What is your identity rooted in?

Ever find yourself questioning what your purpose in life is? Wanting to know what your life is intended to impact?

As human beings, it is our ingrained nature to seek purpose. We want to belong, we want to have a reason for living and we want to ensure that our lives have meaning. There is an ingrained need to feel, to be and to exist for something. When one looks at why we are so driven to succeed and push ourselves to attain greatness, there is an embedded reason that has to do with feeling like everything we do has meaning.

However, sometimes, we find ourselves rooting our identity in material things, in our families love or in our jobs. In order for you to understand where you root your identity, you will need to admit to yourself what is the one thing that takes up much of your time? What does your life seems to revolve around? We tend to think identity is about self-esteem and confidence, when really your identity can easily be rooted in the things we lean on for survival. The things we lean on to feel important, the things in which we think our value stems from. If one does not pay close attention, you will find yourself spiraling, unable to understand why you feel the way you do, because you do not take time out to both learn yourself and understand yourself. In taking time out to understand yourself, you can tell where your value stems from, what hinders your moods, what drives you and where your identity is entrenched in.

Mothers can easily find that their identity is rooted in their children. Everything they are and do is first and foremost considerate of their children. Not in a healthy manner, but where they forget who they are outside of being a mother. People are multi-dimensional, and when one focuses solely on one part of who you are, you neglect all other parts of who you are. This can be detrimental, because it you place your value outside of yourself. Which means that when that one area of your life, where you have come to root your entire identity, falls apart or is not doing well, you feel like everything else in your life too is falling apart.

Same can be said about career or academics. When things are not going well in your academics or career, you easily find your entire day ruined simply by the one thing not going well. You fixate on its success, you neglect your emotional well-being, your physical well-being and your soul, trying to run after one thing only.

There is no harm in being a great mom, a great partner or even a great career person. There however, stands to be great harm if you do not have a healthy balance in all other areas of your life. Life is intended to have a healthy balance, between your social life, family life, career life and every other ball you may juggle. Your identity should not be rooted in things that falter and come and go. Your identity has to be rooted in self. Inside oneself is where you find your epicenter, which is where who you are should stem from. You are supposed to be who you identify as. Multi-faceted, multi-talented and multi-able. You are not one thing and you certainly deserve to discover thinner most parts of yourself. It is not to say that you will do the work of self-searching and never again find yourself struggling to get yourself out of rooting yourself and your identity in things outside of yourself.

It simply means you will consistently seek to place your identity within yourself.

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