come into one's own

present singular third person comes into one's own · participle present coming into one's own · past came into one's own

1. idiomaticTo reach a stage of development or maturity where one has achieved strength and confidence, economic security, or respect and social acceptance.

   Aerial photography was coming into its own, and flying shutterbugs pushed the envelope, striving to outsnap each other.

   1992, Popular Mechanics, volume 169, number 11, page 18

   5 more examples

   And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead became alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. . . . [T]he old tricks . . . came to him without effort or discovery, as though they had been his always. . . . [T]he ancient song surged through him and he came into his own again.

   1903, Jack London, chapter 2, in Call of the Wild

   Sally just swept along smiling at every one. . . . Sally looked just as if she had come into her own and was made for it; I never did see her look so pretty.

   1913, Gene Stratton-Porter, chapter 7, in Laddie: A True Blue Story

   The eyes of the wood-cutter flash like actual possession. He seems now to have come into his own. With all his senses, he is dominant, sure.

   1916, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “[On the Lago di Garda] The Dance”, in Twilight in Italy, London: Duckworth and Co. […], →OCLC, page 182

   Everywhere the people would come into their own, and war and tyranny would vanish like a hateful nightmare! Speaker after speaker got up to proclaim this glorious future.

   1919, Upton Sinclair, chapter 12, in Jimmie Higgins

   The subsequent decade played host to numerous stories of Asian nations coming into their own with robustly growing economies.

   2010 November 26, Gemlyn George, “Healthcare in Asia: A Roadmap for the Next Decade”, in Time