SongTown USA: Forget Finding Yourself - Create Yourself!

I don't know how many times I have heard someone say, "I'm trying to find myself." It amazes me how many of our thought processes put life firmly OUT of our own control. If it's possible to "find myself,” that means that the REAL me is out there somewhere waiting on the imitation me to find him.

• That doesn't make sense to me. I fail to believe that my real self is out there and that if I don't find him, I will never really be me.
• I choose to believe that I can create myself – I have the ability to turn who I am into who I want to be. If I don't like who I am or I feel incomplete, then I can figure out ways to fill in those gaps or to change who I am.

Those beliefs transfer over into my writing. If I don't like that amount of activity I am getting as a songwriter, I can educate myself about ways to improve. I can write differently or with different people. I can study the charts and write more songs like those that are succeeding. There are millions of things I can DO to change the course of my writing career or to change my writing altogether.
I am not limited to what I am right now as a writer or as a human being. There’s always room to create or recreate myself as a writer, or as a person.

Who I am is dependent on me – not on outside forces. I grew up in a household with a drug dependent father and with very little money. That could be an excuse to follow the same path or it could be the spark that makes me decide that I want something better for my own life. I can choose to let myself be defined by my environment, or I can define myself.

To believe otherwise is to accept that you are floating through life at the mercy of every outside force. If that is true, there's really not much you can do to increase your odds of success.

I challenge you today to write out who you want to be - as a writer, as a person, or both. Don't go out and try to FIND that version of you -- CREATE it. Write out what you can do to become that person and to change the course you are on. Be purposeful about who you want to become. Then, set out on the road to DO the things that will help you become that person. That's the way to succeed and to write on.

Marty Dodson is a songwriter, corporate trainer and entrepreneur. His songs have been recorded by artists such as Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, Joe Cocker, Leon Russell and The Plain White T’s. He once bumped Psy out of the #1 spot on the K-Pop charts but that’s another story for another day. Marty plays Taylor and Batson guitars. Follow him here: www.facebook.com/songtownusa, at www.facebook.com/martydodsonsongwriter and at Twitter @SongTownUSA or visit