How to Be Special

Being an Individual

Find your you. No one can tell you how to be special. Being special involves finding the unique inner core that radiates your "you-ness" and doing the work of building that core up. Whatever you want to call it–your soul, your essence, your chi, your mojo, your groove–you have to embrace yourself, define yourself, and build yourself up. It takes work. What does it mean to be you? Who are you? And how can you be the best version of yourself? These are questions and struggles that take up a whole lifetime. Keep in mind the following thought experiments to get your mind oriented to your inner you-ness: When do you feel completely at ease? What makes you comfortable? Describe your ideal day. What would it include? What do other people praise in your work or your behavior? What do you do well? Describe a recent disagreement you've had with someone or something. How did you differ? How would you change yourself if you could? Why?

Make a list of your values. Knowing what your values are can help you to be more of an individual and to live in a way that will make you happy. Take some time to think about what your values are and write them out. Then, reorganize the list from most important to least important. Some things you can do to help you generate this list include thinking about when you were: At your happiest. For example, if you felt happiest when you were surrounded by supportive friends and family, then healthy relationships would be one of your values. Proud. For example, if you felt proud when you graduate high school, then education might be something you value. Satisfied and fulfilled. For example, you might feel satisfied or fulfilled after a productive day at work, so hark work might be something you value.

Identify special characteristics in others. What does it mean to be special? Look at the people you think are exemplary, notable, or special in some way and identify the key characteristics that make it so for you. You might think people who stick up for themselves stand out in your mind as being special, or people who devote themselves fully to their work, or people who are reserved and stoic in the face of adversity. This will be different for all of us, so focus on figuring out what it is that you respect about your grandfather, your close friend, or a loved one, not what other people say. Try to stay away from celebrities and stick to looking at people you know in real life. It's easy to identify superficial things, to say that Brad Pitt is special because he's so rich and good-looking, but it's hard to identify or even know the true core of his person. We can only see the public persona, which radiates artificial movie-star prestige, not the real person. Focus on how other people’s characteristics resonate with your own core values and avoid focusing on superficial things. Being special is more about knowing who you are at your core, not from what you think other people are like. Authority doesn't make someone more special. If someone has power over you, is more successful than you, or is well-known and respected, that doesn't mean that you need to emulate them. Meryl Streep Meryl Streep, Actor Identify confident role models to inspire your personal growth. "I think the best role models for women are people who are fruitfully and confidently themselves, who bring light into the world."

Take off your masks. We all wear them. When you go to work, you might have a professional mask, and when you meet up with a date after work you might switch into your dating mask. When you're with your friends, you might wear one mask, and when you're with your family, you might wear another. Once you go about the work of identifying the things that make you truly you, these masks become less useful. If you want to be special, let us see what's behind the mask. To figure out you relationship to your masks, try to think of a time that you felt you were being fake, or inauthentic. What were the circumstances? How did it make you feel? Check out your Facebook and Twitter feeds for a good example of digital masks in progress. People want to project images of themselves for others to digest, crafting that image in a particular way. It's inauthentic, in most cases. You're not getting the "real" version of someone.

Keep your ego in check. A desire to be special is often a desire to be validated by others. We want to be respected, to be looked upon as successful, happy people who should be envied. But being special doesn't mean being exceptional at everything. It doesn't mean being the best tennis player, or the author with the most publications, or the richest lawyer at the law firm. It means being true to the authentic you-ness and staying true to your own integrity. Satisfy yourself, don't use the satisfaction of others to inflate your ego. Psychologists will often refer to inner and outer locus of control. Someone with an inner locus of control finds satisfaction from within, looking to satisfy themselves with their work and actions. People with outer locus of control look to others for satisfaction. Which are you? Avoid seeking validation from other people. Your own validation is all that you need to be special.

Surprise yourself. People who are truly special are always changing, shifting, and surprising themselves with their ability to grow as people and to develop their authentic inner selves. If you want to be special, identify a rut that you've been in, and try to get a fresh perspective on it. Keep learning new skills, reading new books, and challenging yourself. You're never too old, too smart, or too experienced to have your preconceptions shaken. You're never too special to be wrong.

