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Think about all of the people who have come and gone from your life.  (It’s a lot, isn’t it?)  Have you ever tried to stop an important person in your life from going?  Maybe your best friend at work has accepted a new job and you are worried that you will be lonely.  Or, your long-distance boyfriend or girlfriend has decided that the distance has become too much and they want to end the relationship even though their feelings for you haven’t changed.

When we feel the need for growth in our lives, this sometimes distances us (in a variety of ways) from our current relationships.  It’s not that we want to get away from these people, it’s just that the growth we are looking for requires us to go.

Just as you need space in your life to grow, so do others.  Instead of resisting the loss of people in your life, understand that just as you have a desire to go new places and have new experiences so do they.  Learn to let go of others when it’s their time to go.

We Expect The World To Conform To Us

We often expect that the external world (including the people in our life) will conform to us.  When it doesn’t, we get upset.  This is a silly way to think, but we do it anyways because we don’t like the uncertainty that it brings.

Instead of expecting the world to conform to you, try adapting yourself to the world.  This includes the relationships in your life.  When someone does something that you don’t like, remember that it’s not all about you.  Let that person do what they need to do.  You would appreciate the same from someone else.  This simply means to grant your unconditional support to this person’s needs and wants, even when (especially when) it’s something that affects you.

Growth Requires A Journey

You need to take your journey, and others need to take theirs.  It’s inevitable that growing into a sense of self will require change at certain points.  Don’t stand in the way of other’s journeys.  How would you feel if someone tried to block your own journey?  In fact, you probably already know what this feels like.

Let Others Be As They Are

In our relationships, we often try to control the characteristics of the other person.  Have you been in a relationship where someone wanted to change who you were?  Have you been in a relationship where you wanted to change someone else?  Almost everyone will agree that this almost never works and feels terrible.  When you acknowledge that another person always has the free choice to be who they are - wherever that takes them - you give them a gift.

When you let someone be as they are, the gratitude this person feels towards you will never be replaced.  You have allowed this person to be what they need to be, and acknowledged their inherent value as they are.

Last Thoughts…

It’s sad when others leave us.  But, remember, just as people leave our lives, others enter it.  You don’t have to be afraid of your own growth, and you don’t have to be afraid of other people’s growth.

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Do you know what’s going to happen to you tomorrow?  The answer to this question is inevitably “No.”  Even if you have the best plans and schedules, you can’t predict for sure what’s going to happen.

So how do you deal with uncertainty?  By accepting it.

Uncertainty is Stressful (But it doesn’t have to be)

Letting uncertainty happen is stressful.  It scares us when we don’t know what’s going to happen because we imagine all kinds of bad and undesirable things that might occur.  We feel that we can’t leave too much up to chance.  But when we try to eliminate all uncertainty, not only do we block out the bad stuff that could happen we also block out the good things that could happen - things that we never guessed might occur.

When you make your plans too rigid you limit yourself to past experiences and those things that you can imagine happening.  But what about all the things that could happen that you can’t imagine? That’s where you miss out.  Allowing some uncertainty keeps you open to things that you never could have guessed would happen.  Some of those things may not be pleasant, but some of those things are opportunities that will take you in a direction you didn’t know existed.

Uncertainty Increases Possibility and Creativity

Living with uncertainty increases Possibility and Creativity in your life.  Possibility when you are open to experiences that you never had before and creativity when you adapt to circumstances you never thought would happen.  You need these things because they increase your opportunity for growth.  When you have a goal that you are trying to reach you can’t imagine exactly how you might get there, and when you try to plan for everything that might happen you limit your experiences.

It’s usually not what’s straight ahead of us that is really rewarding, it’s the things we notice from the periphery.  But if we are focused exclusively on what’s straight ahead of us, we tend not to notice things on the side, and those are missed opportunities.

Life on Replay

We want to know what’s going to happen to us because we will then know how to act, but the only things that we know are those things that have already happened to us, and essentially, when we always want the known, we live exclusively in the past.  This means that are lives are simply being lived on “Replay.”

