Creating the Real You

Hey everybody! This post concludes our February series, The Imaginary You: Finding and Becoming the Real You. We have talked about how we see ourselves, accepting ourselves as we are, and accepting who we want to be. Today we’re pulling it all together with creating that person you want to be.

Your Imagination

The imagination is a powerful tool. It sees things that are not reality but can be made into reality. Here’s one example how I used my imagination to help me become someone new.

An Example

I pictured myself as a professional writer, someone who wrote every day and made a living off of it. I saw myself sitting in a clean, light-filled office. I had plenty of counter space around me and a computer in front of me. My walls were decorated modestly so they wouldn’t be distracting. My papers were organized on my desk and the office contained anything I might need in creating a book: a file cabinet for all my ideas, a printer, a soft chair in the corner to be comfortable while I edited my work or did some reading, shelves of books to create a “writer” feel to the room. I would literally sit and imagine out new things in my office and pretend I was sitting at that desk working. I imagined what it felt like to wake up in the morning with nothing before me but working on the next chapter of my book, knowing I had a fan base waiting to read it.

Before I knew it, I was rearranging my real room where I worked, cleaning and organizing it as best as I could to give it the same feel of the office in my imagination. Even though it was far from exact, when I sat down at my little writing table in reality, I had the same feelings as I had as a professional writer in my imagination.

I still practice seeing myself as a professional writer. These pictures in my head pulled me from insecurity as a person and as a writer and put me in a new place. I’m living out those thoughts in my head.

Your Turn

Take some time to picture yourself as that person you want to be. Whether it’s a specific goal you’re trying to reach, such as being an architect or beauty consultant, or being a happier person or being more friendly, picture yourself doing that thing. If you don’t know how to picture it, google “happiness” or “architect” and see what you find in Google Images. Maybe print out a picture or two and put it up in your room to help you imagine yourself the way you want to be. Your thoughts will eventually become part of you and make you a new person.

This is not an overnight thing. Keep at it. It does make a difference! Notice how your feelings change and become lighter as you think about happy things, as you see yourself becoming whatever it is you want to be. The real you begins as the imaginary version of you. Then from your imagination it enters reality. Your mind starts to believe whatever you think about yourself, and your actions follow accordingly.

If you have any tips on what has helped you to find and become the real you, leave them in the comments. Also, if you have any goals or dreams you would like to share, let me know so I can cheer you on. You can leave a comment, tweet me @EdinanRoman, or visit me on Facebook at One Lady of Shalott. Thanks so much for reading!

Next week: March means a new topic. I have something fun for you that you won’t want to miss! In March I’ll be traveling around town, showing you places and people that have inspired me during the writing of my series Mint Julep Adventures. You’ll get to meet some of my friends here, learn how they inspired me, and get a mini-tour of some great shops they own downtown (because a lot of my friends happen to be business owners :) ). I’ll see you back here next week!

Accepting Who You Want to Be

Hello, everyone. Hope you had a good week! Today we are talking about accepting who you want to be. Last week we learned the truth about ourselves, the good and the bad. Now, we’re going to focus on the good.

Who do you want to be?

Read that question again. Who do you want to be? I was a depressing, complaining sort of person, once upon a time, but that’s not who I wanted to be. I wanted to be a writer who influenced others for good, a happy person that others wanted to be around. But I couldn’t get there by continuing to call myself “depressed,” “lonely,” “a loser.” Words have power, and I wanted to leverage that power to my benefit.

Write down who you want to be.

One great way to bring words out of your head and into reality is to write them down. Speaking is also very powerful and perfectly acceptable. For me, it was hard to stand in front of a mirror and say, “I am wonderful,” because I had such a low opinion of myself. But I could do something as simple as write down “I want to be a great writer,” “I am a great writer.”

I still have the notebook where I practiced using words to reprogram how I thought of myself.

I found inspiration everywhere, even the children’s book Harriet the Spy, which I had never read until three years ago. At the bottom of the page of quotes I took from Harriet the Spy, I wrote, “Hmm, when did I stop being a writer? When did I stop imagining?

You may recall a time when you were a much more vibrant person. Well, that person is still in there. You can become that person again.

Take time today to write down or speak out who you want to be. Is there some dream you never fulfilled? Do you wonder how your life would turn out if you were to pursue that dream? Do you want to be happier, healthier, enjoy life more? Write it all down, or use some other method that works for you. Then remind yourself every day of who you want to be. Accept that you CAN be that person.

