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Question

How to choose who to be?

Answered by Stefano De Cubellis

Observe who you admire and ask yourself what that person does that you do not. The answer is the distance between who you are and who you want to become. Then close that distance one behavior at a time, every day. Do not wait to "figure out who you are" — decide it. Identity is not discovered like a hidden treasure. It is built like a building: one brick a day, without waiting to see the finished project before laying the first.

What the letters say

From Letter 01 — Here we go again

And it's not anxiety or fear. It's that silent certainty of not being in the right place wherever you are. That whatever you've done, it's not enough. That there exists a version of you that you haven't reached yet, and maybe never will.

I'll just say that at some point I stopped getting off the wave. Not because I'd become someone else. Because I'd seen and understood the pattern.

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From Letter 02 — Choosing who to be

If you strip away everything — the habits you didn't choose, the beliefs you accepted wholesale, the tension of being who you think you should be — and focus your energy on what you truly want, you become energy. And where to channel it is yours alone to decide.

The question is: if tomorrow you could choose who to be, who would you be?

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From Letter 03 — The price no one wants to pay

Last week I told you about choosing who to be. About deliberate behaviors. About new habits that create new identity.

And every time you choose that path, you'll wake up six months later in the same place as before. With the same hunger. With the same distance from what you want to become.

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Related Questions

Is it really possible to choose who to be?

Yes. You do not choose your DNA, but you choose your behaviors. And repeated behaviors become habits, habits become character, character becomes identity. The starting point is a decision.

How do I know who I want to be if I do not know?

You do not know it in the abstract; you discover it in the concrete. Try different things, observe what makes you feel alive, what makes you lose track of time. Identity reveals itself in action, not in reflection.

Can you change who you are at any age?

Yes. Age is not a limit; it is an excuse. Every morning you wake up with the same ability to choose between the small and the large version of yourself.

Read the most relevant letter: "Here we go again" →
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