"Lynn, help! My parents want me to be a mini-them, what about what I want?"

Parents usually want the best for their kids. The best according to what?

They want to make sure you don’t make the mistakes they did; they want you to repeat their successes, because they know they were successes. Unfortunately, they sometimes forget that you are individuals in our own right, not just their kids. At the end of the day you aren’t them, you're you!

I’m not saying you should ignore the knowledge and experience of your parents. You should take what you want and also be allowed to leave what you don’t feel is right for you. After all don’t we all need to grow and develop our own personalities and learn through our own experiences?

And isn’t it a good job we do? Otherwise criminals would just spawn more criminals, abusers would just spawn more abusers, so isn’t it great that we have a choice in how we develop as us?

Parents aren’t the only people who try to predetermine our lives for us. Have you ever tried having more than one elder brother or sister? You scarcely have a chance of forming your own identity, because you are constantly compared with what they did. Sometimes if you have a few elder sibling, teachers can’t even get your name right so you usually get called by your siblings name or even worse become known just as their ‘brother’ or ‘sister’, not even worthy of your own identity. Or what about teachers and society, don’t they all make demands on us because ‘they want the best for us’ too?

Any of this seem familiar? The good news is that none of this is done maliciously; the bad news is that it can rob you of your own identity. Sometimes you can make this worse by deliberately not following your parents life and career choices, because you want to be different to them, but by doing this you just might stop yourself doing something that you are naturally talented at!

But guess what?

You have a choice to go and get your own identity.

Here’s how?

Ten top tips for discovering your own identity (who you really are):

1. Work out what makes you tick and why

2. Forget history: what your parents did what your siblings do.

3. Make your own decisions based on what you know AND what you feel.

4. Don’t be afraid of experimenting, exploring and making mistakes - great learning experiences!

5. Never think you don’t know what you want because you do. Just listen to your instincts. Only you have the answers for you.

6. Remember you can’t make choices unless you are aware of them so find out everything that is available to you in terms of education knowledge, even just having fun!

7. In life other people will say both good and bad things about us. Choose to believe the good and ignore the bad. You can make your own decisions about what’s bad about you – if anything, because that’s your right and no-one else’s.

8. Never criticise yourself, or put yourself down. The only thing that this will do is decrease your self-esteem and confidence. It serves no useful purpose and doesn’t allow you to discover the real you.

9. If you find it hard to get in touch with what you know about yourself try taking some time out, sitting quiet and relaxed and fantasise about all of the things you’d love to do if only … you had the money, you were older, etc. Then work out what these things mean to you and whether you can start to include them in your life now.

10. At the end of the day accept that you and only you can be you, and you are best placed to know what you want for yourself.

So remember in life you may be your parent’s child, but you are not your parent.

You are unique.

Your true identity can only be formed by one person – you!

Copyright Lynn Shaw 2004. Not to be republished without express permission of the author and references to Win At Life.