How to Be Special

Find your you. No one can tell you how to be special. Being special involves finding the unique inner core that radiates your "you-ness" and doing the work of building that core up. Whatever you want to call it–your soul, your essence, your chi, your mojo, your groove–you have to embrace yourself, define yourself, and build yourself up. It takes work. What does it mean to be you? Who are you? And how can you be the best version of yourself? These are questions and struggles that take up a whole lifetime.^[1] Keep in mind the following thought experiments to get your mind oriented to your inner you-ness:

• When do you feel completely at ease? What makes you comfortable?
• Describe your ideal day. What would it include?
• What do other people praise in your work or your behavior? What do you do well?
• Describe a recent disagreement you've had with someone or something. How did you differ?
• How would you change yourself if you could? Why?

Make a list of your values. Knowing what your values are can help you to be more of an individual and to live in a way that will make you happy. Take some time to think about what your values are and write them out. Then, reorganize the list from most important to least important. Some things you can do to help you generate this list include thinking about when you were:^[2]

• At your happiest. For example, if you felt happiest when you were surrounded by supportive friends and family, then healthy relationships would be one of your values.
• Proud. For example, if you felt proud when you graduate high school, then education might be something you value.
• Satisfied and fulfilled. For example, you might feel satisfied or fulfilled after a productive day at work, so hark work might be something you value.

Identify special characteristics in others. What does it mean to be special? Look at the people you think are exemplary, notable, or special in some way and identify the key characteristics that make it so for you. You might think people who stick up for themselves stand out in your mind as being special, or people who devote themselves fully to their work, or people who are reserved and stoic in the face of adversity. This will be different for all of us, so focus on figuring out what it is that you respect about your grandfather, your close friend, or a loved one, not what other people say.

• Try to stay away from celebrities and stick to looking at people you know in real life. It's easy to identify superficial things, to say that Brad Pitt is special because he's so rich and good-looking, but it's hard to identify or even know the true core of his person. We can only see the public persona, which radiates artificial movie-star prestige, not the real person.
• Focus on how other people’s characteristics resonate with your own core values and avoid focusing on superficial things. Being special is more about knowing who you are at your core, not from what you think other people are like.
• Authority doesn't make someone more special. If someone has power over you, is more successful than you, or is well-known and respected, that doesn't mean that you need to emulate them.

Take off your masks. We all wear them. When you go to work, you might have a professional mask, and when you meet up with a date after work you might switch into your dating mask. When you're with your friends, you might wear one mask, and when you're with your family, you might wear another. Once you go about the work of identifying the things that make you truly you, these masks become less useful. If you want to be special, let us see what's behind the mask.

• To figure out you relationship to your masks, try to think of a time that you felt you were being fake, or inauthentic. What were the circumstances? How did it make you feel?
• Check out your Facebook and Twitter feeds for a good example of digital masks in progress. People want to project images of themselves for others to digest, crafting that image in a particular way. It's inauthentic, in most cases. You're not getting the "real" version of someone.

Keep your ego in check. A desire to be special is often a desire to be validated by others. We want to be respected, to be looked upon as successful, happy people who should be envied. But being special doesn't mean being exceptional at everything. It doesn't mean being the best tennis player, or the author with the most publications, or the richest lawyer at the law firm. It means being true to the authentic you-ness and staying true to your own integrity. Satisfy yourself, don't use the satisfaction of others to inflate your ego.

• Psychologists will often refer to inner and outer locus of control. Someone with an inner locus of control finds satisfaction from within, looking to satisfy themselves with their work and actions. People with outer locus of control look to others for satisfaction. Which are you?
• Avoid seeking validation from other people. Your own validation is all that you need to be special.

Surprise yourself. People who are truly special are always changing, shifting, and surprising themselves with their ability to grow as people and to develop their authentic inner selves. If you want to be special, identify a rut that you've been in, and try to get a fresh perspective on it.

• Keep learning new skills, reading new books, and challenging yourself. You're never too old, too smart, or too experienced to have your preconceptions shaken. You're never too special to be wrong.