Have you ever taken a moment to define yourself? Who are you? Who you want to be? This is your roadmap in life. Your own personal GPS.
Our society lumps us into categories from the moment we are born.
Breastfed or bottlefed?
Cloth or disposable?
Cryer? Screamer?
Good sleeper?
Bad sleeper?
Is it any wonder that we too wind up defining ourselves based on who society tells us we are?
We define our adulthood, labeling and crafting our identity based on external forces that don’t actually state who we are inside. Husband. Wife. Father. Mother. Sister. Rich. Famous. Single. Taken.
As a human who has merely had the privilege of reproducing four times, I found myself drowning miserably in so many parenting areas. Daily. I struggled with raising multiple children while feeling like a child myself. I chided myself for not being good enough. For not raising perfect children, a perfect house and a perfect marriage.
So I had to change my outlook. I had to change the way I defined my role.
I had to regain individual identity.
And if you’re reading this, you do too.
And you will.
You just have to keep driving.
Day after day. Plug into life. Look for new things to do. Refuse defeat.
10 TIPS FOR DEFINING IDENTITY
- Set strategic goals
- Dive into new opportunity
- Accept life changing activities.
- Mingle with happy people.
- Put yourself out there.
- Accept new roles
- Push your comfort boundaries
- Accept that you will suck some days.
- Know that will rock some days
- Forgive yourself
And when it gets too overwhelming?
Remember your main goals should be to have family who smile, partners who laugh, protective shelter and food in bellies.
Everything else is non-essential.
Everything else can be let go.
I remind myself of this when I am overwhelmed with unsorted clothing piles, unmopped floors, gross dishes or feel my children’s loud antics sending nerves skyrocketing.
I also remind myself not to keep everything in. I force myself to share life with others even though I am, at heart, a shy timid hermit. I have a support group for depression sufferers that I belong to on Facebook. We all know each other in real life and check in on one another regularly. I swallowed my pride in a doctor’s office and admitted to suicidal thoughts. I accepted medicinal help from Zoloft when I realized I wasn’t superwoman and control the depression.
And I do everything in my power to seek “Lisa” and develop my own personal life outside of kids.
As a parent it’s so important to take time for yourself throughout the week. Work on “you”. Work on hobbies that are purely “you”. Over and over. Those moments and hobbies will give your brain the much needed rest and will give you a channel to focus aggression that may other wise come out as Ill-used words towards your husband and kids. I also find that I am much nicer and forgiving when I focus on “Lisa” because it helps remind me that the kids are individual humans too and their actions are from them trying to live life as best as they can, just like us all.