yourself, it’s a sign that you might be slipping into self-compromise. Always check in with yourself: Are you honoring your values or giving up too much of yourself? That’s how you can tell the difference.
When you stop self-compromising and start doing the work to find yourself and your purpose in life, there’s always a chance you’ll experience loss in the process. I don’t say this to scare you away from the work; I say it because you have to come to terms with it. Losing the people we love is never easy, and the isolation and loneliness that comes with that grief can feel unbearable at first.
But I promise there’s nothing but better, more amazing, and more deeply aligned relationships and communities on the other side of this work.
The truth is that some people will grow and evolve with you.
Whether we experience loss before finding more aligned relationships and communities, or the people we love walk with us on the journey, you’ll feel happier and healthier when all is said and done. That’s because you’ll be living more true to yourself and also be surrounded by people who truly get you and love you for exactly who you are.
As you navigate the challenges of finding yourself, it’s important to remember that every step, every fear, and every difficult moment is part of the journey. You’re not just discovering who you are but also shedding layers of who you’re not. It’s a process of becoming more authentic and more in tune with your purpose. Yes, you may face fears that seem overwhelming, be forced to navigate self-sabotage and resistance, and you might encounter moments of loneliness or loss. But these experiences are opportunities for growth and alignment. They’re the moments that push you to dig deeper, to find strength you didn’t know you had, and to embrace the person you’re meant to be.
Ultimately, figuring out how to find yourself isn’t about perfection or having all the answers. It’s about showing up for yourself, even when it’s hard, and trusting that each challenge guides you closer to a genuinely fulfilling life. As you continue this path, hold onto the knowledge that you’re doing the most important work there is—the work of becoming fully and unapologetically you. And as you do, you’ll not only find yourself, but you’ll also create a rich life with meaning, purpose, and connection.
9 Benefits of Finding Yourself
There are many benefits to finding yourself after you’ve gotten lost in life, and while it can seem like a self-serving endeavor, it also supports others and, ultimately, the world.
Here are the top benefits of finding yourself:
1. You’ll start living your joy, inspiring others to do the same.
We often falsely believe that joy hinges on circumstances. That we’ll feel joy when we lose weight, find a partner, make more money, or get the things we want. We think it will happen when the economy levels out and the world seems peaceful again, or we’ll get it from our friends, that fancy downtown brunch spot, or the new wardrobe we want.
But joy isn’t a feeling we achieve from people and things; joy is a state. It’s a way of being and engaging with the world that comes from within, and we must actively cultivate it.
So, what is joy?
Well, when you figure out how to find yourself, you’re not only finding your purpose in life, but you’re also finding your passions: the things that light you up and bring you joy. When you live a life aligned with your true passions and callings, the benefits extend far beyond yourself, positively influencing others and creating a ripple effect of joy and positivity in the world.
Joy is a powerful motivator.
You naturally feel more driven and purposeful when you align your life with your passions. This sense of purpose fuels your motivation, helping you to achieve your goals and overcome obstacles with enthusiasm and determination. It also acts as a permission slip for others to do the same! When people see you living the life that’s right for you, doing meaningful work, and enjoying your passions with great delight, they feel inspired to seek out their own version of those things, actively working to bring more joy to themselves, those around them, and the world at large.
2. You’ll start contritbuing to the world in your unique way.
One of the greatest contributions we can make in this life is to show up fully expressed, living the life we’re here to live and doing the work we feel called to do.
All contributions are needed and meaningful, so it’s vital you figure out how to find yourself and your specific contributions. And to be clear, “the work you feel called to do” isn’t necessarily the work that pays your bills. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it’s not.
The work you’re here to do is about how your purpose wishes to be expressed at this time. That might be within the confines of your role at work, or it might be the creative endeavors, study, relationships, or community care you participate in outside of earning a living. Whatever your contribution, it matters.
When we do this, not only do we become happier and healthier, but we inspire others to uncover their purpose and start living a life that’s true to them, which means more people are giving their unique and needed gifts to the world. Finding yourself is also a direct way to address systemic and social justice issues because you’re no longer confirming to who the world told you to be. It’s an act of beautiful rebellion that supports liberation for all people.
3. Your health will improve, and your lifespan can extend.
When you find yourself, you find your purpose and callings in life, and studies show that those with a higher sense of purpose have a significantly lower risk of death.
