Knowing yourself

Knowing yourselfrnThis being the first post, I’d like to start with a topic which I believe opens the door to personal development and helps create a mindset which is more committed to taking action. So how well do you know yourself? Allow me to make clear my definition of ‘knowing yourself’: Knowing your strengths and weaknesses, knowing what you want (now and in the future), recognising things you like or enjoy or dislike or hate, being able to recognise if something or someone is a suitable or unsuitable match for you. Being aware of your beliefs. My own examplernI’d like to start by giving you a very quick background on how I went from being confused and unsure of myself to now being driven and confident in my approach to life. When I hit the age of twenty, I experienced a huge epiphany. I was not the person I thought I was, instead, I was the person I perceived myself to be. I believed that I was useless at maths, owned an atrocious memory, would never be smart enough to achieve in higher education, thought I had no unique skills and in general believed that a lot of the things I couldn’t do then, I would never be able to do. I didn’t believe in myself! But you know what, I couldn’t have been more wrong! You see I’ll admit that I was all of those things mentioned above, but only because I was succumbing to the disempowering belief that I was all of those things. A year on and I have no issues with any of those things and they were all surprisingly easy to amend! The major turning point was when I realised, ‘I am so much more than what my life currently shows me to be’. This is an unbelievably powerful thought and it came to me because I started to question my life and question my beliefs. On realising I wasn’t the person I believed I was, I came to accept that I didn’t even know who I was. (This isn’t a bad thing). Self Interrogation- getting the truth outrnI have found that In order to discover who it is we really are, we must ask and answer some very important questions. Here are three I use regularly; 1) What do you KNOW about yourself? (What do you believe to be true?)rnQuestion everything! I promise you this is the key! I swear by it!!! The more questions you ask about yourself, the more you’ll find out about yourself. (Even those who find maths hard will admit that’s a ridiculously simple equation) Here are some questions I asked myself in order to discover more about myself. I now realise that the answers create a clear picture of what type of person I am but also define me as an individual. What makes you happy? What annoys you? What do you find easy? What job would you do for free? What sort of people do you get on best with? Where are your favourite places? What type of tv programs do you watch most? What things are you great at? Do you love to talk? Are you a good listener? Do you prefer the company of others or do you prefer more space for yourself? What are all your strengths and what are all your weaknesses? Quite often we convince ourselves into falsely believing we are something we are not, (e.g. hopeless at something) or we convince ourselves into falsely believing we can’t actually be anything other than what we are right now. We also fail to identify our most admirable and positive traits which if we knew, would send us in the right direction. Answering questions like those above helps to identify ‘our’ characters, therefore providing the power to make self- educated decisions about our lives. Have a gornAll I ask for this section is that you do the following, think about all your beliefs regarding yourself. Split them into two groups, empowering beliefs and disempowering beliefs. A disempowering belief is a one you have of yourself which is not proven to be true but prevents and discourages you from even trying to do something. An example of a disempowering belief I used to have is ‘My memory is appalling, it makes my life so hard, I am forever forgetting important things at work and I accept that it’s just the way I am’. This belief used to make me feel terrible and sure enough it was disempowering me, MAJORLY. An empowering belief is a belief you have of yourself which gives you strength, support and encourages you. An example of one of my own current empowering beliefs is ‘Studying makes me stronger, smarter and moves me closer to my goals’ (With a belief like this, do you think I’m going to study? Of course I am, I’ve almost become obsessed!) We all have thousands of beliefs, of which many we perceive to be true. Think twice about what you think you know, tear down disempowering beliefs. Are they really true? What are your chances of reaching your ambition if you don’t believe you can do it? I’d say 0%, if you don’t believe you can do it, you won’t even try! 2) Are you content with your life?rnFirstly I’d like to make clear I do not believe that feeling discontent is a bad thing. I believe that discontentment is a sign that a person is in touch with themselves and recognises how they feel about something. (This is so important) If you’re content with your life then I would like to congratulate you. If you are like the rest of us and are less than content with one aspect of your life then I’d like you to take a moment to just think about your life! Think about all the aspects of your life, here’s some to get you started Your job (work)rnCollege (studying)rnFamilyrnFriendsrnTalentsrnAny abilities you have or wish to havernMaterial items e.g. cars, jewellery etcrnPains (these can be experiences which you don’t enjoy, frustrations, disappointments)rnPleasures (things you find enjoyable, holidays, hobbies, events etc)rnAnything than matters to you, good or badrnGoals, ambitions, dreamsrnYou don’t have to but you could make a list of all of these things so that you don’t forget any of them. Is there anything you’re not content with? If so, you need to understand why that is. Is there something missing or do you want to get rid of something? 3) What do you want? / What don’t you want?rnKnowing exactly what you want and what you don’t want in life is sometimes easy, but is not always consistently easy to uncover. Using the things you thought about a moment ago, target the things that mean most to you, the things you really want in life, pleasures you enjoy and make a mental note that these are the things you want to gain or achieve. It could be that you want to learn another language, have more fun, pass an exam, spend more time with family or go on holiday. Know exactly what it is you want! Now target the things you don’t want in your life, now and in the future. Make a mental note that these are the things you will make sure are not, and never will be an aspect in your life. Pains, stresses, frustrations and any experiences you just don’t want to waste your energy on. This could be money problems, relationship issues, location restriction, dependency, bad health or wasted time. Remember that you are choosing not to have these things in your life. Be certain of what you don’t want in your life! So now what?rnTaking the time to think about yourself as you just did provides a huge insight into your core being. You can discover an imaginative part of your mind which you never knew you had, begin to feel excited for the future and start to change your approach to life in order to start progressing towards the things you now know you want. Hopefully you go away remembering at least one thing from this post and I urge you, whether you’re in bed, on a train, eating food or doing nothing, take a moment to think about YOU! Enjoy life Dominic