Standing Out

Put in your 10,000 hours. Lots of people are talented or naturally gifted at something, but that doesn't really make someone special. Developing a natural inclination for one thing or another can help, but it takes work to actual build that talent into something truly special. Commit to yourself and to building up your natural talents and abilities by working on them until you're an expert. Author Malcolm Gladwell writes extensively of the 10,000 hour rule in his book "Outliers: The Story of Success," that people who succeed and display true specialness have worked hard for it. It takes roughly 10,000 hours of committing to a craft, talent, or other ability before you can display any real talent or unique spice. Focus on developing yourself and working, not on making yourself special overnight. The first draft of the first novel you ever tried to write isn't going to be genius, and that's ok. Keep working. Keep getting better.

Be a lion or a lioness. People who are special don't wait around for good things to happen, special people go on the prowl for what they want, and take it. Special people have claws. Identify the things that would make you feel more satisfied, the things that would improve your condition, and identify the steps that will be necessary in getting them. Be ceaseless in your quest for those goals, things, and stages. Get what you want. Focus less on excuses. People who aren't special spend a lot of time talking about "back in the days" and "what ifs." Don't give yourself a chance to have those moments.

Uncensor yourself. Let yourself show. Be your true, liberated, uncensored, natural self when you're alone and when you're in public. If there is a single part of you that you don't let other people see, consider opening up more and being more vulnerable. If you tend toward the quiet, learn to start speaking your mind when it's necessary. Don't be a "yes" person. If you disagree with someone, voice your dissent. People respect others who speak their mind and are unafraid of looking for the truth. If you're around people who need their ego inflated by glad-handing sycophants, well, they're not special. Ditch 'em. Being uncensored doesn't mean letting every thought that flits through your mind come out of your mouth. Being special doesn't mean being purposefully strange, cruel, or rude. It just means that you must stop quieting yourself when you should be speaking, acting, or thinking. If it needs saying, say it. If it needs thinking, think it.

Surround yourself with new people. It's good to find your people, a tight-knit group of friends and loved ones that you feel comfortable with. But special people take extra effort to shake up their expectations and their preconceptions, and meet and attempt to understand all kinds of people. Be willing to listen. If you're a young person, getting a job can be a big learning experience and a way of helping to develop your empathy skills. try to get an after-school job for a few hours each week and take it seriously. Hang out with people who you actively disagree with on religious, political, or moral grounds. Don't try to convince people that they're wrong about something, try to understand them. Open your mind.

Develop your own style. Give yourself a chance to feel confident and special by treating yourself and taking your appearance seriously. Buy clothes that are flattering to your shape and that you enjoy wearing. Groom yourself in a way that makes you feel confident. If that means crew-cut and cowboy boots, great. If that means waist-length dreads and Teva's, great. You don't need to be a Gucci model or competing in some kind of hipster Olympics to look special. There's no special style. Go with what looks good on you, what makes you feel confident.

Being Memorable

Be positive or embrace your inner grouch. There's no special attitude, or special way of being. A special person doesn't need to be always grinning positively like an idiot or always deadly-serious and humorless like a monk. If you tend toward one or the other, don't worry about whether or not it's "wrong." Just be yourself. If you're a hugger, be a hugger. If you're not a hugger, tell people you're not. Special and exceptional people come in all variety of temperaments and attitudes.

Stop telling people what you think they want to hear. There's no one thing you can say that will make you special to others. Being agreeable doesn't make you special, it makes you agreeable. It might help you climb certain ladders, but are those really the ladders you want to be climbing? Be authentic to yourself and you'll be working toward a more authentic and satisfying path for yourself. Say what's on your mind. Tell the truth.

Be willing to fail. Part of staying uncensored, unique, and special involves taking risks to get what you want. Don't let the possibility of failure keep you from getting what you want. Be willing to fail, and fail early, and fail often. Learn the wrong answers so you can be one step closer to getting what you want in the long run. In Silicon Valley, Fail-Con is a popular convention that celebrates start-up failures, allowing people to network and form around failed ideas and businesses. Every failure gets you one step closer to a success. Failure is infinitely better than inaction.

Empathize and see the specialness in others. While being special involves a lot of working on yourself, it's absolutely important that you keep yourself focused equally on others. Recognize the specialness and the exceptional qualities in others. Don't let your ego get in the way of respecting and celebrating special people. That'll make you more special in turn. Respecting others mean making others feel special as well. Respect others as well and treat them equally as you treat yourself.