Lesson 16: Self-Define
Children absorb the things that they’re taught and take them in as fact and truth. Parents, school, religion, and culture all shape your understanding about core concepts of life such as success, happiness, and love. Each of these institutions define a certain perspective of what life is all about and tend to have clear definitions of right and wrong.
Sometimes, these plans fit perfectly into what makes you happy and fully support your life path. But other times, it’s like walking around in pants that don’t fit or even worse, more like a death sentence. As much as your family, religion, or culture may want you to be a certain way (straight, wealthy, Baptist, athletic, stay local in your hometown) or achieve certain things (college, marriage, become a doctor, scholarship, take over family business, have children), these simply may not be right for you.
Self-defining is the ability to decide for yourself what these major like concepts really mean and how you want to incorporate them into your life. It empowers you to look at all of that old teaching and training to create your own working definition of what you most want in life. This tool allows you to clarify and claim responsibility for major life concepts such as love, success, family, fun, and happiness. It allows you to consider wisely what you’ve been taught and told so that you can decide appropriately what fits and what doesn’t.
There comes a point in life where it is important to decide for yourself what’s in your best interest and what isn’t. The ability to define life’s basic principles helps you take responsibility for what you want, what makes you happy, and what your life purpose is.
- Assess the health, accuracy, and effectiveness of your core beliefs
- Clarify your basic understanding of major life concepts (happiness, success, family, etc.)
- Define how you want your life to look
- Decide what makes you happy
- Know your personal truth rather than blindly subscribing to what you’ve taught, told, and trained
- Clarify your passion and life purpose
- Pay attention to what feels good and what your preferences are
- Align yourself with what you most want in life
- Assess people and situations to connect with those in your best interest
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