How to figure out who you are

Take your sh*t pile of negatives and reframe them as positives

There are times in your life when you know 100% without a doubt who you are, and then there are times when you have no f*cking clue who you are.

When you know who you are, the world is your oyster. Anything is possible and opportunities are limitless. When you have no idea who you are, the world seems small. Life feels heavier, but also like it’s passing you by in the blink of an eye.

I’ve had some time to think about this lately. I haven’t written in a few weeks due to work travel and surgery, but my mind is in a different place now. A more philosophical place where perhaps the thing I want to write about isn’t niched down to fitness, but rather how fitness fits into the holistic picture of what it feels like to exist in midlife.

That brings me back to knowing (or not knowing) who you are.

This is a cyclical pattern that, in my opinion, happens approximately every 6 years OR after a major life event. For example, think about when you were 35. Now compare it to how you felt at 29 or how you feel at 41. Maybe you didn’t know who you were at 29, but you did at 35. Then you lost that feeling again at 41 because in your 40s, everything seemingly goes to sh*t.

If you’re in a “not knowing who you are” cycle, let me show you how to bring yourself back to knowing who you are.

How you think about yourself determines how you experience the world

If you feel yourself questioning your purpose or your goals, and drifting away from the person you know you can be, you must look at yourself in a radically different way.

As civilization and technology evolve around you, you must establish new patterns of thinking. As your body changes with age and lifestyle, you must establish new patterns of self-preservation.

I have an exercise to help you do just that.

100 words to describe yourself

Grab a notepad and a pen, and go someplace you won’t be disturbed for at least 30 minutes. By “you won’t be disturbed,” I also mean by your laptop, iPhone or Apple Watch or any other device that could break your concentration.

Now, make a list of a 100 words that describe yourself. They can be adjectives (“compassionate”), nouns (“runner”), identity-based (“mom”), anything you want—but you must write 100. You don’t need to time yourself, but you do need to do this exercise in one sitting.

When you’re finished, review your list. This might be painful, especially if there are more negative words than positive words. Separate out the negatives from the positives into 2 columns.

The list of positives is gold. They reflect the positive reinforcements from your parents and other important figures in your life when you were very young. The positives are the qualities you’re most proud of. Label this column “Foundational Positives.”

The list of negatives is what’s holding you back. They reflect the dark side—the negative reinforcements from your parents, peers, teachers, etc. Label this column “Foundational Negatives” (or “Sh*t Pile” if you prefer).

Reframe your negatives

People are wired to respond to positivity with positivity. The converse is also true. When you believe all the negative things you say about yourself, you experience the world through a negative lens.

This is why, if you’re feeling stuck in your life right now, and unsure of what the f*ck you’re doing and where the f*ck you’re going, you must take your list of negatives and reframe them as positives.

For each negative word you wrote down, write the desired positive in a new column. A fitness related example could be:

Negative: Couch potato

Positive: Elite runner

Even if, at 41, you can’t possibly in your wildest dreams imagine going from couch potato to an elite runner, it is NOT IMPOSSIBLE. If you can see yourself in that positive, if you can dream that possibility for your life—regardless of the year on your driver’s license—write it down. Label this column “Transitional Positives".

You should now have:

Foundational Positives | Foundational Negatives | Transitional Positives

The goal is to create new patterns for your mind and body based on those transitional positives, and train yourself to follow those patterns, rather than fall back on your foundational negatives.

Final thought

You might think I’m crazy for sending this to your inbox. Like “wait, I signed up for a midlife fitness newsletter and I’m getting life coaching?”

I get it and I am a little crazy. One of the negatives on my list was overthinker. I overthink the “right kind of content” to send you. I overthink what it means to be a writer. I overthink what it means to be successful. I tend to overthink everything. So, here’s how I reframed my negative:

Negative: Overthinker

Positive: Intuitive

And my intuition said, “Marek, write this and ship it.”

The life you want, how you experience the world, who you show up as… those things are all malleable. You can bend them and shape them across time and space. But it does require you to give up the old narratives. The put-downs and the sh*t-talking you say to yourself.

I’m working on this right now for myself. You can too.