Introduction

When I write an essay about myself, I want to focus on a specific point or theme. Lets be honest, our lives are so full and so many events have shaped us that we could write forever and still not exhaust the topic. But a personal essay should be brief and on point. Thats why the best way to compose a short essay about myself is to first identify some personal likes and dislikes. Then ask yourself why do I have these? From there, you can develop an outline that really lets you explore your own story. With an essay writing about myself, I want to keep it focused but interesting. To show you how, Im first going to explain this process in detail, and then Ill give you an essay about myself example. Lets begin!

Beginning

What comes to mind when you hear the words essay about myself? Do you freeze up? Panic? Run in the opposite direction? Actually, all of these reactions are perfectly understandable. Dont feel embarrassed. The fact is that most people are not very good at talking or writing about themselves. This is natural. Who would know where to begin? My life is so much more than just words on a page!

But still the job must be done. So how? First off, think about the page itself. Its a rectangle, with four sides and only so much room for so many lines. Your essay need not convey your whole self. Instead, were looking only for one aspect, one dimension, one slice of life that helps us see a side of you. Just enough to fill up that page. If you like, it may be something about you and your family, something about how time and experience have shaped your worldview, what you studied at school, what awards youve won, or even something as mundane as what you do for work, like what you might find in a cover letter for a job application. An essay about myself can be any of these things. It starts, it has middle ground, and it ends. It is simple as that.

How can I start an essay about myself?

Some things to know: first, this is an essay about you, so write in the first person. In fact, this is one of the few times in professional or academic writing that it is necessary that you write using I instead of the third person perspective. This essay is your perspective, so dont be afraid to share it.

Next, youll want to introduce yourself. Try doing so by starting off with a funny quote, or an idea that is interesting, or some question that you think about and want to discuss. Remember Seinfeld? Each episode would tell its own story, but each one would start off the same way, with Jerry talking about some unique take on life from the stage during his stand-up routine. Hed pose a funny yet mundane question to the audience and then riff on it for a few moments. This would set the stage for the rest of the show. This can be a good way to start an essay about yourself. Try it!

What should I say about myself in an essay?

Okay, so thats how you start. But what do you say? You have to come up with something. A compelling hook like that described above can rope in your reader. But now you need to deliver a story or bring in some interesting characters or bring to life an important setting or convey a meaningful point of view. Well, to be honest, this is where you have to turn to your own life for material. Surely, there are interesting people in your life who have shaped you. Surely, there is some setting in your life worth discussing for a few pages because it sheds light on an aspect of your life. Remember, you dont need to try to capture or distill your whole life in just a few pages. You need instead to just give a slice, a window, a view.

How do you introduce yourself in 250 words?

This is easy. Once you deliver your hook, you can naturally segue into who you are. You can give identifying infoage, gender, what you do in life for work or school, where you grew up, what you want to be, what your ideals or principles or beliefs are....

…start gaining some experience as a working engineer. My goal is to build up my resume so that by the time I graduate college I will be able to get started in my profession without delay. Most places want to see some experience on the resume, so if I can show experience and a degree, I figure I will be ahead of the game.

So that is an example of my practical side. But even as I write about it, I come back in my own mind to the ultimate end point of it all. At some point in time, the job will go away, my life will tick by; maybe I will get married and have kidsbut still there is an end that has to be faced.

The way I resolve this tension is by thinking about what is my overall goal, my great ambition in life. And I would say that my great ambition is simply to try to be a good person. In fact, I want to be the best person that God will allow me to be. I believe that God gives everyone something special in terms of talent or gifts, and He does this because He wants to see us do something with it. I want to try to do good things in this life because I think that this is a good way to honor God. That is the most important thing for me. It is how I reconcile the practical and the spiritual sides of the teaching I received growing up.

What about you? Do you have these same kinds of thoughts or struggles? I bet you probably do, as I think they are really basic parts of our human nature. At any rate, I am glad to be able to share a little bit about myself with you. One thing I actually like to do is communicate (yes, speech class is one of my favorite classes!). So thanks for giving me some of your time, and who knows? Maybe we will meet again down the road, out in the real world, working on some engineering project together, or trying to do good things. Trophies and accolades are nice and all, but I want the greatest reward of…