This Life is Mine: An Actionable Approach for Living a Satisfying Life Today & Tomorrow

By Alyssa Daum

Sometimes...

Life feels bland.

Days feel like they're on repeat

The future feels unclear.

We've become tolerant of these feelings as a byproduct of settling into adulthood, but it's time to change the narrative.

In This L

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: May 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885041577

Alyssa Daum

Alyssa Daum spends her time redlining. She redlines contracts at work during the day, and she redlines her writing in the evening. She even redlines excel sheets where she flushes out all sorts of ideas, adventures, and life plans only to scrap them when a better, shinier idea comes along. Every once in a while though, an idea, like writing a book, actually sticks, and makes it all worthwhile.When she's not redlining, Alyssa can be found spending time with loved ones or volunteering within her local community. Alyssa has her BA in psychology and MA in management both from Azusa Pacific University, and lives in sunny California with her husband and children.

Book preview

I

The Pillars

Self, Meet Self

Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.

Lucille Ball

My husband Jayson and I try to be intentional whenever we have breaks from work, even weekends, by naming what we’d like to prioritize accomplishing during that time off. Jayson’s a teacher, so obviously, summer breaks are a big deal.

The summer I was writing this book, he wasn’t really sure what he wanted to focus on, so I accidentally went into self-help author mode and peppered him with questions.

What are you already doing that you’d like to be better at?

What would you like to say you’ve done over the summer when you’re having lunch with your coworkers in a few months?

If you could only prioritize one thing this summer, what would it be?

At some point during the conversation, he raised both hands in frustration and asked, How am I supposed to know what I want to work on if I don’t even know who I am?

He immediately knew that was going in the book.

Will the Real You Please Stand Up?

In Matthew McConaughey’s memoir Greenlights, Matthew recounts his experience as an exchange student in Australia.

He lived with the Dooley family composed of husband Norvel, wife Marjorie, and their adult son Michael.

The family was incredibly odd in a boundary-crossing way. Matthew wasn’t allowed to share his opinion on even basic things like food preferences; he was scolded after cheering for an American Olympic win, and at one point, Mrs. Dooley tried to get him to kiss her son’s girlfriend Meredith on the lips.

Day after day, the environment remained stifling, and McConaughey’s mental state began to deteriorate. Being new to the country, he tried chalking it up to cultural differences, but after 148 days of staying with the family, he had finally been pushed over the edge.

On that particular evening, he, the Dooleys, and Meredith sat down for dinner, and Norvel announced that it was high time that Matthew began addressing his wife and him as Mum and Pop. This was not a boundary Matthew was willing to part with, but when he tried to politely decline, Norvel asserted his demand.

For the first time in five months, Matthew decided not to play their game.

In silence, he finished his food, got up to do the dishes, and returned to the table. Goodnight, Norvel. Goodnight, Marjorie. Goodnight, Michael. Goodnight, Meredith. And he left the room, entertaining no one’s reaction or thoughts on the matter.

In looking back at this moment, he recalls, Alone in this foreign country, on my own in this uncomfortable world, I took responsibility for who I was and what I believed in. I made a judgment, and I chose. I didn’t need reassurance, and the clarity gave me identity. I wasn’t going to lose my anchor, both on principle and in order to survive.

When was the last time you were willing to enter confrontation or go against the grain in order to defend something meaningful to you?

While some of us are more confrontational than others, we all should have something that we care about so strongly that we’re willing to leave our comfort zone in order to advocate on its behalf. In fact, situational context aside, to not enter that space is to deny a part of who we are.

And I would argue that people who don’t have concepts they’re willing to advocate for rarely ever have a strong sense of identity themselves. Strong opinions stem out of strong values, which are components of our identities.

As a child, like pretty much every other child, I had loads of opinions: beliefs I thought the world would thrive on if everyone were to agree with them and a very black and white sense of right and wrong. And I was not afraid to share them.

