6 Tips to Keep Becoming Who You’re Meant to Be

“Life is a process of becoming. A combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” ~Anais Nin

Last October, in a whiplash-fast, three-hour labor, two and half weeks before my due date, I gave birth to my first baby, a boy, named Jackson.

While pregnancy hadn’t been a breeze—I was hospitalized twice with complications, and, you know, no sushi for nine months—the first few weeks of Jackson’s life left me feeling, at times, like a shattered shell of my former self.

His was an ear-piercing scream that seemed endless in those early days, leaving me both physically and mentally exhausted; and save for a few smiles, the hint of who he’d become was so teeny—like a faint, faraway twinkle in the night sky—that I wondered how I’d ever form the bond with my child I so deeply craved.

Around the time Jackson turned five months old, things began to shift. While his ear-piercing screams still made an occasional guest appearance, an infectious laugh had begun filling some of the spaces between them.

And the sleepless nights that so recently left me dragging through each day, dreaming of Egyptian Cotton sheets and a strong sedative, had been replaced with eight-, nine-, sometimes even 12-hour blocks of sleep.

Jackson was becoming a funny, inquisitive, playful little person with a growing personality and a whole host of new tricks: rolling, sitting up, babbling, crawling, clapping. He reacted and responded to me now in a way that felt like communication, using a language of giggles, grunts, and physical cues.

All these changes, as well as the growing bond between us, reminded me of why I’d been so excited to have a child in the first place: It’s super cool to raise and watch a person rapidly evolve through the formative stages of becoming who he’s meant to be.

I am also reminded that those stages—those opportunities for growth—may slow in adulthood, but they’re always there for those interested in pursuing them. One of the best ways to find them is to engage in the world like a baby does, by following these six tips:

1. Make time for play.

My son spends hours every day playing, from swinging at the playground to pulling every single book off the shelf and trying to eat them. There’s no goal other than to have fun (and maybe drive mama nuts, which he often accomplishes). And when he has fun, he’s more engaging, more amusing, and more imaginative. (“Hey, this shoe makes a great pacifier!”)

Being engaging, amusing, and imaginative are traits that serve adults well, opening us to closer connections with our friends and family and inviting new opportunities for personal growth.

2. Nurture your curiosity.

My son, at ten months old, is fascinated with how everything works and what everything does. How does the doorbell make that sound? And what do all the buttons on the remote control do? And—oh, hey, what does cat food taste like?

The result, of course, is that he’s constantly learning and figuring things out. His head is a constant swivel and everything represents a question he has to find the answer to.

As adults, if we spent more time nurturing our curiosity like babies do, we’d be more alert, more aware of and engaged with our surroundings, and more knowledgeable about the world around us.

3. Remain unattached.

Sometimes, when Jackson is enjoying a play date with a baby friend, the other baby will “steal” a toy from his hand. This is common in baby land, and it doesn’t faze Jack. He just finds another toy to play with.

If that toy is quickly stolen from him, he crawls to the book shelf and starts pulling all the books down, one by one, because that’s always super fun. Or he looks for a cat he can chase or a remote control he can bang on the coffee table.

As adults, remaining unattached to material possessions gives us freedom to explore, as well as space for better objects, and the motivation to create or find different ways to entertain ourselves.

4. Be present.

Babies don’t worry about tomorrow or next week or next year. They definitely don’t stress about their birthdays or fret about some mistake they made last week that made them feel stupid. They are 100% in the now, thinking about what their immediate needs are—”Must find something to put in mouth! Now!”—and how those needs can be met.

If we spent more time in the present, rather than fretting over the past or worrying about the future, we would be better able to assess our immediate needs, figure out how to meet them, and have lots more energy available to enjoy the right here, right now.

5. Be socially open.

I take my son to a lot of places where there are other babies—the playground, story time at the library, sing-alongs, the pediatrician’s office. (Hey, the fun never stops!)

Without exception, he always makes new friends (if you consider sticking your fingers in a stranger’s mouth or stealing her toy and eating it “making friends”). Most babies are pretty eager to hang out with each other, which is why, in my yuppie neighborhood of roughly two million babies, play dates are very popular.

While it may not be as socially acceptable for us adults to be so orally fixated with strangers, we can take a page from babies and be more open and engaging with new people.

New people can turn into new friends. They can also provide career connections and valuable information about our community. Sometimes, they just give us a much-needed laugh or break from the mundane.

6. Rest.

Babies sleep a lot (if their parents are lucky). They need the sleep so they can be alert to learn all the new things there are to learn and to socialize and play and process the constant stimuli in their worlds.

We adults need rest, too, and not just of the sleeping variety. We need rest from our work and rest from the pressures of our daily lives. We need to get away and re-charge our batteries so we are alert and ready when new opportunities for growth present themselves.

Most important, we need charged batteries so we can be proactive in finding new opportunities to keep becoming who we are meant to be.

Photo by sakanami

About Wendy Atterberry

Wendy Atterberry is editor of the relationship advice website, DearWendy.com, which features advice columns, personal essays, funny and informative lists, polls, and commentary on relationships. She’s been featured on the Today Show, CNN.com, the New York Post, Glamour.com and elsewhere.

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