Who gets to decide who you are?
This week in Mentor Circles, we asked students two questions:
How would your friends and family describe who you are?
How would you describe who you are?
The answers were interesting.
When we asked how others might describe them, we heard words like good, smart, lazy, anger issues, weird, annoying, quiet, and bad.
When we asked how they would describe themselves, we heard something different: fun, gamer, different, hard-working, kind, funny, independent, and social.
The difference was worth exploring.
Sometimes the way others see us lines up with how we see ourselves. Sometimes it doesn't. Some things people say about us may be true, while others are labels we've picked up along the way. And sometimes, we begin to believe the negative things people say about us, even when they don't tell the whole story.
So we talked about a big idea: You get to decide who you will become.
Learning to love yourself and build confidence in who you are is foundational to everything else. When you begin to understand your worth, it starts to shape the choices you make, the way you treat others, and the person you become.
Our students are listening. They're paying attention to the words spoken about them, the labels placed on them, and the stories people tell about who they are.
And so are we.
We have an opportunity to be intentional with our words. To see beyond a student's mistakes. To recognize the kindness, humor, creativity, and potential they bring into the world. To remind them that one bad decision doesn't define them and that their struggles don't erase the good in them.
We want our students to know that they have something valuable to offer the world. And we want them to have the confidence to believe it themselves.
Because when a student begins to see something good in who they are, they can begin to imagine something different for who they might become.
Sometimes helping a student grow starts by helping them believe there is something worth growing into.