Ideal Self Vs Real Self (Uniqueness and Strengths)

If I asked you who you were what would you say? Would you describe yourself based on past achievements (things like education, career, and personal achievements)? Would it be based on items and things acquired through the years (cars, jewelry, houses, and properties)? Or would you describe yourself based on internal factors (things like interests, intelligence, motivation, values, self-concept, self-efficacy, self-esteem, or personality)?

Whichever direction you choose to go you might still not be able to define yourself in a unique way. This brings the question, what makes you unique? What makes you stand out from the crowd? What is that one thing you believe others do not have?

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It could be something that others have but yours is of varying intensity. Think of qualities like courage, determination or maybe it is something eccentric or quirky. Well, whatever it is when you find out it could be the thing that allows you to succeed and form your own niche area.

Let me borrow 6 worthwhile quotes before proceeding to explain.

“While we have the gift of life, it seems to me the only tragedy is to allow part of us to die — whether it is our spirit, our creativity or our glorious uniqueness ~ Gilda Radner”

“We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light. ~ Mary Dunbar”

“Rejoice in who you are! It is your uniqueness that will breathe life into your art. ~ Lisa Campbell Ernst”

“Meeting people unlike oneself does not enlarge one’s outlook; it only confirms one’s idea that one is unique. ~ Elizabeth Bowen”

“Cherish forever what makes you unique, ‘cuz you’re really a yawn if it goes! ~ Bette Midler”

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. ~The Bible Psalm 139: 14”

Before we can tap on your uniqueness and turn it into your strength the first thing we have to do is to identify who we are now?

This is a lot harder than you might think. What I mean is that sometimes in life whom we think we are is based on an “ideal” perception of ourselves rather than the “real” thing.?When we see ourselves through our “ideal” selves we see our self “the way things are supposed to be”. While when we see ourselves through our “real” self, we see things “as they are”.

Differentiating yourself from your unfinished ambitions and dreams (ideal self) allows you to get a realistic picture of yourself and puts you in a better position to see what it is about you that really makes you unique.

Our ideal self is a fantasy or at best an expectation about whom we might become. It is important, to be honest when reading this because it is the only way I can help. By comparing the ideal with the real, we begin to see the gaps in perception we have created, the judgments we have made about ourselves, and the gaps that could be preventing us from fully living our lives at the moment as the person that we truly are.

Let’s try a simple unorthodox exercise.

Find a notebook and put dates separating them by 2 years (i.e 1987-1989, 1990-1992 etc). Start with the year you have the clearest memory of yourself. This could be when you were 5 or when you were 10 years old.?On each page write the years and then write down whom you thought you were then.

Next, I want you to get as many photographs as you can from your past still using the same notebook. Take each photograph and sort them out into ranges of every two years and have a table of contents that now has 3 parts (formally just 1) who I taught I was, who I actually was and evidence supporting who I actually was (this could be everything you achieved during that range of time).

Use the pictures from that time range to stir up memories of whom you thought you were.

Now cross-compare, decide which characteristic you thought was responsible for whatever level of success you achieved.?If you find that you constantly refer to yourself as having a particular attribute (like being musically talented or academically gifted) and over a significant period of time (say 4 years +) there has not been a direct relationship then it might time to discard it. It probably isn’t you.?

This is a simple exercise but must be done with absolute honesty. ?The aim is not to find out what you are not but to discover what and who you really are, so focus on the good when you find yourself drifting towards the ‘not so great'.

When you have completed this successfully all that you should be left with is a real description of who you are. This should contain characteristics that showcase exactly what your strengths are (the characters that you often rely on).

Now that we have discovered what we have it is time to use what we have. Develop your competitive strengths and turn them into what gives you a competitive advantage.

Michael Phelps has been deemed the world’s greatest Olympian he probably cannot complete at a 200km race, pole vault, or javelin throw. Michael has spent countless hours?(over 10,000 hours) working on what makes him unique and he has developed it into what has become his competitive advantage. Is Michael a poor olympian because he cannot compete in every sport?

The same thing goes in business and in our daily lives and even in romance (people can only love you for what you have, not what you wish/think you have).

Real success does not just come from playing to your strengths and playing down your weaknesses. It comes from self-awareness and adaptability. If you overplay strength, it can soon become a weakness. What I mean by that is really simple. If you felt you were the world’s strongest UFC (ultimate fighting championship) fighter and you spent all your time developing your fighting skills. While you very well could be, at a certain point in your life you might find yourself getting a bit pompous and training less and this could be the difference between your continuing victory and your inevitable fall.

What could have been stopping you from arriving at your “competitive advantage” could be that you had spent a ridiculous amount of hours developing your weaknesses at the expense of your strengths.

You must learn to find comfort in saying, ‘it's fine that I am not good at XXXXX. It does not define my worth’, just as much as it is fine to say ‘I’m not good at XXXXX so I am going to work on being better or improving that’.

My challenge to anyone reading this is to spend time developing just one of your strengths and see what levels of change it will bring to your life.

This is a self-help tool that can help bring you out of your shell but I must warn that whatever you term as a strength, must be completely practical or it 'might' not be worth developing further.

I will end this article the way I started it, with a saying/quote

“We all wear masks and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing our own skin.” André Berthiaume.”

I am always happy to hear your thoughts even if they disagree with my thinking so please feel free to comment.

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