Mankind’s most enigmatic question, spanning every century, culture and continent is, “Who am I?” Those three words, which appear deceptively simple, have intrigued and perplexed humanity.
This question becomes tortuous, both for ourselves and for those around us, during adolescence. At that time, as we struggle to cope with many new feelings, we also grapple with who we are and who we want to become.
Although the need for self-knowledge is perhaps most pressing during adolescence, the effort to clearly define ourselves is a never-ending process. The author Laura Riding once expressed the need for self-knowledge this way: “Until the missing story or ourselves is told, nothing besides told can suffice us: we shall go on quietly craving it.”
In the ancient Greek society, oracles provided explanations, advice, wisdom, and predictions to commoners and royalty alike. Perhaps the most famous and long-lived oracular pronouncement was one issued by the oracle at Delphi: Know thyself.
Unfortunately, the enigmatic oracle failed to tell us where we can find this knowledge or even what it is, exactly. After all, if we don’t know what something is, how will we be able to recognize it if we stumble across it?
There are some specific steps you can take to uncover who you really are, starting with your own limitations. While we don’t like to admit to having limitations, the fact is not all of us can be an Albert Einstein or an Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is why knowing what your own limitations are, is critical to being able to take maximum advantage of your gifts, skills and abilities and maximizing them for personal and financial gain.
Knowing your own limitations helps ensure that you don’t exceed your grasp. It helps you avoid situations that you are not good at. For example, if you are shy, not very aggressive, don’t like working directly with the public, and lack self-confidence, then you shouldn’t take a sales job.
Knowing who you really are involves taking an honest and accurate self-assessment of all your personal skills. Look at yourself and list all of your strengths and weaknesses. Take a complete inventory of yourself. The key here is for you to be honest and not just tell yourself what you want to hear.
Another important step in your journey toward self-knowledge is setting goals. Setting clear, measurable and realistic goals help you to know your limitations and reach your potential. Self knowledge is about knowing where you want to go and what you want out of life and that’s what having goals, is all about.
You need to set short, intermediate and long-term goals. They must be written down, measurable and have a deadline. Goals need to be challenging enough so that you feel good when you accomplish them, and hard enough so that you are encouraged to improve your skills and to keep trying harder to reach them. There has to be a balance.
Another important and perhaps the most important step in your journey toward self-knowledge is knowing what you believe in, what your code of ethics is. You need to have a core set of values, an internal navigation system as opposed to just an external navigation system. The external navigation system is the laws and the rules by which you must live. An internal navigation system is your personal values.
Life provides each of us with a unique set of opportunities and every action you take is a reflection of who you are, and it’s important that you always act in accordance with your core values. Here are five criteria for identifying your core values:
1.-A core value is something you have chosen freely and with consideration for the consequences of your choice.
2.-A core value is something you prize greatly and that has a positive influence on your life.
3.-A core value is something you want to publicly affirm.
4.-A core value is something you are willing to act on.
5.-A core value is something you would repeat. That is, if a particular situation came up again, you’d respond the same way.
A fourth step in your journey toward self-knowledge is getting feedback from others. Ask others who know you and that will be honest with you to give you feedback as to what you say and do in certain situations.
Seek out the opinions of your parents, friends, siblings and your coworkers and ask for their honest feedback. As you ask others to help you shed light on yourself, you may find that they will tell you something you don’t want to hear. The process of learning about ourselves can be painful when we uncover less-than-desirable traits.
Many of us have a built-in self-protective mechanism that shields us from seeing unpleasant aspects of ourselves. But on the road to self-knowledge, we must short-circuit these defense mechanisms and be cognizant of the bad as well as the good in our personalities.
Experience is yet another important step in your journey toward self-knowledge. Assessing your experiences is one of the surest ways to learn more about yourself. The key is to take time to reflect upon events in your life, both past and present.
Self-Knowledge is an accumulative process that increases as you have more experience. Generally, older people have more accurate self-perceptions and self-concepts than younger people, just because they’ve been around longer. And they’ve been in more situations and had more feedback.
The journey to self-knowledge is unique for each of us but it’s a journey that every person needs to take. People who really know themselves well will place fewer limitations on what they can do. They are more willing to experiment and to risk failure. Therefore, they are people who will accomplish more in life.
The journey toward self-knowledge is the most satisfying one you will ever take. Make the commitment today to educate yourself, in you.
Copyright©2007 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.
Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and success coaching programs. He is the founder and CEO of JLM & Associates, a consulting and training organization, specializing in career coach training. Through his seminars and lectures, Joe Love addresses thousands of men and women each year, including the executives and staffs of many businesses around the world, on the subjects of leadership, achievement, goals, strategic business planning, and marketing. Joe is the author of three books, Starting Your Own Business, Finding Your Purpose In Life, and The Guerrilla Marketing Workbook.