I Had No Idea Who I Was—Here’s How I Started Figuring It Out

Okay, hi. Welcome to my first blog post.

This has taken me weeks—if not months—to start. I feel such a blockage when it comes to writing. But at the same time, I feel like I have so much to say, and I’m so excited to share it with you.

I also have no idea how blog posts are supposed to be structured. How much research do I include? How much of my own thoughts and experiences? What’s the perfect balance? Do I share personal stories, or do I stick to facts—things I’ve read online or in books? I truly have no answer to any of these questions. But I figured if I try to answer them all perfectly, I’ll never start writing.

So here I am.

Now, this blog is called Becoming Yourself with Tia Miric.

So, let’s start with the big question:

What does it actually mean to be yourself?

What does it mean to know who you are? Is there even such a thing as truly knowing yourself? When someone asks, Who are you?, do you have an answer?

For the longest time—actually, my entire life—I didn’t.

I was a high-level beach volleyball athlete. I competed for my country. I played NCAA Division I athletics. And up until the age of 25, that was the only thing that mattered to me. If you had asked me then who I was, I would have told you, I’m a beach volleyball player and thats it.

But inevitably, that chapter ended. I knew I didn’t want to go pro, but I also had no idea what I did want.

Two years after graduating, leaving volleyball, and starting a full-time corporate role I entered my quarter-life crisis. The questions above? They haunted me. I had no clue where to even begin figuring out who I was or who I wanted to be. And that’s what brought me here—to this website, to this blog, to finally sharing my thoughts with the world.

Over the past year, I’ve had some of the most eye-opening, life-changing realizations. Insights that have completely reshaped my life. And if even one person reading this finds themselves, figures out who they are, or even feels slightly less lost because of something I share, then I’ll truly die happy.

So… what does knowing yourself actually mean?

For me, it started with a shift. My dreams and ideas now stick in a way they never used to.

Before, they were fleeting. I was just trying to figure out what’s next?—what my thing was, what I could be successful in, what would make me money, what would make my parents proud.

But now? My dreams feel ingrained in me. They’re not just passing thoughts; they feel like a part of me. I see a future for them. I see a direction. And it looks fun. It’s like all these little hopes, passions, and interests that once felt scattered have come together to create something meaningful.

And that’s what I was always looking for.

Finding yourself is less about thinking, more about feeling.

Explaining what it means to “find yourself” is… hard. It’s not something you can fully put into words because it’s more of a feeling.

It’s about how you spend your time, who you surround yourself with, what you consume—but most importantly, how those things make you feel. It’s your intuition. You are your intuition.

Your intuition is constantly giving you signals about who you are, about what aligns with you. The feeling of being your true self isn’t loud or dramatic—it’s a quiet, steady sense of rightness. A flush of warmth. A moment of uninterrupted joy. It just feels right.

But just as we need to listen for what feels good and what feels right, we also need to pay attention to what feels off. That gut feeling. That wariness. That pit in your stomach that whispers, this isn’t you.

I’d argue these signals are just as important.

How do you feel after hanging out with that friend you’ve known forever, but something has always felt a little… forced? Maybe they say one too many things that don’t sit right with you. Or maybe you leave every conversation feeling drained instead of energized.

Or what about that job? The one you dread going to every day. The one where the Sunday scaries hit you like a truck, and no matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise, you just don’t love it.

When I say take risks, I don’t just mean the exciting ones. I mean taking risks by listening to your gut feelings—both the good ones and the bad ones.

Try stepping away from that friend for a few weeks or months. See how it feels. Does life feel lighter? Do you feel more like yourself without that dynamic weighing you down?

Or start that side hobby. The one you keep pushing off because “it’s not practical” or “it won’t make money”. Just try it. See what it feels like to work on something that actually excites you.

Your gut feelings about what you don’t want will inevitably lead you toward what you do want. And in turn, they’ll lead you closer to who you are and who you want to be.

But here’s the thing: that feeling doesn’t just magically appear. It doesn’t just happen to you.

You have to actually do things.

Self-discovery doesn’t come from sitting around and scrolling social media to find it. It comes from putting yourself in uncomfortable situations and taking risks.

That’s how it happened for me. And I’d argue that’s how it happens for most people.

If you feel even the tiniest inkling to do something—something new, something unexpected, something a little out of character—just do it.

• Ask that neighbor to grab coffee.

• Book that trip.

• Quit that job.

• Take that course.

• Try that new hobby.

• Dance to the music playing in the street.

If you have no idea where to start...

If you’re thinking, “I’m blank. There’s nothing I’ve been wanting to try. I don’t know what I enjoy, what I want to spend more time doing, or even who I want to be friends with.”

I FEEL you. I was there too.

For me, the turning point wasn’t some grand epiphany—it was sitting in silence. Uncomfortably long periods of time without social media, without friends, without the internet, without people I know. Just me.

It’s crazy what surfaces when you stop flooding your brain with outside noise. When you don’t let the world scream at you at 1,000 miles per hour about who you should be, what you should want, and how you should live.

So next time you reach for your phone to doom-scroll, try this instead:

• Take five minutes to just sit in silence.

• Pick up a journal and free-write—no filter, no overthinking.

• Just be with yourself. Actually be with yourself.

That’s where the real answers start to show up.

Just do the thing. You will never regret it.

If you keep an open mind and start doing the things your intuition is screaming at you to do—if you genuinely want to know yourself—you’ll start to notice something.

Every time you take a risk, every time you step outside of what feels safe, you learn something new about yourself. Even if it doesn’t work out, even if it’s a complete failure, even if it goes nowhere—you still get closer.

Closer to yourself. Closer to knowing who you are.

So, make that video. Reach out to that friend. Start that website. Open that journal. Do that crazy thing you’ve been thinking about.

You won’t regret it.

The only regret is never trying.

Because here’s the hard truth: you will die one day.

Life is finite, but it’s also beautiful—so you might as well live it as your truest, deepest self.

Why not?

If you're reading this – I love you :)

-Tia