Someone asks you what you really like, what you’re craving, what you’d like to do with the next decade of your life.

And then, a blank. It’s not because you don't have an opinion. It’s because it’s been a long time since anyone asked you that, or since you questioned your own real desires.

You know exactly what your children, your partner, your best friend, and your mother like. In all of this, you’ve become a stranger who is relatively well-informed about everyone except herself.

We don’t necessarily "lose ourselves" because we no longer know who we are. Perhaps we have simply stopped, for a while, checking in on what we like, what we want, what we think — and what still truly resonates with us.

What losing clarity about yourself really means

Psychology has a particularly useful concept for understanding part of this feeling: self-concept clarity. Theorized by researcher Jennifer Campbell and her colleagues in 1996, it refers to the degree to which our beliefs about ourselves are clearly and confidently defined, consistent with one another, and relatively stable over time, rather than blurred, contradictory, or dependent on context and the gaze of others.

A review published in 2026 by researcher Srikant Manchiraju shows that this clarity is associated with several dimensions of psychological functioning, notably well-being, stable self-esteem, emotional regulation, and relational functioning. These associations appear relatively consistent across several domains, even though researchers still highlight methodological limitations and questions of causality.

Our identity is not built outside of our roles, our relationships, or our habits: they are part of who we are. But when they occupy almost all the available space, it can become more difficult to distinguish what we still personally choose from what we do out of necessity, adaptation, or simple habit.

How we end up knowing less about what we want

Self-concept clarity isn't just about knowing what you want. But when our self-representation becomes less clear, it can also become harder to respond spontaneously to very concrete questions about our tastes, values, preferences, or plans.

Yet this self-representation does not form in a vacuum. It evolves with our experiences, our relationships, the roles we occupy, and the periods we go through.

Certain life transitions—a breakup, a move, a child growing up and becoming independent, a career change, or simply moving from one decade to the next—can bring this question to the surface with particular force: who am I, too, beyond the roles I occupy for others?

And that is perhaps where the real issue lies. Wanting to find yourself is one thing. Knowing what that means in concrete terms is another. Because it's easy to confuse three things: what you really want, what you think you should want, and what you still believe you want without having checked in a long time.

Finding yourself can then mean, very concretely: starting to check again. Do I still like this? Do I really want this? Is this habit actually mine? Does this project still suit me? Am I saying yes because I want to say yes, or because it has become my default setting?

Because an old preference is not a future obligation. What you liked at 25 doesn't have to define you at 35, 45, or 55. And changing your mind doesn't mean you've lost yourself: sometimes, it simply means you've changed.

Identity, viewed this way, isn't a mysterious inner person that needs to be found under a sofa. It's something we keep questioning and experiencing.

Finding yourself doesn't necessarily mean isolating yourself

Finding yourself generally requires something that has become rare: a space where your own thoughts, preferences, and desires can exist without being immediately organized around those of others.

For some, this space comes through solitude. For others, through a personal activity, a conversation, writing, creating, or simply time when no one expects anything from them.

And when this space involves solitude, a real distinction is worth making. Being alone and feeling lonely are not the same experience. Chosen solitary time can be pleasant or restorative; imposed solitude, on the other hand, can be painful. The same moment spent alone can be experienced very differently depending on the person, the period, and what they are going through.

The goal, therefore, is not to learn to absolutely love solitude. It is to discover under what conditions you are actually able to hear what is going on inside you.

Three very different obstacles

And when looking for why this space with yourself has disappeared, the reasons can be very different for different women. Here are three particularly telling ones.

1 — When silence becomes uncomfortable

For some, the time exists, but finding oneself alone—truly alone, with no role to play and no one to answer to—causes discomfort that goes beyond simple time management. The silence feels like a void rather than a space for oneself.

Work dedicated to what researchers call "positive solitude" shows above all that being alone is not necessarily synonymous with loneliness: time spent alone can also be experienced as a chosen, personal, and constructive space. But being alone is not enough, on its own, to produce well-being: the experience depends heavily on how that moment is lived.

