If you're not sure what kind of person you want to be, do these 10 things to find out

What kind of person do you want to be?

Young woman wearing dark scarf and coat, standing outdoors on a beach during sunset. The sky is painted in soft pastel colors with water and coastline in the background. She looks serene and thoughtful.

That’s a BIG question, right?

It’s one I’ve thought about a lot over the years.

But how can you go about figuring out this ideal future version of yourself?

Let’s look at some steps you can take to figure this out.

1. Look at people you admire.

A grayscale close-up of a man with a bald head and gray beard. He wears a collared shirt and gazes thoughtfully upward to his right. The background is softly blurred, showing indistinct indoor surroundings like furniture and other objects.

Are there people in your life who you admire greatly? What is it about them that you like so much?

Or are their well known people who embody the type of person you’d like to be?

Perhaps you have a friend with a big heart who is generous with her time.

Or maybe you look up to a public figure who is famed for his positivity.

Get specific about the traits you like in these people and try to state why that trait is so admirable.

Personally, I admire the can-do attitude of Bear Grylls, the resilience of Keanu Reeves, and the humility of former Uruguayan President José Mujica.

Of course, I don’t truly know these people, so I can only go on appearances, but that shouldn’t stop you from doing this exercise.

2. Consider other traits you would like to have.

A woman with long brown hair gazes at her reflection in a glass surface, her hand touching the glass. She wears a large, dark gemstone ring and matching earrings, and has red lipstick. The reflection shows a similar pose, creating a contemplative mood.

Aside from dissecting the characters of other people, spend some time in self-reflection and give serious thought to the traits you would like to have or improve upon.

One approach that might help is to look at the things you dislike about who you are, your traits, or your mindset.

From there, you can turn these things on their heads to make them into traits you do want.

So if you dislike that you are often dismissive of the views of others, you could put the trait of open-mindedness on your list.

Or if you are quite judgmental in the way you view people, you could switch this around and say that you’d like to be accepting of others.

One that applies to me is my rigid thinking. I like things to be done a certain way, but that can cause problems in my relationships. I’d prefer to be more open to different approaches.

Another approach is to think about the way you would like other people to see you – a bit like step one but in reverse.

What traits would you want them to admire in you? What traits would you like them to value in you?

3. Rank the traits in order of importance to you.

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Hopefully by now you’ll have a reasonable list of traits or characteristics that you’d like to embody.

But there are bound to be some things you would like more than others. And while you can aim to work on all of them over time, it’s better to be realistic and decide upon some priorities that really reflect the person you want to be.

So score each of the traits on your list from 1-10 with 1 being least important and 10 being most important.

4. Perform a gap analysis of these traits versus who you are now.

A woman with long, brown hair and a slight smile is sitting indoors. She is wearing a sleeveless black top. The background is softly blurred, showing a warm, well-lit interior with hanging lights and some blurred figures in the distance.

Take your list of traits and order it with the most important at the top and least important at the bottom.

Now give yourself a score from 1-10 based on your current view of who you are.

In other words, how would you score yourself on those traits right now?

Perhaps you are a 7 on being proactive but only a 3 on assertiveness, for example.

Now here’s the important bit. Look at the score for importance and the score for where you are now and look for where there is the biggest difference.

This will tell you where you see yourself as lacking in terms of who you want to be (note: you may not actually be lacking if your view of yourself is very different from how other people view you).

There is one small caveat with this and that is what you might perceive your ideal score to be.

In other words, the importance score doesn’t necessarily reflect the precise score you wish to have for that trait.

Take assertiveness – you might have a real problem with people pleasing and having others treat you like a doormat, so you give it an 8 in terms of it’s importance to you.

But you don’t want to be someone who ignores the wishes of others to get their own way all the time either.

So being assertive might be an important trait to you, but not one you wish to take too far. Perhaps you’d be satisfied with a 5 for it.

5. Find the right balance.

A man wearing a blue beanie and a jacket smiles at the camera while looking through a coin-operated binocular viewer. The background is slightly blurred, showing a cityscape under a partly cloudy sky.

