The Ideal Self Challenge

… the quality of your life is predicated by the manner in which you participate in it. Your participation is based on who you believe you are……

Last semester I made friends with a girl in my class who amazed me. She biked everywhere around Tallahassee. She brought whole fruits and veggies to snack on during class. She always had a nalgene bottle filled with water. One day I noticed she had a kickboard in her bag and asked why. “I go to the pool after class. I’m training for a triathlon.”

She seemed as though she was manifested of tips from Self Magazine, doing all the “right” things, living in balance, incorporating healthy habits into her life as naturally waking up and going to sleep. She was almost always cheerful and alert, I only once saw her run down and that was the Sunday before our final in quantitative statistics. And she had completed her triathlon the day before. So… yeah.

I was envious. She seemed to have the active, in-tuned life I wanted. She lived how I saw myself ideally living.

Driving home and passing her as she biked to the gym I thought “what’s stopping me?”. I’m out of the influence realm of my parents. I’m self-sufficient and have the monetary means engage in the activities I want for the most part. Then I realized it: nothing is stopping me from living my ideal life. Nothing.

Most people have a gap between their real self and their ideal self. This gap is called incongruity.  The greater the gap, the more incongruity.  The more incongruity, the more suffering. It makes sense when you think about it: the quality of your life is predicated by the manner in which you participate in it. Your participation is based on who you believe you are.

So lately, before making decisions I’ve been trying to ask myself “what would my ideal self do?”. My ideal self:

• Gets at least 7 hours of sleep.
• Eats a tangerine instead of cheetos as an afternoon snack.
• Cleans the house instead of take a too-long nap after work.
• Drinks more water.
• Wakes up at 6:30 am every morning so she doesn’t rush to work.
• Spends quality time with my dogs every night.
• Puts on makeup in the morning because that act makes me feel confident and ready to take on the day.
• Schedules out time to exercise in my life and sticks to it.
• Takes time to laugh and cuddle with my husband every day.
• Doesn’t eat out unless with others and/or in celebration of something.
• Smiles more.
• Take walking and stretching breaks at work.
• Commits only to activities and organizations she believes strongly in.
• Carves out time for friendship.

This is just a partial list but I think it gives you the drift. Soon I realized I know what I want- I know my ideal- and I’m the only barrier stopping me from achieving it.

So I’m embarking on my own “Ideal Self” Challenge. For the next 30 days I will try and remember to ask myself “what would my ideal self do?” before making a decision and follow through with the answer. Maybe some days my ideal self would say “you really do need a nap”. That’s ok; my goal is to live more consciously of how my everyday decisions shape my overall quality of life. It’s not about weight, it’s not about perfection, it’s about being the person who is driving your life and driving it in the direction you want to go.

It’s not about weight, it’s not about perfection, it’s about being the person who is driving your life and driving it in the direction you want to go…

Interested in joining me in my Ideal Self Challenge? Here are some steps you can take to be on your way!

Step 1: Define your Ideal Self

To create an ideal reality, you must develop a vision, which is an idea about how you’d like the future to be. It’s a clear picture of what you’d like to create, and can be a source of motivation, supporting you through the challenges involved in making your dreams come true. An ideal is a principle or standard worth trying to achieve. Your ideal self is the person that you’ve always imagined being, and encompasses all the power, strength, and integrity, you’ve aspired to. This ideal invokes a sense of confidence, pride, and serenity, and is you, at your best.

Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it can be conditioned over time. Once you’ve defined your ideal self and your Code of Conduct, you’ll have a structure to support your behavior. Your next step requires you to begin living as the person you’ve envisioned. Your opportunity to be this person lives in each moment of your life.

Step 2: Develop your Ideal Self Code of Conduct

How do you become your ideal self? I suggest you develop a set of standards to govern how you’re committed to behaving your own personal Code of Conduct. Your Code of Conduct defines how you’ll behave, and determines how others experience you, and how you experience life. What commitments are you willing to make about how you’ll conduct yourself?

This might take a bit of time to develop. In the meantime, I’m using the question “What would your ideal self do?” to help me start to identify habits to incorporate into my Code of Conduct. Remember these are guidelines, not rules. Life is fluid and can change rapidly, requiring flexibility and creative problem solving. Besides, you don’t think anyone’s Ideal Self would be a rule following drone, do you?

Step 3: Live Consciously and Ask “What Would My Ideal Self Do?”

Every morning, remind yourself about the person you want to be, and reconnect with that vision whenever you begin to slip back into old patterns of behavior. Allow yourself to make mistakes. You will, and that’s okay. The commitment you’ve made to these new standards will gradually meld into the beliefs you hold about who you are. Soon, you won’t be reminding yourself that you’re a nurturing person; you’ll be one. You won’t be managing your impatience; you will have become more patient. It will happen slowly, but it will happen. Take baby steps. You are walking a new road. Put one foot in front of the other, pace yourself, and stay connected to your ideal.

So wonderful readers, I want to know: Do you think you are living your ideal life? Do you feel you have control over your life? Do you actively or passively make day to day decisions? What does your ideal life look like? Let me know in the comments!