Understand Yourself

Do you understand yourself?
Do you know what you want?
Do you know why you act certain ways?
Do you ever talk to yourself?

Can you answer all those questions?

You may think, “Why the heck is this dude asking all these question? He crazy…”
Or you may think, “Only crazy people talk to themselves? This guy’s crazy…”

Hear me out. I want you to understand the importance and the need to get in touch with the self. Take a look around you, these days people seem to be so busy that they never pause for a moment to get to know themselves. They’re so busy with life. They work all the time. They drive to and from work, angry with traffic or thinking about work, or stressing about life. They study and study to obtain some degress or certicates that may move them further in career. When they don’t do those, they sit and watch TV, go on a shopping spree, talking on the phones for hours, listening to iPods, so basically, filling every void possible in their time.

Let me pop another question, “So what’s the most common reason for relationship breakdown?”
This should get your attention.

I would have to say it’s the lack of communication or miscommunication.

Girlfriend/Boyfriend/Wife/Husband: I thought you know what I meant. -OR- Why couldn’t you do this? -OR- I thought we are going to do xxxxx.
The other half: You never told me. -OR- We never talked about it. -OR- You didn’t explicitly say it.

Fit in any scenario in the above example, be it scenario where ones does the wrong thing, or both persons share different outlook in life, or both persons have different spending habits… These are common themes in conflicts that bring relationship to an end when the couple finally realizes the difference without prior communication and understanding to allow solutions and compromises to keep the relationship going. That’s why it is important to get to know each others. It goes for any relationship.

You can translate that into business scenario. Usually when employer and employee terminate their relationship is when one side or both sides cease to listen and understand the other sides, therefore, they no longer can fulfill the needs and expectation of the other side inthe relationship. Perhaps the employer is not getting the work he wants done. Perhaps the employee is not getting the opportunity he wants. Either way, when such problems persist for a long time without communication to solve them, one will fire the other.

You should get my point of the importance for communication in relationship now.

The same thing can happen to the individual person. What happens if I don’t establish communication with myself? Unlike those other relationships, I terminate my relationship with myself. I can’t separate from myself unless I commit suicide, but let’s not go there. So what happens next?

If I never really get to know myself, I will wonder in life aimlessly. I may wake up, go to work or school, eat, sleep, what some TV or play some video games perhaps, do what I am “supposed” to do, do what I need to fulfill my basic needs to survive, or do what satisfies the family’s expection. And that will be it. Then the day repeats itself.

I will be disconnected from myself. I will not know what I want to do. I will not know my priorities. My action will be out of sync from the person I truly am, or who I aspired to be deep down. The more action I perform that does not represent my true self, the further away I am from reality. I will live a life that is not one that I want. Because I don’t do what I want. Because I don’t know what I want. Because I don’t take the moment to think for myself, to talk to myself to understand what are the things that have meanings for me and the priorities in my life. I will do things that are not meaningful to me and some end up hurting myself, like how people hurt each other in relationship when they don’t know what each other wants. I will do stupid things. I will accomplish nothing, just as a relationship will go nowhere when communication ceases to exist.

Consequently, we need to get in touch with ourselves. We need to understand ourselves by continuous self-evaluation and self-discovery. With understanding, we know what we need to change and work on for ourselves. Below are 3 points for you to think about that should help you to get to know yourself.

Define short-term goals

Be it financial goal, change of life-style, exercise routine, develop a new hobby. Do something you WANT to do. Start doing it and stay persistent. Don’t give up after several weeks or months. Instead, slowly involve that as a part of your life.

Have long term goals

This maybe a little more difficult to define specifically, especially if you are young, like myself. Pay attention to what you like and don’t like to do in your job. Think about the way you want to live that you want 5-10 years down the road. What kind career? Having a family? Becoming a home owner? Starting your own business? Moving to another city/country? Something you can do to help others in the world? Basically have a vision of what you see yourself doing in the long haul. Find your passion.

Begin with the end in mind

This comes from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habis of Highly Effective People and for me, this is one of the strongest messages from the book. The defines the ideal person you want to become in life. This is your personal statement for your life. Think about when you died, how others would react? (Sad…Excited…!?!?) What kind of person will they think of you are? (A good father…A good husband…A great teacher…) What would they recall you doing? (Stepping over people to get your way…Always helpling people…) What attributes will the associate with you? (Optimistic…Passionate…Hateful…?) What did they learn from you that will carry on into further generations? It is not what they think that matters, but if you answer these, you will have defined the person you want to be, and you can spend time and effort working toward it everyday day through your life. Make a list and stick to it. Of course, this list can evolve as you go through life and gain new experience.

Enough questions for one day. Also plenty of thinking for one day, if you care. You do care, don’t you? You did finish reading up to here. That proves something :) So onto the finale.

Take step, no matter how small

All these ideas and personal development are not a one day process but a life long process. Taking small steps everyday, however far, or little, each step takes us, is the only way. Make the choice to take the first step. Make the choice to get to know yourself. By beginning with the end in mind, you will have defined the ideal person you want to be. Then hereafter, make the choice take each step, one after the other, spending your effort accomplish your ideal self.

Originally posted 2007-11-11 22:46:29. Republished by Blog Post Promoter