words Alexa Wang
Humans are not independent creatures. People are influenced by culture and society to a great extent. The frameworks provided by culture and society help us to make sense of the world at large. For example, society dictates what’s good and what’s not all the time. These social norms are useful because they eliminate risks and make everything predictable. However, this predictability can make life dull and boring since it doesn’t allow us to think for ourselves.
When you become self-aware, you become unstoppable. You know who you are, and who you aren’t. You know what you like and what you don’t like. Consequently, you become more decisive and focused.
That said, here are some steps you should take to thoroughly know yourself better.
Know Your Personality
Everyone is unique. People have certain attributes that make us distinct from each other. Personalities determine how we react to situations, our preferences, and behaviors. There are variations across various personalities. But, if you’re going to know who you are, you need to know more about your core personality.
You need to ask yourself questions and give honest answers. Who are you? How do you feel about strangers? Do you enjoy socializing? Are you a reserved or shy person? Do you enjoy risk-taking?
These questions perhaps just scratch the surface as far as helping to determine your personality. You can take various personality tests even online, which can help you identify your personality. The choice of which test to take is up to you. Plus, it depends on which aspects of your personality you wish to discover. A good example of a test you can take is the past life regression test which helps you understand who you could’ve been in your past life that may affect your personality now.
Be Honest With Yourself
Self-awareness is required if you’re going to know yourself better. You must be honest with yourself. Because people tend to delude themselves, thinking that they are who they aren’t. So, you must approach every question with brutal honesty. Be willing to contend with the good and the bad to achieve accurate conclusions.
Learn Your Body
While it’s important to focus on the psychological aspects of your life, you should pay attention to the physical aspects as well. Mental health is not more important than physical health, both are equally important and deserve the same amount of attention. If you want to be unstoppable, you have to understand and manage your body to the best of your ability.
You should realize that if your body shuts down, you’ll be extremely limited. So, having a good understanding of how your body works will work wonders for you in taking care of it. Furthermore, you only have one body. If you take care of it, it’ll take care of you.
Analyze Strengths and Weaknesses
As you grow older, you become more conscious of your strengths and weaknesses. Instead of trying to fight your weaknesses, embrace them. Realize that your unique combination of strengths and weaknesses makes you who you are. So, you might as well love and nurture what you’ve been given and find a way to utilize it to the best of your ability. Knowing what your strengths are makes you more decisive and focused in putting yourself in situations wherein your strengths can shine through.
On the other hand, your weaknesses can also be properly addressed by overcoming them with acceptance and the willingness to improve because it isn’t right to let your weaknesses define you.
Meditate
Meditation is a practice that has been around for ages. It’s a mindfulness technique with tremendous benefits. It’s surprising how a moment of silence with your thoughts can reveal something about yourself that you didn’t know before.
Deep meditation is associated with revelations about ourselves. But meditating isn’t always as easy as you might think. Especially if you’re a beginner, meditation can be hard, since it could be difficult to quiet your mind, shut out distractions, and focus. However, it’s possible with practice.
Meditation allows you to introspect. Introspection is a great way to understand who you are and what makes you tick. It allows you to approach problems from multiple perspectives to come up with well-rounded conclusions.
Know Your Core Values
Whether you realize it or not, you have a value system. People’s values are very important and they influence how we approach life. Values are influenced by various factors, mostly environmental and psychological ones. These determine our attitudes, motivations, behaviors, reactions, choices, patterns, and beliefs.
After you’ve made a list of core values, it’s worth taking the time to analyze where you got your values. Did you get them from your parents? The neighborhood you grew up in? Did you develop them over time? Are they rooted in your personality? For example, it’s not surprising for introverts to say they value solitude while extroverts may value socializing and getting to know people. The point is, we all have values. To understand who you are, you need to know what your core values are.
Have a Life Vision and Mission
There is great gain in reflecting on your past. The past can be very informative because reflecting on it gives you a chance to rectify your mistakes. But you must also establish a solid vision and mission for your life early on. It’s never too late to question yourself about where you are now, where you’re going, and how you’re going to get there. In life, nothing just happens. You have to set a goal and work on it.
Conclusion
If you want to live a happy life, you need to know who you really are. Keep in mind that for you to have a solid identity, you can’t have a warped view of who you are on the inside. Know yourself and learn to accept everything that you’ll find out. Remember that being true to yourself can help you set realistic goals in the long run. Additionally, understand that strengths and weaknesses vary between people and that these things shouldn’t hinder you from excelling in life.