Besides, we can’t ever really control everything even when we try to.  We are adapting to circumstances constantly - whether we want to or not.  So the choice is whether you will gracefully accept what comes to you or whether you will go kicking and screaming all the way.

“Without uncertainty and the unknown, life is just the stale repetition of outworn memories.” -  Deepak Chopra, from “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success”

Start Small

Begin to challenge your uncertainty threshold by spending time in an uncontrolled, unplanned-out, unstructured environment.  You don’t have to do it in an environment where things really matter, like at work.  But the next time you have a day, or an afternoon or an hour to spare, just see what happens rather than deciding what you want and making a plan to get there.  Next time you work on your hobby don’t have any goals, go off and explore a new part of your city, a hiking trail, a park, or just decide to follow your whims for a certain amount of time.  The point is not to try to get anywhere.

Always trying to control is a fruitless activity.  It causes stress and discomfort because the Universe has a way of doing what it wants and not what we want.  Practicing uncertainty can help to alleviate the stress that you feel when you have to adapt to a circumstance that you did not plan.

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Do you find yourself feeling harried and rushed throughout the day?  Are you desperate to rest, but can’t seem to sit still?  Does it seem that there is a never ending stream of activity that you must respond to? 

This is an uncomfortable way to exist, but once you get started it’s hard to leave it behind.  How do you leave it behind?  Come back to your “Center” regularly.

Your Center Is A Focal Point For Your Life

Your center is a place within you that is always accessible.  You can find peace of mind here because it’s where your Self lives.  This is not the self that is identified with a job, or a school or a relationship.  It’s just you, stripped away of all unnecessary things.  You may not be sure how to find this, but there is a way to get there.

Often, the roles that we carry with us in life start to become the source of our identity.  But if you’ve ever been out of work, or just graduated from school, or have just ended a relationship (or maybe all three at the same time!) you know that these events can make you feel like the ground has fallen from under your feet.  Or that your life no longer has anything to revolve around (a center), and you can start feeling aimless and without purpose. 

Luckily, none of our external roles is really our true identity.  If you can return again and again to your true central point, when you switch roles it won’t feel so traumatic because you know that no matter what you are doing, no matter what roles you have, you are always standing on solid ground.

Your Center Is Where Your Self Lives

Philosophers, psychologists and many others have tried to define what the Self is, only to come up with just as many definitions.  I like to think of the Self as all of those qualities and characteristics that make you unique.  Even though there are many similiarities in the human experience there is also something that makes each individual different from one another, and that’s your Self - the qualities that make you different.  Even though these qualities can mature, change and grow over the years, there is also something about them that stays the same.  Your Self is a dynamic core.

Finding Your Center Involves 3 Things

It doesn’t take much, but it does require time and attention, plus a few things that facilitate the process.

Silence - In order to go to your center you have to eliminate the noise around you.  Silence cuts out the distraction and sets the tone.  This may feel boring at first, or make you feel restless.  But there are many things to learn in silence.  Even though it lacks sound, it can be one of the loudest teachers in your life.  You may be very interested in what you find.

Space - I’ve talked about finding a space for reflection before, but basically it’s a place where you feel comfortable and peaceful and has meaning to you.  What space allows you to easily find yourself?  (It’s not necessarily physical.)

Meditation - Meditation can help you practice leaving distraction behind in order to focus on a center.  When you meditate your mind will wander.  The process of continually bringing your attention back to your focal point (breath, body part, mantra, etc.) mirrors the process of bringing yourself back to center.  There will always be distractions, but you can always bring yourself back to your focal point.

Last Thoughts…

When you get to your center you should feel aware, clear, peaceful, optimistic and in touch with Life.  One of the most important effects of coming back to center is perspective - namely, knowing what’s important and what’s not.  It’s hard to have perspective when you are constantly distracted - that’s why it tends to be a reactive state of mind.  If you can come back to your center regularly you’ll never get completely lost.  Just temporarily distracted.

