How to Maintain Your Identity in a "One Size Fits All World"

Just be yourself.

You've probably heard that line pretty often. I know I have, at least. As kids, our parents and teachers encouraged us to be ourselves and to not follow the crowd just for the sake of fitting in (hopefully!). I can't tell you how many times my mother said to me, "If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?"

Despite the fact that the question was usually prompted by my request for some new "cool" gadget or toy, the message was clear— Don't do something just because someone else is. And as annoying as that line was to hear as a child, I fully believe in it now. I've even used it on my two young step-kids a time or two, much to their annoyance.

Be yourself.

We all know this, but yet we still feel that pressure to conform. We see messages every day urging us to "be this" or "have this (you'll be cool)". The media is a prime, and obvious, culprit. Advertising is a lucrative business because it works. They know what you want (not what you say you want) and they know how to manipulate emotions. Prime example: The tobacco industry used media and marketing to make way too many people disregard what cigarettes do to our bodies all in the name of looking "cool". They know we want to be healthy, but they also know that the drive to fit in is overpowering.

But sadly, marketing and media isn't the only source that pressures us to conform. 

We get pressure from our friends, families, jobs, everywhere. Even when we don't realize it, we're receiving messages to do something, or be a certain way.

Families pressure teens to go to a good college. They pressure young couples to get married, and then they pressure them to have children. Bosses pressure employees to overwork themselves (and many times get very little in return for it, despite the unsaid, but often implied "rise to the top").

We're pressured to raise our kids a certain way, look a certain way, live a certain way, and by all means, we should never do anything that makes us different.

It all boils down to fear. 

Fear of being laughed at. Fear of not being liked. And we're pressured to conform by those who did, because they too are afraid. They are afraid of admitting that they fell for the lie— afraid of being laughed at, of not being liked. Afraid of being wrong.

Are you seeing the pattern here?

What we have to do is move past the fear. Embrace our imperfect selves. Believe in what we can do when society's boundaries are removed.

What to expect in the future from Un-Copied Life:

• Simple ways to express yourself


• Tips on how to discover the hidden you


• Guidance in creating your own identity


• And much more

Think about how you've been pressured to conform in the past. Tell us about it in the comments.

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Photo by GollyGforce