2 — When there is really no space available anymore

For others, the problem is not primarily psychological. Young children, a dependent parent, a job with no backup possible—solitude is not pushed away by reflex; it is simply unavailable most of the time.

Sometimes, time is genuinely lacking. Sometimes, a few spaces exist but are immediately absorbed by a task, a message, or something to anticipate. And sometimes both are true at the same time. The distinction matters, because you don't respond to a material constraint the same way you respond to a habit that has become automatic.

3 — When "I" has gradually merged with "we"

A longitudinal study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, conducted on 133 separated or divorced adults, documented what researchers call "loss of self": a greater loss of self after separation was associated with more psychological distress.

This study focuses on separated people; therefore, it does not allow us to conclude on its own that the same phenomenon works exactly the same way in couples who stay together. It nevertheless sheds light on something interesting: a relationship can become sufficiently integrated into our definition of ourselves that its disappearance makes it more difficult to answer "who am I, without us?".

Without waiting for a breakup, this is a good question to ask yourself: in what I call "my tastes," "my habits," or "my projects" today, what belongs to me, to the couple, or to both?

What "finding yourself" does not mean

It doesn't mean you’ve failed at something, or that the roles you hold—mother, partner, friend, professional—don't matter or have "lost" you in spite of yourself.

It may simply mean that these roles, these habits, or certain periods of life have taken up so much space that there was less left to keep questioning what concerned only you. And it is possible, without renouncing anything you are for others, to start asking yourself questions that concern only you again.

The most important thing: start checking and experimenting again

We don't find ourselves only by reflecting on who we are. We also find ourselves by giving ourselves the right to try again.

Wondering if you’d like pottery? Try it. Not sure if you like going out alone anymore? Test it. Think you want to change careers? Truly explore that path, even on a small scale. Thought you didn't like reading anymore? Pick up a book, even just for ten pages.

A few concrete ways to start again:

1- Create a space that doesn't already have a function

No need to start with half a day: twenty minutes without a screen, without a to-do list, and without any particular goal can already constitute an initial space for yourself.

2- Take stock of what you would still choose today

Pick up a few tastes, habits, opinions, or projects and ask yourself a simple question: if I discovered them today, would they still suit me? Some will always be deeply yours. Others will belong more to an old version of you, a habit, a relationship, or a period of life. There is nothing to eliminate: simply to distinguish.

3- Test a desire rather than look for a definitive answer

No need to know in advance if it will last. Just check, in practice, if a desire still holds water once put to the test of reality.

4- Pick back up something you abandoned

An instrument left aside, a sport practiced before the kids, a passion put on hold "until you have time." Without trying to do it well, without a goal of progress—just to rediscover what it feels like to love something without having to perform.

5- Write down what you think before looking at what everyone else thinks

Note down, without any particular structure, a first reaction, an opinion, a desire—before looking at what the networks, others, or the current norm say about it. Not to isolate yourself from all of that, just to know what comes from you before it gets mixed up with the rest.

What if none of these solutions work for you?

That’s okay. There is no universal method for reconnecting with yourself, and the path is different depending on what you’ve been through, what you carry, and where you are.

Dear "Flemmeuse" needing to find yourself again

Research on self-concept clarity shows above all that it is not a quality one possesses once and for all: it can vary with experiences, contexts, and life periods.

In other words: not knowing exactly who you are today does not mean you will never know again.

An opportunity to ask yourself, every month

When you have spent a lot of time knowing what others need, starting to ask yourself what you want can require a little space.

The monthly Flemme Day Box was designed to trigger those little dates with yourself that we easily put off: discovering something, trying, creating, tasting, slowing down—without having to organize that break yourself.

Not to tell you who you are. Much less to promise to help you "find yourself" in a box. But to give you, every month, an opportunity to ask yourself: and what about me, today, what am I craving?