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Do you ever reach a point in the day when you feel like you just can’t think anymore?  Do you want to exercise more during the week but find it inconvenient to do so?  Are you too tired and stressed to hit the gym or go running after work?  If so, consider taking a walk.

Even though walking may seem slow and not painful enough to bring you any real benefits, walking is an activity that is not only beneficial, but can provide several benefits at once.  Next time you need a break or some exercise, take a walk.  Not everything needs to be punishment.

Walking is Good Exercise

It’s not going to put you in the same kind of shape as an Olympic athlete, but if you are someone looking for a general level of fitness and the health benefits that come along with that, walking is a great activity.  For instance, if you went out for a walk on your lunch break at work and walked at a moderate pace (3 mph) on a level surface, you would burn 136 calories (for a 130 lb person).  How many calories do you burn if you meant to go running, but were too tired to go?

Walking is Convenient

One of my favorite things about walking is that it does not require me to change my clothes (if I’m walking at a light/moderate pace).  This makes it a great activity to do at work or any other time when I have a spare 15 minutes.  Also, walking can be done in a lot of settings.  You can walk outside around your office building, you can walk in the mall, you can walk up stairs, or you can walk to the store.  Not to mention that your feet are actually a form of transportation.  If you live in an area that supports it, walking to get to where you need to go kills two birds with one stone.

Walking Brings Peace of Mind and Great Insights

If you are looking for a mental break in your daily routine, walking is peaceful and relaxing.  If you are walking outside - which I highly recommend as much as possible - being around nature has a way of changing your perspective.  That project that you are worried about, the one that you have no idea how to get started on, it suddenly seems much clearer to you.  Walking is also used as a form of meditation.  I don’t know why it works, but when you are alone and moving on autopilot (hopefully you don’t have to think about putting one foot in front of the other ) creative thoughts and insights just seem to come to you.

“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”  Friedrich Nietzsche

Last Thoughts…

If you are a runner and you love to run and you find it beneficial, then don’t stop.  But, if you are a runner and you find yourself making excuses for why you can’t (read:  don’t want to) run or you hate running to begin with or you’re just looking for some peace and calm, consider walking.  You can burn calories, spend time in nature, and become more mindful all at the same time while taking a break from work.  No pain, all gain.

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“Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgement will be surer.  Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.”  - Leonardo da Vinci

Do you think that you get enough rest in your life?  I don’t just mean sleep either, although that’s part of it.  I simply mean downtime, time to relax and rejuvenate, time to think and just meander along. 

We like schedules.  We like color-coded schedules.  We are great doers, but not so great resters.  But, activity is most productive when followed by rest.  Activity and rest go together like Night and Day - you can’t have one without the other.  Constantly doing from 6am to Midnight is actually the same thing as laying around from 6am to Midnight.  How would you feel if the Sun never went down?  Or if it was dark all the time?

The Art of Resting

The following activities are essential for mastering the art of resting.  How many of these do you excel at?  Actually, don’t worry about it - it’s rest, right?

• Eating- Technically, shoving a sandwich in your face at your desk while you answer emails is eating, as is snacking from a bag of chips while lounging on your sofa watching TV.  However, truly enjoyable eating involves actually tasting your food as well as fueling your body.  Not every meal has to be 5 courses and last for hours, but following a few steps will make your meals much more pleasant.  Sit down (or stand, depending) at a table.  Eat slower.  Notice what you are tasting.  Preferably, eat with other people.
• Playing - Get a hobby or two, and when you spend time on your hobby, do so in a playful way.  Don’t make any goals - just see where the activity takes you.  Or, if you have to make a goal, make it to simply explore.  You’ll find yourself being more creative and enjoying yourself more.  Playing is not just for kids. 
• Napping - Find a couch or a bed or a sunny spot on the floor.  Lie down.  Fall asleep.
• Strolling - Walking is a great way to rest.  But not brisk walking, just strolling.  When you stroll you notice things that you don’t normally pay attention to, and the methodical movement is helpful for putting your mind at rest.  Also, strolling outside brings you in contact with nature, where you can get some perspective.
• Conversing - Conversation doesn’t have to be about the meaning of life or any other deep philosophical topics to be pleasant and restful, just an enjoyable exchange of information and thoughts.  Also, a conversation requires skillful listening as well as skillful talking.  See if you can listen to what the other person is saying without thinking of what you are going to say next. 
• Meandering - Take some time to simply let yourself flit from one activity to another.  Water the plants in your house, rearrange the book shelf a bit, play with the dog or cat for a few minutes.  Move from one activity to the next without thinking much about it.  Just see what catches your attention.
• Sitting - Sitting is really the epitome of resting.  You could sit near a window and watch whatever is outside, you could focus on your breathing (not necessarily in meditation, but that works too), but the idea of sitting is not to do anything and not even to necessarily think anything.  Sometimes we can put our bodies to rest, but our minds tend to keep spinning their wheels.