As mentioned, you might not want to score a 10 on every trait you rate as important to you.

That’s because life is better when it’s balanced, and this goes for you and who you want to be too.

You can have too much of a good thing. Or, rather, the good things might not always be best for you.

Take kindness, for example. Being kind to others is probably something you would wish to embody. But kindness generally has its limits beyond which you are hurting yourself to help others.

You might burn out if you spend all your free time volunteering, for instance.

Instead, you need to balance out your desire to be a kind person with the need to be kind to yourself.

6. Think about the actions you would like to take.

A smiling woman with blond hair stands in a lush, green forest. She is holding a camera, poised to take a photo. She is wearing a khaki jacket and appears to be enjoying the natural surroundings. Sunlight filters through the trees.

The person you are is mirrored by the things you do. You are, to some extent, your actions.

So think about what kind of things you would like to do, not only in your life as a whole but on a regular basis too.

Do you want to be someone who holds the door open for others or lets another motorist pull out of a junction?

Do you want to be the person who stands up for those who are being harassed, bullied, or attacked?

Do you want to be a great listener?

I, for example, want to be someone who helps fight social injustice. I dislike rampant global inequality and abuses of power and would like to take whatever actions I can that lead to positive change in those areas.

7. Ask what kind of legacy you want to leave behind.

A man stands beside a blue vintage convertible car on a winding desert road. He is smiling, wearing a beige button-up shirt and jeans. The background features rocky hills and a clear sky.

The kind of person you are will determine not only how you are remembered by others but also the influence you have on the world when you are gone.

By thinking about the legacy you want to leave, you can work backwards from there to figure out who you need to be to leave it.

Should you want to leave your local area greener and better for wildlife, you might wish to get involved with grassroots organizations that share that aim.

So coming back to my life and legacy for a minute, I would like to be remembered as someone who made personal choices that made the lives of the poor or persecuted better.

8. Think about the “things” you want to be.

A blonde woman wearing a gray knitted sweater leans against a white brick wall with some red paint marks. She smiles and looks down, touching her lips gently with her fingers. Her hair is parted to the side, and she appears to be in a relaxed and cheerful mood.

There are endless things we can label ourselves with – mother, father, leader, entrepreneur, philanthropist, etc.

Whilst any label is overly simplistic in terms of what it is trying to represent, it can be a good idea to consider what labels you would like to fit in life.

Perhaps you want to be an explorer – of places, of cultures, of different ways of living.

Maybe you want to be an activist who strives to make the world a better place through direct action.

Or you might want to be a politician in order to use that power for the greater good.

9. Set yourself some goals.

A man with a beard, wearing an orange tank top, leans on the edge of a rooftop holding a blue water bottle. The background shows an urban cityscape with buildings under a cloudy sky.

Actions are important in defining who you are. But a collection of actions contribute to a larger goal.

So by asking what you want to achieve in life and actually setting yourself those goals, you can gain clarity on the type of person you wish to be.

Those could be personal development goals for your inner life or goals that have an outer objective.

10. Aim for growth, not perfection.

A woman wearing sunglasses, a straw hat, a white long-sleeve shirt, and a yellow skirt is leaning against a white column. She is smiling and looking up, standing in front of a building with closed white shutters. The scene appears sunny and bright.

Truth is, we can never fully realize our vision of our ideal self.

What we can do is strive to move closer to it, step by step.

We can aim to be a “better” person tomorrow than we are today (“better” being completely subjective in this respect).

Knowing this keeps us from feeling disappointed when we look in the mirror and realize that we aren’t entirely who we want to be.

In fact, when you realize that life and growth are inextricably linked, you see each day as an opportunity.

I’ve had to remind myself of this many times because I often feel frustrated at my lack of progress and action.

I sometimes neglect to recognize all the good things I have done that have made me who I am today because I’m too busy focusing on the areas where I still fall short of my ideal self.

So please, be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself. And don’t dismiss the small changes you are making gradually over time. These add up in the end.