I have so many thoughts about 'Being who I want to be' swirling through my head that I don't really know where to start. It is something that has been said many times over, something that's meant to be inspirational, motivational, empowering. Yet it so often feels like something impossible to achieve, almost even like a lie, a deception. Of course I can't just be who I want to be. How is that supposed to work? It takes effort and time and dedication and all those sort of things that I don't always or even rarely have. So how the hell am I just supposed to be who I want to be!?
It almost feels mocking, judgy, shaming. “If you aren't who you want to be, then what are you even doing? You have so much potential and yet you are not doing anything with it. You will never be the person you want to be.” Being who I want to be often has felt and feels like something that will never be achievable, something I am not meant to reach, something that will always just be some ideal I am running after but never getting closer to.
I think I am starting to realize, starting to really recognize and see that I was wrong or that I am wrong to feel like that. My perspective towards it is changing. I don't know if it has anything to do with changing negative beliefs into positive ones because I have not actively been working on that, but it might have helped unlock something within me, within my mind, my heart, my soul that is really changing my view on things, changing how I view myself and my own abilities.
Because the truth is that I already have achieved a lot. I am already the person I want to be in many ways. If I went back only a few years I would be incredibly impressed with the things I have managed to do, how I have come closer to being who I want to be. It's just hard to see, to realize and recognize that sometimes. It does take time and effort and dedication and all those things I don't always have, but I can manage to work on things sometimes and make progress and over time it can lead to great things, to great changes.
Writing everyday or at least writing a lot was something I always saw as part of who I want to be and I was already doing that for years and years and yes, I fell off a bit recently, but I am working my way back into it and the fact that I already did it for many years, that I am dedicated to getting there again, that I feel this joy and passion and need to write by itself already shows that I am a writer, that I write regularly, that I create characters and worlds and stories, that writing is my passion, my calling. That has been something that I already am and have been for a long long time. That part of being who I want to be I already reached and I am proud of that. I'll hold onto it. I'll keep working on continuing to be like that, to be someone that writes with never ending passion.
Writing so much is something that comes very naturally to me, but nonetheless I have to put in the effort and make time for it. It does often feel like I can never do everything I want to do and that is true to a degree, but I can finish things, I can give time to the projects I want to give time to and I have already learned somewhat how to do that, how to be better about that. I have already come such a long way with my writing and I will keep going ever further.
Doing Yoga pretty much every day or at least every other day, again regularly, but actually daily for the most part, is another big achievement that is part of who I want to be. I am someone that does Yoga a lot, that loves Yoga and that through Yoga is more active, more mentally and emotionally stable, calmer, more at peace, more connected to my body and myself, more present in the moment. It's lovely. It's something I am so proud of and something that makes me happy every single day.
This too took some effort and dedication and definitely discipline. I didn't build the routine to do Yoga so much over night. It took me many attempts of doing it for a while, stopping and then restarting, stopping again and so forth. But eventually I fully felt and understood how much I love doing it and how beneficial it really is for me, how right it feels and with that understanding, that feeling it was suddenly easy to get myself to do it a lot, every single day and now I miss it so much when I don't do it for whatever reason. I do now have this inherent need to just do it again whenever I can. It has become almost like writing. It is something I need and want so much. It has become an integral part of me. It has become part of who I am, another step, another puzzle piece of being who I want to be turning into being who I am.
Being vegan is another big topic that makes me feel extremely happy and proud. For years and years of watching vegan youtubers I thought I could never do it while wanting to do it so much. It was one of those things that felt so impossible to me and yet here I am! Here I am having been vegan for 1,5 years at this point! (At the time of posting this it's been 2 years!) And I have no intention whatsoever of ever stopping being vegan. I didn't always know that this is something I would care about so much, similar to Yoga which I only really discovered once I had tried it out. But it was something that was on my mind for so long and I knew the person who I want to be would be vegan and now I did it, I've been doing it for over a year! How wonderful is that!?
As I finished my bachelor thesis I decided to go all out or go all in and become fully vegan. Even before that I had already only very rarely eaten meat and a lot of the products I was consuming were vegan already, so it wasn't a huge chance at that point. As I moved back to my hometown though, back in with my mom, seeing my big family a lot for family events, going out to eat, many challenges presented themselves. There were for sure many times were giving up or giving in would have been easier and there were some little slip ups here and there, but that's okay. I am still very dedicated to this and staying dedicated to it because it is something I really deeply believe in.
Those are just three things that are part of the person I want to be and I successfully turned them into three things that are actually part of me, of my daily life, of who I am. There are many other things I have at least partly achieved, things I always work on, big things I know I want to and in a way have to get to in the future. There is still a lot more I need to do, need to change to really fully be who I want to be, but some puzzle pieces are already there and I am so happy and proud of that.
To me it really shows that I can be who I want to be, I already am who I want to be, in some ways at least, in important ways. It gives me hope, motivation, even energy. It makes me believe in myself which I think is something important I was and kind of still am lacking, but I know I can build it up. I can get there. I can become a person that believes in themself. I can make that a reality. I can change the perception of myself. I can grow beyond what I think is possible. I am who I want to be. I am becoming who I want to be. I'll be who I want to be. It is very much possible.