What other activities do you think are essential for quality rest?  What do you find yourself wanting to do when you need to rest?

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Have you ever done something and then thought to yourself, “Why did I do that”?  Have you ever wondered to yourself how you will ever get to where you want to be, or even where it is that you want to be?

Taking the time to properly reflect on your life is a practice that will help you understand yourself.  Not taking the time to reflect is like going through life with your eyes closed - voluntarily blind.

Spend some time on a regular basis reflecting on your life.  Here are some things you need to do that.

Find the Right Environment

First and foremost, every good reflector knows that the environment in which you reflect is extremely important.  Since you are spending time with yourself it needs to be private.  Generally, it also needs to be quiet and physically comfortable for you.

You need a space where you can always come back to your self.  This space doesn’t necessarily need to be physical, although it could be that your space is a room in your house or in another building, or a place out in nature, or a basketball court where you go to shoot hoops (alone), but it could also be a certain time of day or having certain objects around you that evoke certain feelings.

Wherever or whatever this space is, it just needs to be a place where you can have a  productive meeting with you.

Ask Yourself Questions

Now that you have the right environment to be with yourself, you can start with the substance of reflection.  Question yourself.  If you want to keep this very simple there are only two questions you need to ask:  What is going well for me?  What is not going well for me?  Another way of asking these questions is to ask:  What have I done that energizes me? What have I done that takes energy away from me?

When you reflect, do so on a certain time period.  If you are reflecting everyday, examine the past day of your life.  If you are doing this every week, then you would use the past week.  Apply your questions to the time period. 

You could also use this time to create goals or check in on your progress on already existing goals.  You could create a set a questions that you ask yourself every time you reflect that are more detailed than the two above.

If you are a less structured kind of person you could simply use this time to “free associate.”  Ask yourself the above two questions and see where your thoughts lead you.  Or you could spend time visualizing the attainment of your goals or how you would like your life to look.

Most of all, notice how you feel as you look back on certain aspects of your life or when you are checking in with your goals or when you are visualizing your ideal life.  Your feelings can tell you a lot about what you need to change and what you need to stick with.

Record Your Thoughts

What do you do with the information that you receive about yourself?  Record it.  Many people record their reflections in a journal, but writing is not the only way to record your reflections.  You could make a video of yourself or record yourself, you could paint, draw, or sculpt.  You could probably even dance or do something else physical.  Put your reflection in a form that has meaning to you.

Recording what you learn is just a way of giving physical form to your thoughts and feelings.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be a record you can go back to, although it could be.

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Have you ever asked yourself what you wanted out of life?  What was the answer you got?  Was there a clear image of what you wanted to do, be and have that you felt strongly about?  Or were there vague ideas that you weren’t sure how you felt about?

It seems that knowing what you want should be easy.  I mean, you’re the only one who can really know the answer to this question, so you should be able to answer it, right?

In reality, this is not a question anyone can answer without some thought and without some trial and error.  If you want to know what you want you have to go looking for it, it doesn’t just come to you wrapped up in a neat little package.

If you have asked yourself what you want and you truthfully don’t know, don’t worry, you’re just like everyone else, and you can begin to take some steps to figure out what that is.

