Module 1: Who Am I?
This week’s module is our first stage in discovering YOU. You can only really love, appreciate and HONOUR yourself once you take the time to really know yourself. I also like to give the precursor that who you are is going to evolve, but it is really how you choose to see yourself and your story that will make a difference.
This is not the only module that focuses on knowing yourself. Modules 4 and 6 are also going to examine all parts of you, including the parts you may resist. But for this module will explore who you are, especially in the best possible light. You will engage in certain challenges including writing your own compelling biography using the most loving perspectives available to you.
So let me introduce the challenges. Try not to see these challenges as linear; you can do them in any order or at the same time, and they each have their own unique and important effect.
Challenge One
The first challenge is writing your own biography. A biography is a piece of writing that tells your life story and in the world of marketing, usually captures the parts of you that are most compelling to your ideal client or audience. Your story will reveal many of your positive traits, and you’ll look to determine what these are after the task.
For this challenge, you are going to write this biography in a way that makes you seem like the most inspiring person you know. It might place you as the hero archetype or ‘main character’, who has got through so much and is strong and accomplished. In my writing course, we call this your hero story, and we have a closer focus on the language you are using, but for this course, we really just need to frame your story in the most empowering way.
If you and I do any deep work together, there are parts of this story that would be very interesting to me in terms of deciphering your mindset, however we won’t go there quite yet. All we need for this challenge is a page or so of your compelling life story.
To prepare for this, list out everything you’ve achieved and the hurdles you’ve overcome to get there. You can also do the inverse, which is to write down your greatest life challenges and how they made you the incredible person you are today.
You can use third person perspective just for a bit of fun distance and a tone of authority. This means when writing about myself I would say, ‘Becky went from innocently writing advice letters to helping thousands of people access their inner wisdom and master personal confidence’ as opposed to ‘I went from writing advice letters…’ etc. A really great way to get into the headspace of how to write this is to imagine that your job is to paint people’s lives in the most favourable light and that the better you capture their accomplishments, the more you get paid.
Once you do that, read over your words and observe and journal how they make you feel. Maybe you feel great, or sceptical (like you want to doubt that you are that awesome, or play it down), or maybe you are humbled by your own life.
You should also list what your hero story reveals about you as a person, noticing what you want to maintain and what you may wish to dispel of. For example, you might see that in all your relationships, you begin with a level of trepidation and that you can be fearful. Put a mental bookmark in this, because you’ll have an opportunity to change this later in the course. Or maybe all the accomplishments you see as worthwhile are to do with performance, which may make you performative or someone who should be entertaining more often. It could also invite you to think about how you relate to the very high highs. Are they fleeting or are they your life-force?
So why is this task worth the bother?
As well as setting you on the way to a more aligned vision of yourself, you will also be able to use it as:
♦ a starting point for a biography for your business
♦ a way to add legitimate authority to your services so people trust you as the expert who can help them
♦ A reference point if you ever doubt your ability to overcome a problem
♦ A way to note how far you have come or how natural change can be
♦ An instant pick-me-up to get into your ‘peak state’
♦ A way to decode the stories and beliefs that may drive you & potentially hold you back
Enjoy the process of this one. Keeping the positive filter on is the challenge, as is the level of bother it involves. But it is worth it.
Challenge Two
The second challenge in this module of really getting to know, appreciate and, with your actions, honour yourself, is to keep a running list of how you work best. In this list that you can keep in your phone notes or physical journal, you’ll be taking note of the times you feel great, energised, in the zone, and then you decode or guess why that is the case. This challenge is something you can complete upfront with your current knowledge, things you’ve probably never given the time of day, AND continue to add to this. So if you know you work best with 8 hours sleep and you have made note of this, so much is simplified when making life choices. You would turn your phone to flight mode or put it in another room early enough to guarantee 8 hours. If you work out that you never wanna do things until the last minute and do a pretty good job of them, with minimal stress, well you can just own it. I really want these challenges to be simple, so you can just make a list of how you work best, and also think about when you don’t or are feeling a bit off, and then work backwards to see what you would have to do to feel better.
To add a bit of punch to this, it’s also great to start to think about who needs to know how you work. Does your boss, your partner, friends, colleagues, kids, clients need to know that you, for example, are high-functioning after 10 minutes of silent meditation in solitude or even hours of complete alone time? Or that you find your mood alters dramatically when you don’t eat regularly. Or that you won’t be on social media on the weekends because you need a two-day technology detox lest you turn into a monster! Be very open to sharing and owning how you work.
Once you’ve got 10 solid points, send me a screenshot and count that challenge as complete. And if you want it to be the difference that makes a difference to your self-esteem? Honour and follow this as often as humanly possible. Let your world revolve around this, not to keep you in a comfort zone, but to show yourself that you matter. It is far better for everyone that you function at your peak anyway.
Challenge Three
The next challenge for this module is a simple exercise that you would be surprised how many people struggle to do. And that is, simply listing and speaking out loud your best qualities, beginning with ‘I am…’. List your best qualities and then push yourself to get even more by asking ‘What would my friends say?’, ‘What would family say’, ‘What would my partner and past lovers say?’ and so on until the list is as long as you can make it. Then start saying them aloud. For this challenge, I would love to get a voice memo of you just listing ‘I am… I am... I am…’. Now, there are personal development activities that would have you ask others what they think your best qualities are and there is nothing wrong that. You should know though that the qualities you hear back are going to be the one that person values the most. So this is why when it comes from your own brain and ‘guesses’ it really solidifies self-esteem, because you will only name things that you perceive as the most important qualities.
Challenge Four
And here is the last challenge of the week. Post a picture or video of yourself on social media, but you have to be in your utmost element, so not just doing what you love or what makes you feel good, because you probably have done this, but actually you doing something that you’re good at. Now, doing and showcasing what you’re good at is not gonna make you a better person, but it will give you a taste of the energy of owning yourself and putting yourself out there. You’ll immediately notice if you feel proud or fearful, and these are clues about our attitude towards visible success. It would just be the perfect time to start affirming ‘It is safe to be seen succeeding’ until it feels like the honest truth.
Challenge Summary
Write your own biography, as though you are writing about someone you idolise. Make the challenges part of your compelling story.
Contribute to a list called ‘How I work best’. Commit to functioning at your peak by following this list, using the guidance from the supporting video.
What are your best qualities? You can ask others or simply imagine what a friend, parent, child, colleague, client might say about you.
Post a picture or video of you in your element.
Further Resources + Mini-Lessons
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