However, as I left the childhood bubble and actually went into the world, I realized I had underestimated the strength of other people’s own beliefs and experiences, and I began to see how gray the world was.

My brain began to quiet my loud opinions, and I turned to introspection concerning whether what I believed actually held up in the face of new contexts. Many of my viewpoints changed over the next decade.

It’s normal to change your stances and views in the face of new experiences, especially when you’re transitioning into adulthood. That’s what your early twenties are all about!

But the views I had begun to transition out of had been central to how I had built my identity, so when I began to substantively change my worldviews, it led to a molting of who I was. I felt off-balanced.

My introspection gradually turned into a lack of confidence. I had been so wrong before, and I’m sure that even with my good intentions, I had offended many people. So after experiencing my strongly held convictions be upheaved, I was afraid to have any more. I became bland.

And I began losing my grasp on who I was.

Reading between the Lines

The United States has a funny way of associating what we do and what we’ve accomplished with our central identities. In many European countries, it’s considered rude to ask someone what they do for work when you meet them, but in the United States, it’s a simple icebreaker question.

Perhaps Europe is onto something.

As I began my journey of reconstructing my identity, on my most frustrating days, I’d sit down in a heap in front of my bathroom mirror and try to describe who I was. I’d say, I’m a wife, a mother, a legal professional, and someone who frequently volunteers.

Blah, blah, blah. Like cool, me and a million other people. But how else was I supposed to say who I was? Maybe identity is just one of those things that’s impossible to articulate, I thought to myself.

That answer was never satisfying though, so I bulldozed on through that thought and tried to read between the lines of my titles.

Well, I love children, and I enjoy synthesizing information. I care about the world around me.

Progress.

Saying what you do when people ask who you are is a shorthand method of describing your identity. It’s not bad for small talk, but it only scratches the surface. In reality, your identity is found in the path you followed to realize your titles.

Plus, our identities are complex. They’re multilayered and ever-evolving, so looking at your titles and accomplishments doesn’t allow you to appreciate the nuance of how your experience changes you.

In 2017, when my son was born, I could hold him fast asleep on my shoulder, look in the mirror, and say I am a mother. And today, I can be scrubbing crayon off the wall with a magic eraser and also look in the mirror and say, I am a mother.

But these two Alyssas are so incredibly different. In those four years of living, even though my title didn’t change, my view of the world changed, and with it, so did my parenting philosophy.

A list of titles and a description of how you spend your day are just not accurate representations of who you are.

In an article she wrote for Healthline, Crystal Raypole says, Personality traits, abilities, likes and dislikes, your belief system or moral code, and the things that motivate you—these all contribute to self-image or your unique identity as a person.

When I think of my personality traits, abilities, likes, and all those other things, I can restate who I am even further.

Alyssa loves to laugh (personality trait), enjoys writing (ability), and hates mean-spirited gossip (dislikes). Alyssa is a strong advocate for social justice (moral code), and she wants to encourage people to live life on their own terms (motivation).

It’s like I’ve scrubbed my makeup off at the end of the day. By taking away external identifiers, I am left with just me; like it or not, that’s who I am.

When we define ourselves with external identifiers like our jobs or our marital status or whether we have children or not, we leave ourselves open to identity imbalance when we face big life events.

New job, new baby, marriage. Job loss, empty nests, divorce. Our identities become a resume of qualifying events, and when we experience some seismic shift, we’re left unsteady.

By using internal factors to stabilize your identity, you can cultivate a stronger sense of self, which can allow you to react with increased agility while life unexpectedly jostles you.

And by having a strong sense of self because you know what is best for you, you can make more confident decisions like who you should befriend and what job you should take.

Identity Formation

When we’re born, our identities are malleable and impacted by things like the cultures we’re raised in, our family structures, and even our caregivers’ parenting styles.

According to social psychologist Diana Baumrind, there are three types of parenting styles: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. Yes, authoritarian and authoritative styles sound similar, but they’re completely different.