Start Where You Are Dissatisfied

If you are unsure of what you want, you probably have a good idea of what you don’t want.  In what areas of your life are you disatisfied?  This is the first “call to action.”  Do you hate your job?  Are you unsure if the relationship you are in is right for you?  Do you not like how far you have to commute?  Is the city you live in just not appealing to you?  Whatever it is, dissatisfaction is usually not that hard to spot.

Be (brutally) honest with yourself about how you got to this point.  What have you done, or not done, that lead you to where you are right now?  How did you get here and why did you get here? 

Also, what is it about the things you are disatisfied with that you don’t like?  Figure that out and then begin to replace these things with what you might like.

What Do You Think You Want?

Now that you’ve taken some time to think about where you are disatisfied in your life, how can you be more satisfied?  Use your self awareness to think of some things you might want instead of what you now have.  Remember, you won’t know for sure if you really want it until you’ve tried it, but you’ve got to start someplace.

A really good place to begin is simply to ask yourself what you have the most desire to do.  Go with what you are drawn to.  Even if it doesn’t work out exactly like you thought it would you will probably learn something valuable in the process.  You are attracted to certain things for a reason.  Go figure out what that reason is.  No matter what you find you will learn something about your self.

“It is our business to go as we are impelled.”  -  D.H. Lawrence

Try Things You Think You Want

You are not going to know what you want for sure until you try it.  This is a trial and error process.  But you’ll always get something out of it because everything that you learn about yourself can be added to your self awareness.  The more knowledge about your self that you have, the better predictions you will make about what you want.  Self awareness is a process that you can always refine.  Keep track of what you are learning about yourself.  This is valuable information.

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“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.”  -  William Shakespeare

How many times have you done something only because you thought you were going to get something from it, and then didn’t get what you thought you would?  Did you feel that this was a waste of your time and energy?

Think about what you typically do on a daily basis.  How many of these things do you do simply for the sake of doing them?  And, how many of these things do you do only to get an external reward?

It’s not a bad thing to engage in an activity only to get a reward (I mean, we all have to eat and have a place to live, right?).  But, engaging in more activities that you enjoy simply for the sake of doing them will ultimately make your days that much more worthwhile.  If the reward is simply the activity itself then you always get something out of it.

In his book “Creativity:  Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention,” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discussed two types of activity:  autotelic and exotelic.  Autotelic activity is activity you do for the sheer enjoyment of the activity itself.  Exotelic activity is activity you do in order to get at some external reward.  Most activities in life are exotelic, rather than autotelic.

Seeking Enjoyment For It’s Own Sake

How do you find activities that you enjoy simply for the sake of doing them?  You might already know what they are.  If that’s the case, make room for them in your life, make them a priority.  Especially when your days are filled with things that you have to do, taking the time to do something you love isn’t just important, it’s a necessity.

And what about if you’re not sure what brings you joy for it’s own sake.  This isn’t that hard.  Just ask yourself - What do I have the greatest desire to do?  Follow your desire and you are sure to find something that you are not only very good at, but love to do for its own sake.   

“If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.”  -  Katherine Hepburn

Seeking Enjoyment In Things You Have To Do

This one is a bit more difficult, but in a way, more important as there are many things you have to do, but don’t enjoy doing.  Think about the goals you have for your life or personal qualities you possess and look at the activity from that perspective.  For instance, if you hate to vacuum the floor and clean the bathroom, but you are trying to be more mindfull and meditate regularly, you can do the chores mindfully and use it as a type of meditation.  If you are a very competetive person and you have a repetitive task to do at work you can see how fast you can do the activity or how you can do it the best.

Connect the activity to something about yourself and it will never be a waste of action, it will always be a learning experience.

Quality Of Experience

Why is an autotelic activity preferable to an exotelic activity?  Simply because of the way that you feel when engaged in the activity.  When Csikszentmihalyi studied people that who did things they enjoyed but did not get rewarded for them, he found that these people were motivated by the “quality of experience they felt when they were involved with the activity.” (Creativity:  Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, p. 110)

People have asked many times over - What is the key to happiness?  And, the answer to this question is usually the attainment of some situation, object, circumstance or goal.  People often define happiness in terms of the future, but neglect their present experience. 