Next week, we’ll finish this month’s topic with talking about how to use your imagination to become who you want to be. That negative person we imagined ourselves into being is about to be replace with a better version of ourselves. We’ll created a different kind of image for ourselves. The “imaginary you” -- what you imagine about yourself -- whether good or bad, becomes the real you. Don’t miss our last week in this series. See you right back here next week!

Next week: Creating the Real You (our final post in the series The Imaginary You: Finding and Becoming the Real You)

Accepting Yourself As You Are

Last week the question we talked about was How do you see yourself? The wording on that question is important. We were not writing down who we ARE but rather how we perceive ourselves. Oftentimes our perspectives can be very far from the truth.

This week we’re going to talk about accepting ourselves as we are. Ask yourself and others who and what you really are. Choose close friends who will be honest with you and not sugarcoat their answer. If they see you as a vivacious, loving person and not as a depressed mope, you need to hear that. If you are depressed and that’s what they see as well, that’s what you need to hear. You need to hear the truth.

Compare other’s answers with your own perspective of yourself. Do they differ? Which do you feel is more accurate? Your view or their view? A combination of both?

Here’s an example to illustrate this step: I was very depressed for a long time, then I met my boyfriend Jorge (pronounced George). He could see I had many problems, and yet he saw a side of me that I did not. He saw me smiling and joking. He saw I had a sharp mind. When he described me to myself, it was hard to accept anything good about myself. The truth is I had good qualities and bad qualities.

Yay for the good qualities, but what would I do with the bad qualities that seemed to outweigh anything good in me? I decided to accept that I was a depressed, complaining person who had wasted many years of her life. Then I told myself “That is who you used to be. You’re not that person anymore. You may still feel like a scared loser who doesn’t get anything done, but that’s not who you are now. That is all in the past.”

This process took much longer than the thirty seconds it took to put into words and type up, but the important thing is not how long the process takes for each person. The important thing is that you come to those realizations, you don’t give up until it sinks in for you, and you reach that place where you can accept who you are, good and bad. Then you proclaim that you are no longer those bad parts of yourself. The feelings and perspective you have of yourself is ALL based off of past events and decisions you’ve made.

If your entire life was erased from this second backward, you would not have anything negative to say about yourself because you’d have no memory of it. The only moment that would matter would be this one and what you would decide to do with it. You can make it anything you want it to be. You can create a new you by focusing on just this present moment. Even though the memories of your past failures will not be literally erased, it is still true that the moment that matters most is the one you’re living in right this second. After you have found a way to accept that truth, you can move on to the next part, the decisions you choose to make in this present moment.

Next week we’ll talk about looking into our futures and accepting who we WANT to be.

Next week: “Accepting Who You Want to Be”

Also, stay tuned for updates on the release of my current fictional work in progress, Mint Julep Adventures!

How Do I See Myself?

First, my apologies for not posting on Thursday as I stated in my last blog, but happy Friday to you! I have a great post for you today to finish out the week.

This month we are talking about The Imaginary You: Finding and Becoming the Real You. I’m not an expert on the subject, I’m just sharing some things that worked for me. You can try some of these things out to see how they work for you, or come up with your own ideas.

The Question

One of the first things that helped me get started on finding myself was to ask myself this question: How do I see myself?

What is your self image? Mine was of a person who was very afraid, never got things done, made proclamations to the world about writing a book then never followed through, someone who didn’t want to face life, who was more comfortable hiding than being an adult, an awkward person steeped in depression and rejected by everyone she dated or wanted to date.

Being truthful in answering this question about myself was vital to the next steps I would take, which we will talk about in the following weeks. For now, take some time this week to ask yourself how you see yourself. Write it down, do a voice recording, make a video. Then play it back or read over it and be as honest as you can with yourself. Write down how you feel about yourself. Do you like yourself? Hate yourself? Why?

There's lots of things we imagine about ourselves, thus creating an imaginary version of ourselves. This "imaginary you" can work for you and against you, a concept we'll cover later in the month.

Next week we’ll talk about how your self image plays into finding the real you.

The Announcement

I promised an exciting announcement this week, and here it is: The current fictional series I’m working on, Mint Julep Adventures, is in its editing phase right now and will be ready for publication very soon! I will be self publishing it as an ebook. I have plans to create a paperback, but not for a while yet. As soon as we pass edits, I will be choosing a release date. I’m so excited to have such a fun project almost ready to put out into the world.

Thanks again for reading. I’ll see you next week for more about finding and becoming the real you.

Next week: "Accepting Yourself As You Are"