Who am I? Exactly what will I know when I know myself? Why is it important to know myself?
If you've ever asked yourself any of these questions, or questions related to these. Then this blog post is for you. But if you haven't I'll advice you go and ask yourself those questions, before proceeding.
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Understanding yourself is the most difficult thing in life. While our life experiences has clearly helped in shaping us into the person we are today, does not necessary mean that we really know who we truly are, what we are passionate about and what we need from life.
Why you should know understand yourself.
It's obvious but here is a few reasons why you might want to know your own nature.
- Happiness: You will be happier when you can express who you are. Expressing your desires, will get you what you want.
- Less inner conflict: When your outside actions corresponds with your inside feelings and values, you will experience less conflict from within.
- Better decision-making: When you understand yourself, you are able to make better choices about everything, from small decisions like which shoe you’ll buy to big decisions like which partner is best to spend the rest of your life with. You'll have steps you can apply to solve life’s problems.
- Self-control: When you know yourself, you understand what motivates you to resist bad habits and develop good ones. You'll have the insight to know which values and goals activate your willpower.
- Resistance to social pressure: When you are grounded in your values and preferences, you are less likely to say “yes” when you want to say “no.” and you can't easily be convinced against your will.
- Vitality and pleasure: Being who you truly are gives you a sense of fulfilment, by making your experience of life richer, larger, and more exciting.
The most important reason is know yourself, to increase yourself.
5-steps to understanding yourself:
1. Be quiet:
Take the time out to be still. You cannot and will not be able to know yourself, until you evaluate yourself and are completely truthful with yourself that you will actually be able to see every aspect of your life—the good and the bad.
2. Find out what you are good at (and not good at).
This happens to be the most difficult step in the journey of finding who you are, but it's a necessary one that can't be ignored. Yeah! It takes trials and error to find what you are good at, and not. But I don't want you to give up before making enough attempts. But knowing when to quit, is a gift that everyone should learn.
Quit when you've put in enough time, and the ample time isn't paying off in return. What is enough time? Well only you can decide that. When you quit correctly, it isn't giving up, it's making room for something better to come in. When your efforts does nothing, but drains you and reduces your passion to do more, that's a sign that you need to focus elsewhere.
3. Discover your passion.
Following your passion is a good thing. And you need to pay attention to finding it, because it indicates an area of you life that you need to pay more attention to. Unnderstand yourself in better ways, and you’ll make a bigger impact.
Passion produces effort and continuous effort produces results.
4. Ask for feedback.
If you don't know yourself. Knowing what others think about you is good idea. Ask them these two simple questions “What strengths do you think I need to improve”? “What weaknesses do you think I need to work on”? In most cases, we don't need to believe all that we hear from others, at times their feedback would indicate a few areas you need to take a second look at.
5. Realize who you truly are, not who you want to be.
Imagining and fantasizing does nothing but breaks your heart.
I know you might already have an idea of who you desperately inspire to become, but does it tally with who you are? Is it who you were designed to be? This is why you need to know yourself. Because when you've finally know and understand who you truly are you can see where you and your specific gifts, fits into the bigger picture.
Conclusion:
Use your reflections to fight your biggest fears, because when you finally realise who you're suppose to be, your purpose will be bigger than your fears.
When you know yourself, you will find more peace, and you will find success quicker than ever before. Now go take action and find the real you, starting from today.