When you think of the kind of person you are, do you see yourself as an ambitious go-getter for whom failure is not an option? Maybe you view yourself as a low-key person who doesn't like the spotlight. Or is I never quit, even when things get hard or Always up for a fun adventure! how you tend to characterize yourself? Even if your answer is "None of the above," consciously or not, we all have beliefs about who we are that are based on our behaviors, abilities, feelings and personality characteristics as well as on how others see and respond to us. Over the decades, our views of who we are become as solid as clay that has dried in the sun. This is what psychologists call self-concept-a reflection of how you see yourself as a person- and it has a powerful effect on how you act, the choices you make, the attitudes you have and how you move through life.
And then you reach midlife, and maybe you start to feel not quite...like yourself. One reason may be that your reactions, preferences, needs, values, and expectations have shifted over time, but your self-concept hasn't kept up. "We tend to think of ourselves as static, but we do change," says Mark Leary, Ph.D., professor emeritus in the department of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University and author of The Curse of the Self. "It's extremely common to have old views of yourself hanging around. Our early views of ourselves stick with us because they're like glasses through which we view the world."
Just Who Do You Think You Are?
This story is from the November - December 2023 edition of Good House Keeping - US.
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This story is from the November - December 2023 edition of Good House Keeping - US.
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