A person who knows himself can plan his future moves in harmony with his characterSocrates, a Greek philosopher
You are unique and unlikely to come across another person’s life path similar to yours. Your determination will become your success or failure, depending on how well you understand yourself and how successful you are at implementing changes in your life.
- Are you unhappy and frustrated while others seem to have what you want?
- Do you usually feel let down by the lack of results in your relationships and professional life?
- Do you often feel that something is missing?
- Do you just feel unhappy and don’t know why?
Knowing yourself better and getting closer to the truth about your personality traits, preferences and purpose will make a difference.
The unexamined life is not worth living.Socrates, a Greek philosopher
According to Socrates, there is a connection between self-knowledge and success. He then suggests that there are four key ingredients in self-knowledge.
- The first ingredient is Insight (which means knowing yourself).
- The second ingredient is Judgment (which means evaluating yourself).
- The third ingredient is Action (which means directing yourself).
- The fourth and final ingredient is Perspective (looking at yourself from outside of yourself).
It will translate into a happier and more satisfying life, better relationships and friendships, increased energy, creativity, self-motivation, passion, joy, and clarity regarding your values and mission. I am here to help you achieve all this.
When we speak about inner voice or Knowing yourself, we’re indirectly pointing to a particular emotional or psychological kind. So the point is, how can we understand ourselves? We often depend on others to define us, giving them the power to shape our future through their words, which may or may not suit us, but we follow blindly without any second thought. This is how we build ourselves and ourselves. But is this the right way to define our potential?
It’s true that we only know what we like and dislike at an early age. Still, we don’t have the power to make decisions on our own as we grow up. The situation and surroundings shape our minds.
You might be thinking, is there any way to know yourself?
Here are some options:
- Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?
- How does your relationship with your father influence your career ambitions?
- How does your relationship with your mother influence your character?
- How is your daily routine?
- Are you an early morning bird or a night owl?
- Do you love the riverbank, park, or hill?
- How do you define enjoyment?
- How do you define success?
Write down all in a paper, then start analyzing the deep inner self.
Why and Where Does Self-Knowledge Matters
LOVE
We have a picture of what love looks like to us. We have an idea of what we want our partner to be like and how he will behave. The problem is that we often think about this idea in a very general way. How do we go about choosing the right person for us?
When it comes to picking them out and getting together with them, we fail again because we give little or no thought as to how they will feel about things that are important to us. We know how we feel and what it is that would make us happy, but the other person probably doesn’t have the same feelings and desires as us, so concentrating on the ‘right’ object isn’t going to help bring it about.
- Self-knowledge is the awareness of our thoughts and feelings in the present and an understanding of how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors have developed through life experience. It involves discovering which feelings and emotions we habitually respond to in various situations and relationships. When we know how we habitually tend to think and feel, we can change how we respond to live more richly, deeply, and more satisfyingly. Self-knowledge does not mean that you become self-absorbed, focused on self-analysis, or introspecting about yourself; rather, it means that you come to understand yourself better so that – as a result – life works better for you.
- You need to know yourself to be with someone else and to be happy: The process begins by fully understanding who you are. This is a difficult process but worth it because if you do, then taking the first step will be easier. When we come from a well of knowledge, we can communicate our needs. We find that there is less need to force communications. Open your heart, and invite your partner into your deeper self by letting him or her know who you are. You may also find that you have more tolerance for others and their quirks as you wear them less like a yoke around your neck.
- First, manage our own emotions and relationships, then understand others when they make decisions based on their emotions (which they do). By knowing what’s in another person’s heart, we’re better able to adapt to their point of view until they can see our point of view. When someone else is upset with us, we can use our knowledge about their feelings to choose ways to improve the situation for everyone. It doesn’t mean we never get angry, sad, or hurt. It just means we become aware of them quickly enough to adjust before things get out of control. It also makes us aware when someone needs this kind of help from us and gives us some idea of how best to give it.
WORK
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”Aristotle
He might’ve been onto something – because the self-knowledge that leads to excellence in any field begins with understanding how you think and how you’re wired. If you don’t know your natural tendencies, how will you go about making them work for you?
