What if you've outgrown the person you used to be?

Sometimes moving forward means letting go of a version of yourself that once fitted perfectly well.

There are versions of ourselves that once made complete sense.

• The ambitious one.
• The dependable one.
• The person who always had a plan.
• The person who wanted the big career, busy social life, particular relationship or certain kind of future.

Sometimes we spend years becoming that person.

And then, rather inconveniently, we change.

Not dramatically.

There may be no crisis or defining moment.

We simply begin to notice that some of the things that used to feel like us don't quite fit anymore.

When your identity has worked well for you

It can be particularly difficult to question an identity that has been successful.

• Perhaps being ambitious got you somewhere.
• Being dependable made you valuable to other people.
• Being organised helped you manage a complicated life.
• Being the person who could cope meant that things got done.

These aren't necessarily roles somebody forced upon us. Often they're qualities we genuinely value in ourselves.

And that can make it much harder to notice when they begin to feel restrictive.

Because if something has served you well, why would you want to let it go?

We get used to describing ourselves in certain ways

Most of us have a collection of sentences about who we are.

• I'm very career-focused.
• I'm not someone who takes risks.
• I've always been the sensible one.
• I'm terrible at slowing down.
• I'm the person everyone comes to.
• I'm just not creative.

Some of those descriptions may once have been completely accurate.

But repeat something for long enough and it can stop being a description and start becoming an instruction.

We keep behaving in ways that are consistent with who we've decided we are.

Even when another part of us has started wondering whether that's still true.

Other people know that version of you too

Identity doesn't exist entirely inside us.

Other people get used to us being a certain way.

Families have roles.

Friendships develop patterns.

Workplaces decide what we're good at.

Partners come to expect certain things from one another.

So when we begin behaving differently, it can be noticeable.

• The person who always says yes starts saying no.
• The ambitious one doesn't want the promotion.
• The organiser stops organising everything.
• The sensible one does something unexpected.

Other people's surprise can make us question ourselves.

But their surprise doesn't necessarily mean the change is wrong.

Sometimes it simply means they're meeting a version of us they haven't encountered before.

Outgrowing something doesn't make the past a mistake

One of the traps in changing is feeling that we have to reject who we used to be.

• If I don't want this career anymore, was I wrong to pursue it?
• If these friendships no longer fit, were they never genuine?
• If I don't want the life I once imagined, did I waste all those years?

Not necessarily.

Something can have been completely right for one period of your life and still not be right forever.

The person you were made choices with the information, needs and priorities they had at the time.

You don't have to criticise that person in order to become someone else.

Sometimes we stay because we're good at it

There is another complication.

We can become very good at things we no longer particularly want.

• A job.
• A role in a family.
• A way of relating to other people.
• A lifestyle.

Competence can make change harder because there's comfort in knowing how to be that person.

You know the rules.

Other people recognise you there.

You may even be rewarded for it.

Stepping away from something you're good at towards something you're less certain about can feel like going backwards.

But being good at something and wanting to continue doing it aren't the same thing.

You don't need to reinvent yourself

There can be a lot of pressure around the idea of change.

• New chapter.
• New me.
• Starting again.

But perhaps becoming more yourself doesn't require a dramatic reinvention.

You don't have to replace your personality.

You don't need an entirely new life.

Sometimes it's simply about giving yourself permission to stop maintaining parts of an identity that no longer feel true.

You can still be ambitious and want more time.

Dependable and have boundaries.

Sensible and take a risk.

Successful and want something different.

We are allowed to be more complicated than the labels we've accumulated.

Try changing the sentence

If you notice yourself saying:

I'm the kind of person who…

it might be worth becoming curious about what comes next.

Is it still true?

Do you want it to be true?

Or is it simply something you've said about yourself for so long that you've stopped questioning it?

Sometimes changing “I am” to “I have been” creates an interesting amount of room.

• I have been very career-focused.
• I have been the person everyone relies on.
• I have been someone who always chooses the sensible option.

None of those sentences tells you what you have to be next.



You are allowed to become someone you haven't been before

There may be people who preferred an earlier version of you.

There may be parts of your old life that don't come with you.

And you may occasionally miss the certainty of knowing exactly who you were.

But identity isn't something we complete.

It changes as we do.

Perhaps outgrowing the person you used to be isn't a sign that you've lost yourself.

Perhaps it's what happens when you stop assuming that who you've been is who you have to remain.