You Do You!
*This is a collaborative post
We are all unique – this much we are told from being young children. But how do you even begin to show off your uniqueness in a world where there is so much pressure to fit in and do what everyone else is doing?
Your personality is fundamental to who you are and learning to express yourself and your interests is key. Understanding what brings you joy and making progress towards your goals are also really important from silly things like putting private plates on your car to the big stuff like accomplishing a life goal.
So, where should you start?
Make Your Home Yours
If there is one rule for interior design, it is this: your home should look like you. For single people, this is ideal because you can put your mark on every room without having to compromise; for couples and families, it might be a little more difficult but between all of you, your house should still feel like yours. In other words, you need to make your house feel like your home.
Though you might be influenced by what you see in magazines, when you come to update your home, think about how you use the space and what it means for you. Go for the colours you love, not necessarily the ones in vogue and pick out the furniture that makes you happy. All styles come and go so be true to yourself – if you aren’t fashionable today, you are probably just ahead of your time!
Personal touches mean a lot at home. Frame your favourite family photos and display them proudly. Show of trinkets you picked up on holiday to remind you of the good times you had. Collect items that bring you joy and curate a collection that brings you joy. All of these things speak to your sense of self and will make your home feel more like you.
Dress to Impress
Nothing shows off your personality more than your dress sense. The idea of dressing to impress goes back eons and whether you want to appear richer, more creative or more beautiful, clothes can help give you the confidence you need. But really, the person you should impress is the one looking back at you in the mirror. When you look at yourself and see a confident person looking back, it gives you a boost like nothing else.
By embracing your sense of style and wearing clothes that make you feel good, you will find yourself growing in confidence and feeling more content in your own skin. This is really important if you are the kind of person who worries about what others think. Make a gradual change if you like, slowly incorporating more individual clothes into your collection. But whatever you do, have fun with what you wear!
Pursue Your Passions
One of the best things about being human is our diversity. You can’t be interested in everything but everyone is interested in something. For some people, an incredibly niche interest can end up being a career like no other; for other people those niche interests won’t go any further than a hobby but are still just as valuable.
Pursuing your interests is really important because that is what makes you you. While most articles on this subject are about changing career, the reality is that you don’t have to make a profit from a passion to get something from it. Hobbies are often put down, but how you spend your free time is often more a reflection of you than what you do at work.
Enjoy making art you can put on your walls regardless of what critics might say. Try baking and cooking with new ingredients to explore different flavours and ideas. Learn a new language, meet new people, develop a skill. Achieve the things you want to achieve like traveling to new places or pushing yourself to a particular peak. None of this stuff has to mean anything to anyone but you to be valuable – that’s what makes it so important to who you are. Have fun!
Being truly yourself can be challenging and it takes confidence to assert your personality sometimes. You don’t need to be aggressive with your transformation, in fact, when you have a little more confidence in who you are, you will probably find that life is a little easier on you. When you are no longer fighting yourself and trying to be someone you’re not, you’ll have a lot more time to play and enjoy yourself.
