Brainstorm who you want to be

Use Pinterest to look for potential aesthetics, interests and ways of living that appeal to you.

Or make a list of what currently fills your life and attribute each current obligation to a source — a relative, a friend, something you picked up.

I continue to save to a board titled “Jane 4.0” what appeals to me.

Identify & take steps to becoming that person

If you want to become a watercolor painter, buy or obtain from a no-buy group paints and paper for it.

It’s really that simple. Some steps aren’t so simple. Like, you have to save up money to buy a car and need an income source to save money.

However, realizing I could literally start doing something “out of nowhere” and make that my new thing was life-changing.

You mean I don’t need permission to fill my wardrobe with oversized shirts and short shorts?

I can buy dye-free laundry detergent instead of the cheapest stuff, thereby not itching from my clothes anymore?

I can send cards to people, and make that my thing?

Or make cake my signature scent without apologizing.

Becoming a full-time blogger takes longer, of course, but it will happen so long as I want it to because I’m taking the steps to make it happen.

Identify the steps you need to take to start turning into the person you want to be. Begin taking those steps.

Establish & maintain boundaries

Identify where you need boundaries, then create and maintain those boundaries.

A boundary helps protect yourself and dictates how you will behave and react to the world around you. Boundaries aren’t about how other people behave or react around you.

I learned how to respect myself through boundaries. They’re not easy. Coming from an abusive family, where my role was complying and pleasing authority figures, boundaries feel uncomfortable.

Even now, as I’ve been sticking to my boundaries and even drawing new ones, I find other people mistake my boundaries for stubbornness or “being difficult”.

My family had a habit of telling me I wasn’t acting like myself or “changing in the worst way”. Boundaries make you seem like a “total b*tch” to people who benefit(ed) from you having none.

Spend time with yourself

If you struggle to spend time alone, that’s a sign you need to spend more time with yourself.

Spending time alone teaches you what you need and like. You learn how to satisfy yourself without relying on external appreciation or validation. You force yourself to be okay with yourself.

You also learn what you dislike about yourself — and that’s where you figure out your next steps: whether you need to learn how to be okay with yourself or change those things about yourself.

Some things you can’t change about yourself, or they’re dangerous things to hate about yourself. Your body, for instance.

But if you hate that habit of yours that you picked up from a racist relative? That’s a healthy behavior to change about yourself.

My family perceived resting on off days instead of busying oneself — cleaning, running errands, spending time with people, doing things “worth talking about” — as “lazy”. Like needing to spend your days off work sleeping is a personal failure.

I consider talking about how I spend my weekend sleeping or playing The Sims 4 for 12 hours “worth talking about”. I’m not ashamed to need that kind of rest when I’m not working.

Unlearning this attitude was a doozy. It wasn’t easy. I’m glad I pushed through anyway, because I didn’t like that side of me before. She wasn’t good to herself.

Practice being you

Once you know who/how you want to be, you have something to practice.

This is the best form of self-care.

You spent your whole life up to this point being someone other people wanted you to be. Now, it’s time to be you.

But before you can feel comfortable being yourself, you need to practice being yourself. It’s going to feel odd, probably even wrong.

I know I felt like I was actually criminally insane, like my family insisted I was. Like something was legit wrong with me or how I was.

However, the more time I spent practicing being myself, the more comfortable I became. I met people who were okay with who I am — and my life is richer, more colorful because of it.

The people who stayed in my life prior to my changing parts of myself? Turns out they liked these better characteristics of myself, too — the less toxic traits, the becoming-someone-respectable behaviors.

I’m not giving you permission to become a serial killer.

I’m giving you permission to be someone you feel is worth knowing — that you can reasonably become.

You deserve to be the person you want to be. You have the choice to become like your abusive relatives or to be someone who deviates from that path and stops the cycle.

You have the choice to be you. All you need to do is make it.

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