This association held true regardless of age, gender, education, or race, even after considering factors like depressive symptoms, disability, neuroticism, medical conditions, and income.1
A study conducted with the Rush Memory and Aging Project involved interviews and cognitive assessments during participants’ lives, followed by brain autopsies after death. The data revealed that higher levels of purpose mitigated the detrimental effects of Alzheimer’s disease, showing better cognitive function in individuals with evidence of the disease in their brains.2
Another reason behind the link between purpose and health is that individuals with a strong sense of purpose tend to take better care of themselves. This includes dietary choices, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and regular medical check-ups. A 2021 study even found that individuals with a greater sense of purpose were more willing to get vaccines, emphasizing the broader impact of purpose on health-related behaviors.3
Finding yourself is good for your health!
4. You’ll gain increased self-awareness and confidence.
Self-awareness is the conscious knowledge of your character, feelings, motives, and desires. It’s the ability to honestly assess yourself and reflect on your actions and ways of being. The more self-aware you become, the more you’re able to find yourself and stay true to your purpose no matter what curveballs or experiences life throws your way.
When you lack self-awareness, it’s much easier to align with what systems and other people want from you, straying further away from yourself and your truth. This may be because you’re unaware of what you truly want or don’t realize it’s happening.
If you’re asking how to find yourself, you already have enough self-awareness to know that you’re feeling lost in the first place, and that’s a positive! The more you dig into this work of how to find yourself, the more you’ll develop that seedling of self-awareness.
Better yet, the more self-aware you are, the better you know what’s aligned for you and the more confident you become.
Remember: confidence is simply owning it, whatever “it” is for you. That might be your lifestyle, your passions and callings, the clothes you wear, or the people you surround yourself with.
Self-awareness, alignment with who you’re here to be, and confidence are a powerful equation for staying true to yourself throughout all life seasons.
5. You’ll experience greater emotional stability.
When you figure out how to find yourself and start living life in alignment with who you are, your ability to stay calm and balanced, especially during stressful times, increases significantly.
All that mental, emotional, and physical turmoil of feeling lost and disoriented vanishes and is replaced with a sense of deep peace and contentment. Life is good because you are good!
Despite obstacles, challenges, or losses, you’re unshakable in yourself because you know who you are and what your purpose in life is. And when life reroutes you unexpectedly, there’s more ease in finding your way forward because you know what’s most important to you. Contractive emotions like sadness, anger, or frustration feel like passing clouds rather than earthquakes that disrupt your day and keep you from taking action.
6. You’ll see improved relationships (or find aligned ones!)
When figuring out how to find yourself, you may bump into the common challenge of tension in your relationships. This tension can be so unsettling that many people won’t fully do the work of finding themselves and creating a truly aligned life because they’re terrified of losing the people around them. This might be family, friends, partners, or even colleagues.
This is a normal fear because, as humans, our subconscious mind is against change of any kind. Even if our present experiences are awful, our subconscious mind knows that we can survive them, and the unknown of change basically equates to certain death. Plus, before modern technology, humans couldn’t survive without our community. To lose our people meant we’d likely be attacked by predators or succumb to nature’s elements. The idea of losing our present relationships still triggers this deep fear of being alone.
Even more challenging, you might really love the people in your life right now, even if you’ve been feeling lost and like you’re not living, working, or relating in the most aligned ways! Understandably, not wanting to risk the people, opportunities, and communities you have may be a reason you put off finding yourself for years.
Loss is inevitable in this life, and the more you change and grow, the more likely you’ll outgrow your relationships (or the other person might decide it’s no longer a good fit for them). That said, it’s also very possible that the people in your life will grow with you as a direct result of you becoming more aligned in who you are.
And, even better, more aligned people will start to show up!
The more true to yourself you become, the easier it will be to connect with like-minded people who see you for who you truly are. But you won’t be able to find them if you let fear trap you.
7. You’ll develop greater resilience and adaptability.
Resilience is defined as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties or as having some degree of “toughness,” but I would argue that resilience requires far more softness and surrender. If we’re not open to exploring our internal worlds, doing deeper healing work, or receiving guidance and support, we’re often unable to recover from difficulties or adapt to changes. Instead, the effects layer on (and on top of old core wounds, fears, traumas, and limiting beliefs) and keep us feeling stuck and lost.
Surrender, to me, is about having trust and faith in yourself and the energies around you. Call it the Universe, call it God, call it Source or Spirit. Call it The Energy That Is. There’s an undercurrent in our world that connects us to everything else, and that energy is continually working to influence the direction we’re growing so we can become fully expressed. If we’re trying to control everything with a fearful, white-knuckle grip, we’ll never end up where we’re supposed to be. And if we haven’t done our deeper healing work, we won’t actually be making conscious choices because we’re still being run by our subconscious mind without realizing it.
