8 ways of getting to know yourself

Knowing yourself is one of the most important things in life. In life, you either follow your own goals or goals of other people. But if you want to follow your own goals, you must first know what you truly want and how you function as a person. Most really successful people had known what they wanted to become from a very young age. They discovered what they are good at early in their lives and devoted their life to that one thing with all their passion and focus. You can unlock your true potential when you get the insights in your true self: not only into what you want, but also into how you function and other personality traits.

See several ways for getting to know yourself;

• People and activities you like

The first one is very obvious. People with the same values always group together. People who surround you and you like to hang out with usually have the same beliefs, values, likes and hobbies as you do. Carefully analyze who are the people you like and what activities do you do together. Think of your hobbies and why you like them. You are and become more and more similar to the people you are spending your time with. Analyze the people who surround you.

• Your values

Your values very clearly show what’s important to you in life. But your values are not what you say is important to you, but how you allocate your time, money and energy. Carefully analyze how you are spending your time, money, energy and other resources. Analyzing that will clearly show you your personal values. You may find out one very painful thing, which is the inconsistency of what you say you value and what you actually do. But at the end of it all, It’s about really knowing yourself and living life true to yourself. That kind of exercise helps you develop integrity and honesty.

• Your talents and fields of interest

When you are analyzing yourself, a very pleasant part of it is analyzing your talents and fields of interest. Every single one of us has talents, things that we are naturally good at. May it be sports, arts or anything else. Each of us has special talents and gifts. Think about the subjects you liked when attending school, which activities were natural to you and you had to put in much less effort than other people, which activities you simply enjoyed, what are your hobbies and so on. But also go one step further with your analysis. Think about all different kinds of strengths that accompany your talents. Analyze your strengths on the one hand and weaknesses on the other. Much as you have to be aware of your advantages, so you have to be aware of your disadvantages as well.

• People you dislike

It may not seem that obvious, but we can really learn a lot from people we dislike. We usually have values very different from those of people we don’t like. Nevertheless, there are two different states or situations. We can have different beliefs and values from people and have neutral feelings about it. That is what we call rational behavior. People have different views on life and there is nothing wrong with it. Every one of us has the right to live life as they want, as long as they cause no harm to other people. But when we are not neutral in this kind of a situation and we get negative feelings about a person that simply means we have some internal issues that are not being solved. We can learn a lot about ourselves by observing who we hate or dislike. Thoroughly asking ourselves why we hate or dislike someone can tell us a lot about ourselves.

• Self-reflection

Self-reflection means that once per week, you take an hour or more to reflect on your goals, behavioral patterns, negative and positive emotions and everything else that is happening in your life. It’s even better to do this daily, by keeping a journal.  Nevertheless, you can have great breakthroughs by knowing yourself.  Having a persona coach is also a viable option to help you with self-reflection. You are always very biased when judging yourself and others. It’s a no-brainer that you judge others much more strictly and that you are indulgent towards yourself. An honest and tough, but fair, coach could greatly contribute towards more realistic reflection.

• Your environment

Your outer world is merely a reflection of your inner world. At some point, when becoming an adult, you choose almost all elements of your environment. Besides analyzing people, analyzing your environment can reveal a lot about your personality and who you are. Everything around you reveals small parts of your character and who you are. Analyze it carefully. You can help yourself with all the elements of life strategy.

• Ask other people

The next technique for getting to know yourself better is simply asking other people. We all love praise and hate criticism. Thus we have to prepare ourselves for good and bad feedback, as long as it’s constructive and fair. The good thing is that we can usually learn much more from the negative than the positive feedback. Ask people to give you feedback. The more feedback, the more angles, the more ways to improve, so you can ask your friends, coworkers, spouse, parents, kids etc. for feedback about yourself.

• Listen to your inner voice

If you really want to be happy and successful you always have to be in touch with your true self and your inner voice. The problem is that you already somehow lose touch with yourself and there is too much noise out there because of all the interactive devices, tasks and other activities. Rather than listening to ourselves and our true desires, we tend to behave according to the society’s expectations. Get to know yourself, always do regular reflections and stay connected to your inner voice and true self. It will improve the quality of your life.

Do you have other suggestions on how you can get to know yourself? Please share your thoughts with us.