Have you ever thought about who you are? What you stand for?

I�m not talking about your life roles or your social identity. You can be a friend,
brother/sister, employee, boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife, father/mother, and
son/daughter all at the same time, but these are just an aspect of you. They don�t
represent who you fundamentally are on the inside. Your inner self is who you
really are on the inside.

Aiven much thought to who you are on the inside, it is likely that you have become
defined by your identities. It is common for people to see themselves as a certain
role, such as a friend, partner, employee, or son/daughter. Some spend their whole
lives building themselves around such identities. Take those identities away, and
they get lost, because they have little awareness of who they are on the inside.
These people are not able to articulate their own vision, goals, and beliefs beyond
what�s imposed by their identities.

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For example, someone who is entrenched in his identity as a son sees his entire
existence as a son. He will act in accordance with what�s best for his parents. He
will spend a lot of time with his parents, do things for them, and forsake other
things in his life if it�s needed to make his parents happy. When it comes to
making important decisions, such as pertaining to his career or life partner, he
makes sure that his parents approve before he takes any action. His parents are the
central focus of his life.

However, his real self is more than just being a son to his parents. If or rather
when his parents exit from his life, he will be in a state of total loss. His life
will start spiraling out of control since the anchor he has been building his life
on is gone. It�s like when the head of the sunflower disappears, all the petals
will scatter away since there is nothing to hold them together. When you become
overly attached to any one of your identities, you run into the risk of an identity
crisis when that particular role is removed.

It is perfectly okay if you don�t know your inner self. Discovering and unraveling
it is a life-long process. If I use myself as an example, the 10-year-old Celes
definitely wasn�t as self-aware as the 25-year-old Celes or 35-year-old Celes. When
I was in primary and secondary school, I didn�t really know who I was or what I
stood for. I don�t think anybody at that age does actually. Everyone was just
focused on doing what they were told. There wasn�t much introspection or self-
awareness going on. We were never asked to think about who we were, what we
thought, or who we wanted to be. While we had our own personalities, they were hazy
at best.

Come think of it, I think the reason why the self-awareness was so low is because
conformance was highly valued in school (or should I say, the Chinese society).
Back then, having an opinion was seen as being defiant. Our role as a student was
to follow instructions, not to question. If you had thoughts different from what
was told, you would be shut down. That�s why we never thought about what we wanted.
We were more like robots doing what was told, or sleepwalkers as I like to call it.

When I went to junior colleage and subsequently university, I became more self-
aware. A lot of it came about from having increased liberty, for example getting to
choose my classes and no longer being barked down by teachers. This may seem simple
to you, but this was the first time I felt a sense of control in my life. Having
more onus in decision making triggered me to think more � about what I wanted for
my future. I was doing many activities on the side which helped me grow in other
ways � for example, one of my hobbies then was web design so I was managing a large
network of sites. I was also taking part in various extracurricular activities and
giving private tuition to several students.

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Subsequently as I worked in my previous company and subsequently quit to embrace my

passion, I learned more about myself. Every day is a learning journey in
discovering who I am and what I stand for. The more I uncover about myself, the
more I am able to live consciously.

What�s Beneath Your Identities?

Let�s try an exercise to discover your inner self. Start off by removing all the
different identities that you have been layered with throughout your life. This
means stop thinking about yourself as a brother, a colleague, a friend, a partner,
or whatever identity you commonly associate yourself with. Think about you as just
yourself.

With a pen and paper, start writing whatever comes to mind as you read the
questions below.

What is your life purpose? What purpose do you see yourself standing for? (If you
don�t know your purpose, check out my 7-part series on How to Discover Your Life
Purpose)
What is your vision for yourself, independent of anyone else? What goals and dreams
do you have for yourself for the next 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, or even 10 years?
What are YOUR motivations in life? What gets you going, day after day? What will
you fight for? What do you feel passion about?
What are your values? What qualities are important to you?
What are your beliefs about the world?
If this is the first time you are doing such an exercise, you will probably get
into a bit of a jam. Some of your answers may come from one of your social
identities. If you are very family-centriv, you may find your answers wholly
centered around caring for your family. It�s totally fine to have such an answer,
but at the same time it should not be your only answer, because you are more than
your family. Start thinking beyond your family. What is your vision for yourself,
outside of family? What are your personal motivations in life?

Don�t worry if you have difficulty writing the answers. Even if you draw up a
blank, there is a real you that lies beneath your social identities, waiting to be
uncovered.

Here are some steps that I have found useful in uncovering my inner self:

Continuously learning and growing

Digging into my blind spots
Putting myself in unknown situations to spike my learning curve
Constant self-questioning
Looking beyond what I�ve been told to discover what I want for myself
Listening to my gut feeling
By doing this exercise, you have triggered the search process to discover the real
you. You will start to become more aware of your thoughts and actions. Soon, you
will get an impression of your inner self, separate from your social identities.
Eventually, you will reach a stage where you have strong clarity of who you are as
a person.

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Aligning with Your Inner Self
As you uncover more of your inner self, you may find that some of your real life
identities do not match your inner self. There�s a conflict between who you are and
who you are expected to be. If so, that�s fine. It�s a first step to discover who
you are. The next step is to live in alignment with your inner self, as best as you
can, within the context of the situation. At the same time, start to make long term
plans to ultimately live in alignment with your true self.

For example, when I was working in my ex-company, my inner self was passionate
about helping others to grow in a conscious way. However, my identity as an
employee of a consumer goods company required me to manage skincare brands and come
up with ideas to maximize their skincare business. That meant coming up with
business and marketing strategies to get consumers to buy skincare products. In my
opinion, the beauty industry today is largely a low consciousness one as it tends
to assume a fixed beauty ideal and pushes the idea that some natural aspects of
human appearance are ugly (freckles, wrinkles, laugh lines, loose skin), so it
wasn�t in line with my inner self. There was a conflict between my identity as an
employee and my inner self.

What I did was then to live in alignment with my inner self as best as I could
while working there, while kicking off my plans to pursue my passion in the long
term. Since I couldn�t do anything to change the nature of the company, I focused
on what I could effect � establishing strong relationships with my colleagues and
raising their consciousness through every interaction and meeting. Eventually, I
saw the opportunity to make the leap in 2008. This marked the biggest step where I
closed the gap with my inner self. The rest, as they say, is history.

Every action you take should move you toward your inner self. If you have roles
that do not match your inner self, there are two possible steps you can take.
First, try to find the common ground between those identities and your inner self.
This may involve shaping the identities to fit who you are. If this doesn�t work,
the other (more drastic) option is to remove or change the role altogether. For
example when I left my previous company, I effectively removed my identity as an
employee in the company; or when I shed naysayers from my life, I was effectively
removed my role as a friend to them (and them to me).

Constantly doing these two steps has helped me become more congruent with my true
self. Today, I�m at a place where my external identities are well matched with who
I am on the inside. While there�s definitely still room for improvement, they are
quite congruent with one another. And these didn�t happen by chance. They came
about as a result of conscious effort.

Focus on finding your inner self, and then start to live in alignment with it.
That�s when you start to live a conscious life. ??

Check out Be a Better Me in 30 Days Program, my 30-day program to discover your

inner self and become your highest version of you.