Inner fortitude leads to resilient external actions.
Actions that realign us with the path we were walking before systems derailed us but also help us grow beyond where we were before, becoming better for everything we’ve experienced.
8. You’ll see increased motivation and productivity.
Increased motivation and productivity aren’t about becoming more valuable to our capitalistic society; it’s about fueling your passions, purpose, and callings—things that matter.
When you’re wondering how to find yourself, what you’re really seeking is a powerful sense of purpose. And when you know what truly matters to you, it becomes easier to channel your energy toward those things. You’re no longer wasting time and effort on things that don’t resonate with your core self or are simply to pass the time. Instead, you’re focused on what genuinely fulfills you, and that focus naturally leads to increased motivation.
Finding yourself also helps you cut through the noise of external expectations and societal pressures. You stop chasing goals that don’t bring you joy or satisfaction. Instead, you start setting intentions and pursuing projects that are deeply meaningful to you. When your actions are rooted in your true self, you feel more driven, and that drive fuels your productivity.
The work you do to find yourself also builds confidence, and you begin to trust your decisions more as you gain clarity on who you are and what you want. You’re not second-guessing yourself or getting stuck in indecision. You have a sense of direction helps you move forward with purpose and determination.
Ultimately, when you find yourself and live in alignment with who you truly are, you’re not just motivated to get things done, you’re motivated to do the things that really matter.
This kind of motivation is sustainable because your authentic desires and passions fuel it. It’s not about pushing yourself to be productive for the sake of it; it’s about being productive in ways that bring you closer to the life you’re meant to live. That’s when your work becomes efficient, deeply satisfying, and meaningful.
9. You’ll feel more empowered and experience more growth.
When you work to find yourself, you’re stepping into a place of empowerment because you’re no longer living according to someone else’s definition of a well-lived life.
You’re not just going through the motions or living up to external expectations—you’re making choices that align with who you truly are. As you uncover your true self, you trust your instincts and intuition more. You realize that you have the answers within you, and that realization is incredibly empowering. Instead of looking outside yourself for validation or direction, you start to rely on your inner wisdom. This trust in yourself strengthens your confidence and gives you the courage to take bold steps forward.
This shift in perspective gives you a sense of control over your life, and that’s where real, self-perpetuating empowerment begins.
Growth naturally follows this empowerment. When you’re living authentically, you’re constantly pushing the boundaries of what you thought was possible. You’re no longer held back by self-doubt or fear of judgment. Instead, you’re willing to take risks, try new things, and embrace challenges because you know they’re part of your journey. Each step you take in alignment with your true self is a step toward personal and spiritual growth.
By working to find yourself, you’re not just staying in your comfort zone but expanding it. You’re learning, evolving, and becoming more of who you’re meant to be. This growth isn’t forced or artificial; it’s a natural outcome of living in alignment with your true self. And as you continue to grow, you’ll find that you’re capable of so much more than you ever imagined. That’s the beauty of doing this work—it empowers you to become the fullest, most authentic version of yourself, and in doing so, you unlock more possibilities!
Done Asking How to Find Yourself and Ready to Dig Into the Process of Actually Doing It?
Two Easy Ways to Start to Find Yourself
Here at Pinpoint Your Purpose, we have two signature processes for how to find yourself, uncover your purpose in life, and create deeper alignment with your truest self:
After experiencing challenging chapters and big life transitions…
Journey Mapping™
Find healing and a new sense of wholeness, uncover the purpose of your path, and make the impossible happen.
This is for you, if you are:
- Navigating the aftermath of grief, trauma, divorce, health issues, or another big life event that’s thrown you off center in every way.
- Feeling stuck, unfulfilled, or completely lost in your life… unsure what comes next or how to come home to yourself and your truth.
- Ready to uncover your purpose in life—who you’re here to be and the work you’re here to do—after being altered at your core.
When you’re ready for full alignment and self-actualization…
Actualize™
Come into full alignment, activate the seed of your purpose, and begin living your fullest expression.
This is for you, if you are:
- Feeling ready to live in alignment with your true self and purpose by addressing your deeper blocks and healing your core wounds.
- Unsure how to activate your purpose (which has been lying dormant for years) and craving a life of contribution and meaningful work.
- Ready to step into a new way of being, learn how to reconfigure the world around you, and build your legacy project in life or work.
