We are all influenced by our upbringing — both our environment and our caregivers shape how and who we turn out to be; what we care about and what is important to us. However, there comes a time when we must take responsibility for ourselves, and learn to resist adjusting to become what others’ judge to be best and instead choose to be what we value.
Most people will present different personas to different people. Your mother will not be the same way she is with you at home when she is at work, or indeed, when she is with her own mother or her partner. We all have a stable and recognizable personality, but this alters depending on our environment and who we are with. It can also be shaken by traumatic events or fail to develop properly or be damaged by mental health issues. However, if you have poor boundaries or have an overdeveloped need to be liked, or to have approval, then you are susceptible to adapting yourself to others and losing your sense of self. In this way, you present yourself as someone who is open to challenge, who can be overruled or ignored when decisions are made, or simply someone who is regarded as wishy-washy. Conversely, you can be bigoted or dogmatic, believing views that were presented to you as you developed, and that you have not tested for their relevance to you as you perceive yourself now.
If you present yourself as adaptable or compliant, you can be taken advantage of. Your boundaries are not sure or strong enough to resist those who are stronger personalities with more resilient convictions than you. This may be for all sorts of reasons. You may have had to be “pleasing” in order to get what you needed when you were growing up. You may have needed to be compliant or to have adapted quickly to an inconsistent care giver, or adult, or even a forceful sibling as you grew up. You may have had to take an adult role before you were fully adult, adopting rules and values that you were not ready for and did not choose. Whatever the reason, you will be seen as a “push over” or an “easy touch” or otherwise as someone who is intractable and bigoted. If you don’t want to continue in this way, you need to decide what values constitute who you are and then portray these. This is hard work, but the only way to change the way people react towards you is to change how you respond and present to them.
This is what is meant by having “the courage of your convictions”. Do you value what you stand for enough to withstand others’ attempts to dissuade you or undermine you? Are you sure the values you have are yours — or are they some outdated views of a parent or carer? Only you can choose for yourself what matters, and it is in this choosing and deciding that we become adults. It no longer matters what your caregivers would have thought or your old headmaster or your brother, when you truly become you, it only matters what your own values are and how you judge yourself. In this way, you become free of others’ opinions and you start to become what and who matters to you, and to portray this in how you behave.
Once you have achieved this and can no longer be bullied or swayed by others, then you have become your adult self. You will like yourself and this will translate into how you are treated by others. In your personal life you can decide what you will or won’t give way on and what matters to you. In work you may have to rein it in a little – after all you are being paid to do a certain job or task so it’s no good deciding after taking a job in a supermarket that you are a committed vegan and can’t countenance selling animal products; make sure you don’t accept such a job in the first place Having principles and sticking by them is admirable but you need to pick your battles and decide what is vitally important to you and who you perceive yourself to be and what you can let go.
All of this takes time and courage. If you have always been easily convinced by others’ arguments or insistence then find someone you admire and try to emulate what they stand for. Think of how you like to be treated and adopt those values for yourself. Jettison the behaviors that no longer suit you and that are outdated for who and how you want to be. We are all a “project in the making”: none of us are perfect or get it right, indeed, we learn most through our mistakes. So take your time, you are building your adult self after all. Try things out, evolve, listen to those you like and admire and adopt the values that are close to your heart. As you do this you will feel more and more like “yourself” and as such will be recognizable to others. In this way you can become fully “you”. You are now a product of your own making and choosing, someone who will continue to evolve and grow. In this way you become the architect of you, something that will enhance both your mental and physical health for the rest of your life.