- What do you personally want to do with your life?
- What would you do if you were given a large sum of money?
- Would you travel the world?
- Would you start a business?
- Would you go back to school? Or would you take care of your family and friends?
We don’t know, and no one knows for us but us. Until we decide, our future will remain uncertain and full of questions.
The surprising emotional reasons for not hitting your career goals and how to fix them. We’re never taught what real success looks like or how we learned to sabotage ourselves. It may emerge from our difficulty in handling power – either too much of it or not enough. It may stem from a deep-seated need for control around those we love. Ambition might be a mask for insecurity or the desire to look smart. A gender issue could be at play – perhaps you learned that it wasn’t ‘nice’ to get too pushy, so you’ve hidden your competitive streak. The reason might be an unresolved class issue or bind that stopped you from being ‘allowed’ to get on top of things. Maybe you suffered some form of deprivation, which makes your hostility to the world all the more understandable but also hard to shift through conventional measures of success such as wealth, rank, and status. As I discuss in this course, many human beings are emotionally trapped within their original family dynamics and don’t understand how they feel inside.
WHY IS SELF-KNOWLEDGE SO HARD TO COME BY?
I am human. I have a human being within. It is trying to express itself, but it cannot do so as it is denied access to the stage of my life. While I do my conscious business, it is pushed into the wings or locked backstage behind thick velvet curtains with heavier locks and deadbolts than in any playhouse. I only let it on stage when I am not paying attention. When I am not looking carefully at myself or inspecting closely what I am doing, my human being slips out and tries to intervene in my affairs.
And why is this?
Why am I always looking away from myself?
Why is self-knowledge so very hard to come by?
The answer lies in one fact: the unconscious contains desires and feelings that deeply challenge a more comfortable vision of ourselves. We might discover – if we got to know ourselves better.
Unconsciousness & Self-Deception
Our unconscious minds, which run on automatic pilots, are a veritable Pandora’s box of self-destructive urges and behaviors. Our conscious minds, meanwhile, attempt to do their best to keep us out of trouble and tend towards harmony rather than disharmony. Yet it is often the case that a simple desire takes hold, and then, because we lack self-knowledge, we search for something outside us to explain it. Just as frequently, there’s no need to dig more deeply into why something feels as it does – we come up with our explanatory stories and assign them just as impulsively as they come to mind. The Rational Mind & Selective Attention – Then there’s the emotional mind: the one that makes us feel happy when someone smiles at us or sad when someone disappears into the distance. The emotional mind operates automatically and effortlessly; it reacts instantly to our environment – and only reacts to parts of that environment that pique its interest. But what interests it? It homes in on stimuli from which we are likely to learn something useful about how to make sense of the world.
We neglect to use our most significant tools for learning about ourselves. When we’re young, we receive feedback from our parents, teachers, and coaches as we make dramatic developmental strides. Later in life, we can turn to a trusted partner or friend for insights about how we behave in various relationships and situations. But by the time something’s become a profound mystery to us, ranging from why we tend toward impatience with others to why things so often seem to annoy us despite our efforts at tranquility, it might be too late. By that point, we’re closer to being lost causes; outside sources no longer have the motivation or opportunity to show us who we’ve become. Everyone should try to figure out what they already know about themselves – if any – and write it down. If you don’t do this exercise right now, you’ll always wonder what you already knew about yourself but never bothered to learn because you thought someone else would tell you. That would be a shame. The best time is when you still have time before the rest of your life wears you down and prevents you from getting back on track after years of passive ignorance on this subject.
Introspection is often considered a solo journey. But there is another way to approach self-reflection that is profoundly social. Many people find that talking with others – with those they deeply trust – can be a magical way to unveil parts of themselves they didn’t even know were there! Introspection is a two-way street. After all, most of us rarely do it alone. If we can make some unconscious material conscious, it becomes easier to change our behavior. Knowledge of how the unconscious works are emerging as one of the true frontiers in psychology and neuroscience. Self-understanding is a powerful path toward changing our lives for the better. Join us – explore your inner world and learn new skills for transformation.