The difference between your desired self and your odd self
We all have a certain image of ourselves and how we live our lives. This is a good thing, as it gives us direction, purpose, and perspective in life. Where it starts to get tricky is when the person, we imagine to be is very different from the reality or the person we are now every day. The larger the gap between the two, the more unhappy we will find ourselves with our current life. The art here is to make sure that the life we imagine and the life we live now are as closely aligned as possible.
In coaching we call this the ideal self to be aligned with the odd self. The ideal self is reflecting our vision of ourselves, who went want to be, how we see us when we are our best. Our ideal self is made up of various aspects such as past experiences, fundamental values as well as hopes and wishes we have for the future. The ideal self is our best image of ourselves. Important is, that it should somehow be realistic.
In contrast to that, stands the odd self. The odd self is the person we are now or in the moment. Who are we today? what is important to us right now? – all these aspects describe who we are right in the moment. Again, this is made up of the environment we live in, the job we have, the partner we have as well as more abstract factors such as what we believe in and what we find important in our lives right now.
The important part here now is, to keep our ideal and our odd self as closely aligned as possible. However, this is an incredibly hard job to do. It is not very realistic that our ideal self will ever be 100 percent aligned to our odd self, however we can align parts of our lives in this matter. As this alignment is so hard to do, we should therefore start thinking in small steps here.
For example, a lot of us, throughout the year have abandoned large parts of their ideal self. Our parents wanted us to study medicine and become a doctor. We therefore did it as we also thought we can sustain ourselves well financially then as well as many other arguments that drove us to follow the wish of our parents and do that medical degree. However, our true passion has always been arts and craft and we would have much rather become a craftsman, therefore. This is a classic example of there being a large difference between our ideal self, the craftsman and our odd self, the doctor that we are. Very often, a large discrepancy between our ideal self and our odd self, as in the example, can therefore lead to unhappiness and so called wake up moments, where we do radical changes like quitting our jobs to move closer to our ideal self.
The question now is, how do we then manage to get closer to our ideal self? This is where coaches can very often help. Firstly, we need to know what our ideal self is – what is it that we really want to be or desire. This already, requires quite a lot of self-reflection and effort. Once we know this, we need to develop a plan on how to get to that ideal self or most close to it. In contrast, we also have to be realistic about our odd self and have an understanding of how big the gap is between the two, why this might be the case and what we actively have to do to move the two closer.
The great thing about moving closer to our ideal self it that it will make us happier. However, it will always involve change and taking risks. It will feel great to do so though, however it is work and requires effort. The ideal self is associated with self-learning and change from within that motivates us and therefore here change is seen as positive. In contrast, change through the odd self is often seen as negative as coming from above. Ideally, we want to change from within on the journey to move more towards out ideal self.
Aligning our ideal and off self is a journey that can be very hard, it is worth it however as it will make us happier and more fulfilled.