In authoritarian households, the parent’s word is law and must be followed if you want to avoid being punished. Don’t even think about asking Why? lest you want to be spanked for disrespect. In these environments, if a child experiences shame, punishment, or negative reactivity, they may suppress their sense of self in order to avoid such negative consequences.

The consequences of enduring such a relationship have long-lasting impacts. When our relationships feel conditional, like we have to be a certain way or do a certain thing to feel loved and accepted, we’re left to choose between isolation or dropping our truest selves in order to maintain love.

In permissive households, children are given free rein. There’s little guidance or support. In these households, children may experience identity diffusion where they have a hard time committing to who they are and instead drift between social groups, hobbies, and even belief systems.

People raised with authoritative caregivers have the best start in their identity development. These caregivers engage their children’s questions and own decision-making while providing guidance and support as they navigate development. In these households, you’re encouraged to develop your strengths, have different opinions, and pursue your own interests. These are safe environments to develop a strong sense of self.

Whether you’re an adult or child, the people you surround yourself with can either suppress you or support you. Be wise about who you let into your inner circle. If you’re still developing a strong sense of self, it’s essential to surround yourself with people who love and uplift who you are and not who they hope you to be.

So where are you in the mixture? Did you grow up feeling like you had to hide who you were to avoid punishment? Or did you grow up exploring the various extremes of your personality? Do you find yourself changing who you are when you’re around different people? Or are you fairly consistent regardless of who you’re with?

The Two-Ish Billion Shades of You

When we struggle to feel accepted by the people around us or if we have a poor self-concept of ourselves, there are many ways we can react to cope.

One way we might cope is to take on the role of a social chameleon, changing our colors to best reflect the people that we’re around at any given time.

This is what I did when I was in the middle of reorienting myself to new values and worldviews. I didn’t know who I was, so it was just easier to reflect the people around me to stabilize. Fortunately, the people around me were good people.

It’s an interesting dilemma because people are drawn to authenticity. People want to be around others who are confident in who they are, but for people with weak senses of selves, that authenticity is just not readily accessible no matter how hard they try.

So when we try to reflect the people we’re around instead of leveraging the strength of our own identities, our pursuit of finding love and acceptance fails because we haven’t actually given the other person someone of substance to love and accept.

The more reactive we are to the people around us, the more we allow them to dictate our actions, our opinions, and our communication, which inevitably leads to a further misunderstanding of our identity.

Think about the person you know the best in the world. You know their voice, their text messaging style, their wardrobe preferences, and even what foods they’d probably enjoy even if they’d never tried it before. The more we know a person, the easier it is to tell what is and isn’t them.

We should be able to know ourselves just as well.

In that same Healthline article, licensed counselor Erika Myers says, Knowing what comes from our own self versus what comes from others allows us to live authentically.

Authenticity is such a big buzzword these days.

Urban Dictionary eloquently defines it as Being who you are [and] listening to yourself and making your own decisions, rather than buying all the crap society foists on you.

It’s a tough subject because when you live authentically, the person you are when you’re alone is the person you are out in public, which makes us feel like we should be acting the same all the time.

But instead, authenticity means that we have a strong sense of self, and while we wisely adapt to situations as needed, we are self-aware. We know our voice and our opinions, and we know our personalities and how to best present them. As we strive to be authentic, we can act differently depending on the situations, but we don’t sacrifice who we are in our performances.

Let’s put it a different way. Pure is another word for authentic. In our purity, we don’t go through our day being stained by another’s unwanted influence. Instead, like diamonds, we shine differently depending on the lighting.

Authenticity is knowing who we are and accepting that people’s varying perceptions of us are neither in our control nor in control of us.

When we live authentically, we have a strong sense of self, we can trust that what we want is true, and we take the ownership necessary to live a satisfying life.

Sense of Self Check-In:

How often do I say Yes just to make others happy?

Is it easy for me to say No to others if what I want doesn’t align with what they want?

Do I know what actually makes me happy?

Do I have a list of dearly held values? Take