Recently, I was talking with my friend about personality. She had taken a knock-off version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and was telling me about how it got everything about her personality right, but that it upset her.

As a person who doesn't let much bother me, this was an unusual concept for me. I don't put much stock into personality tests. My Hogwarts house doesn't mean anything, although I did finally figure out why I always get sorted Gryffindor. It's not because I am a chivalrous, brave individual. It is only because I like adventure and have a basic lack of concern for my own welfare, with a twist of impulsiveness thrown into the mix. Every personality test goes about like this. In fact, I've never actually taken a personality test that reveals my exact personality. Even the MBTI, with its 16 different personality types, doesn't fully capture me. I've taken several versions of the test, multiple times, and always come up with a different answer. There are two of the type indicators that are almost always a 50-50 split. I know who I am, and that's all that matters. Labels don't define me. Labels won't define me.

After getting upset with her actual results, she took the test again like the person that she wished she was. The end results were much more satisfying, and as she read them aloud for me, she kept saying how she wanted to be like that. She wanted to be this fictional person, this ideal that she had manufactured in her mind. To her, this person was better, a goal to reach for.

You might have a perfect person who you've created in your head. A perfect version of you who says the right things and makes good choices and has the best squad. You can live your life with that person just in your head. You can merely exist hoping that you might share some sliver of similarity with this ideal. You can do that, or you can go out and get it. You have the ability to be who you want to be. My high school art teacher (and life coach, honestly) always said to be the best you you can be. I've used that line of reasoning with every decision that I have made. Any time I make a decision, I ask myself, "What version does this choice make me? Am I the best version of myself, or simply an okay one?" You have the ability to be the best version of yourself. You are in control of your actions.

This might seem fake. This might seem like the sort of frilly self-help-but-not-actually-helpful stuff that you'd read at the back of some magazine while you wait at the hairdressers. It might be like that for you, if you're not willing to put in the work. Actively making choices to become the person that you want to be seems very simple. It seems very easy, but it is, in fact, quite difficult. It took me years of doubt, self-hatred, and anxiety to become the person that I wanted to be. But now that I'm here, I'm so glad that I went through that journey. I'm now a person with skin tough like leather, and if my past self saw my current one, she would be so happy.

You don't have to change for anyone, but if you want to change for yourself, you can.

Be the person you want to be. Be yourself. Be the best you you can be.