"Who Am I?" + Other Questions to Know Yourself Better

By Tchiki Davis, MA, PhD

"Who am I?" is a question we ask ourselves when we desire to have a better sense of who we are. Here we'll help you answer this question so you can get to know yourself better. 

*This page may include affiliate links; that means I earn from qualifying purchases of products.

Are you struggling to know yourself? Do you wonder what you are at the core? Might you want to get to know the many different parts of yourself better? In this article, we'll dive into some different areas of research to help you explore the many different parts of yourself—your values, beliefs, goals, emotions, and more. Exploring these different parts of yourself can help you feel more confident and sure of who you are.

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When we know who we are we have a clear self-concept—or a clear image of our material self, intrapersonal self, and interpersonal self (Epstein, 1973). To know our material self means that we know about our body—for example, its size, shape, and appearance. To know our intrapersonal self means that we know our emotions, needs, values, opinions, and other internal processes. And to know our interpersonal self means that we know how others see us. All of these are parts of who we are.

Another way to answer the question, "Who am I?" is by thinking about the categories that we are in. For example, our age group, gender, race, religion, and community can all be crucial parts of who we are. It's no wonder that answering the question, "Who am I?" can be so tough! There are so many different answers we could give. In the next sections, we'll break this all down to show you how to build a multifaceted but clear definition of who you are.

Exploring our material self is probably the easiest part of knowing who we are. So let's start here. At least that way, you'll be sure you know some things about yourself. You can get to know your material self better by asking yourself the following questions:

What do I look like?

What color are my eyes, skin, and hair?

What is my weight? What is my height?

Do I have any interesting aspects of my appearance?

When we ask the question, "Who am I?" we're probably mostly referring to our intrapersonal self—or our internal qualities and experiences. Yet our intrapersonal self may be hardest to pin down and understand. So let's talk about some of the key parts of the intrapersonal self in more detail to answer the question, "who am I?"

"I am"... an agent of my values
Values play a big role in who we think we are—they guide our decision making, help us to understand the type of life we want to lead, and may determine the social groups that we belong to (Smolicz, 1981). For example, if kindness is a core value, you might interact with people differently than if kindness wasn't a core value. You might pursue different activities and be a completely different person. This is why knowing your values can be really useful for answering the question, "Who am I?"

So take a moment to explore this values list and identify which values make you who you are:

Values List:
Authenticity              Adventure                  Balance
Bravery                     Compassion               Challenge
Citizenship               Community                 Creativity
Curiosity                   Determination            Fairness
Freedom                   Friendships                 Fun
Generosity                Growth                        Honesty
Influence                   Justice                        Kindness
Knowledge                Leadership                 Learning
Love                           Loyalty                        Openness
Optimism                  Recognition               Respect
Responsibility           Security                     Self-Respect
Social Connection    Spirituality                Stability
Status                         Wealth                        Wisdom

"I am"... a product of my goals
​Like values, goals may guide us through life and be important for our identity. For example, researchers suggest that each of us has ideas or visions of our future self. These visions are of what we might become, what we would like to become, and what we would not like to become (Markus & Nurius, 1986).

We hold in our minds the possibility that we could become many different possible selves. But, when we are clear about our dreams, aspirations, and goals and we know how these fit with the other parts of ourselves we have a clearer picture of our ideal self (Boyatzis, & Akrivou, 2006). So setting clear goals and working towards them can help us feel more like we know who we are (and also like the person that we are).

"I am"... someone who has specific needs
Our needs are also a part of who we are. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we need to satisfy deficit needs—like food, water, and shelter—before focusing on other needs like love, self-esteem, self-actualization, and selfless pursuits. The needs we are currently focused on likely play a big role in who we are.

For example, if you feel like you have a solid social support system with family, friends, and a partner who loves you, the needs you are focused on getting met are likely more about respect, growth, or giving back in some way. So who you are is fundamentally affected by the needs you have—and have not—gotten met.

Another popular theory of needs suggests that we all have three core needs that we aim to satisfy at any given time. These needs are:

Autonomy. The belief that we can be the drivers of our own lives.

Relatedness. The feeling that we are connected to others.

Competence. The belief that we can successfully bring about the outcomes we desire.

An interesting thing is that we tend to view ourselves in ways that are similar to the way other people view us (Epstein, 1973). Researchers thought this was because we humans, as social creatures, learn a lot about our identity from our interactions with others.

It's kind of like the old adage about a tree falling in the woods. Does it make a sound? Well, if we have no one to interact with, do we even have an identity? Our identity exists only in the context of social interactions. This is why understanding our interpersonal self is so useful when trying to understand who we are.

To better understand your interpersonal self, it can be helpful to think about some of the more obvious parts of yourself that can be seen by others.

For example, you might ask yourself:

What is my profession?

What is my race or gender?

What is it about my appearance that is most apparent to others?

What impressions do I give people when they first meet me? What about after they know me for a bit?

How do I fit in society? What role do I play?

Some suggest that our working definition of who we are is just a theory we have about ourselves. We keep having new experiences that help us test out whether our theory is correct and we modify that theory in response to new experiences (Epstein, 1973). As we grow older, contradictory evidence may have less of an impact on our identity as we have more past experiences to go off of and we're more sure of who we are.

On the flip side, we may be more likely to pose the question, "who am I?" when we are younger and our 'self-theory' is less organized or integrated. My guess would be that we also pose this question at times in our lives when our self feels less organized or integrated. For example, if we lose an important part of our relational self—after a divorce or death in the family—we may question who we are now that we are not a wife or a son—we've lost those group memberships that we're crucial to how we thought of ourselves.

​Other challenges to our identity can lead us to question who we are. For example, we may question our identity if one of our core beliefs is threatened or if we no longer identify as Christian, Republican, or spiritual. I had this experience a few years ago when after spending a lifetime as a vegetarian, I became Paleo. The diet I once believed in so strongly was no longer right for my health. I was forced to throw away a huge part of my identity and figure out who I was now. And that's how it goes. We often lose a piece of ourselves and that stimulates us to find new parts of ourselves.

Hopefully, the insights and exercises provided here helped you explore who you are. So what did you find? What aspects of yourself are most important to you? Or, what aspects of yourself are most important right now? What part of your self-knowledge is missing and how can you start filling in the gaps? It may take some self-reflection and time, but it's worth it.

Here are some more activities that might help you learn even more about yourself—your positive characteristics in particular.

Need some more help learning about who you are? These articles may be helpful.

If you’d like to keep exploring "who am i", here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Knowing who we are can help us navigate the world and better understand our role in it. By exploring our values, needs, personality, emotions, and more, we can better understand the many facets of ourselves and perhaps more easily move in the direction we desire.

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