The quality of our experiences, while we might not be directly aware of it in the moment, go a long way towards how we feel about our day, our week, our year, our life.  Seeking out activities that give us a certain “quality of experience” may not be the only key to happiness, but certainly contributes to it in a way that many other things don’t.

“They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.”  -  Kahlil Gibran

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We don’t like to wait.  For anything.  Not in line, not in traffic, and not even for things we’d like to have in our lives.  We believe it’s always better to take action than to wait around for things to happen.  But, when does taking action start to hurt you, and waiting start to help?

Have you ever had a vision of something that you wanted really bad?  But, instead of getting that thing, you took the first thing that came along resembling it?  Maybe you felt your vision was a little far-fetched, maybe it was just going to take too long to get there, but whatever it was, you just didn’t want to wait, so you settled for something that was “good enough” but not great.

Patience is considered too passive for our action-oriented society.  But patience is simply the appreciation of the right action at the right time, combined with the understanding that you don’t run the Universe.  Your true goals often take time to be realized, but are you abandoning them simply because you don’t want to wait?

What is Patience?

When things are not happening fast enough for you or in the way that you want them to happen, and you try to force them to, that is impatience.  So, patience is, first, an acknowledgement that we don’t control everything and we need to be adaptable.  And, second, it’s the combination of knowing what action we need to take with the acceptance of external circumstances that we have to work around.

Basically, patience is waiting for the right time to take action and knowing that it might be a slow process.

“Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.”  -  Barbara Johnson

Being Patient Has it’s Rewards, Namely, Getting What You Want

We often want to rush things in our lives.  What we want to happen is not happening fast enough for us.  We fear it might never happen.  So we try to control everything around us.  And, we try to do it very fast.  But when you try to force things, you seem to get further from what you want.  You are trying, and trying and not getting anywhere.  It’s like being on a treadmill - yes, you’re moving, but you’re still in the same place. 

There’s a catch to getting what you want out of life - it doesn’t always happen at the pace you would like it to.  But, instead of abandoning your original goal, realize that you may not be prepared for what you want at this time, and there are additional steps necessary in order to reach that thing you want.  Take your time with the steps, and know that they are leading you towards what you want.

“He that can have Patience, can have what he will.”  -  Benjamin Franklin

How to Be More Patient

Being patient has more to do with changing your thoughts than your behavior.  Here are some ways to change your thinking so that you can wait patiently.

Feel Strongly About What You Want - In order to be patient you’ve got to keep your goal in mind.  The stronger that you feel about the goal the better.  Be motivated by the thought that if you can wait long enough you can have exactly what you want in the way that you’ve pictured it.

Remember to Act With What You Have - Patience doesn’t just involve idle waiting, it also involves the right actions.  When picturing your goal - even if it seems very far away - ask yourself what you can do now and then do it.  Everything you need for your next move you already have, since you can only act with the resources that are around you now.  It can’t be any other way.

Realize that there is a Risk Involved - The risk is that you may wait and wait and never actually achieve your goal.  You have to accept this as a possibility, while still believing that you will achieve the outcome you desire.  This paradox allows you to do what you need to do while distancing yourself from the outcome (which you really don’t control).

Have Confidence in Passive Activity - Though patience is a passive process (you are being acted upon, rather than acting upon something), it is also active in that it has direction and purpose.  Patience is not sitting around wondering when great things are going to happen to you.  It is knowing when to wait and when to act and why.

Have Faith in Uncertainty- Most of all, patience requires a faith that uncertain times will benefit you.  It is to do what you know you can, while not knowing exactly what will happen.  Opportunities you never imagined can suddenly appear where you least expect them.

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“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”  - Joseph Campbell

“Be Yourself” is a popular piece of advice.  Everyone likes to hear it, yet what does it really mean?  The Ancient Greeks said to “Know Thyself,” but why is it so important to know who you are?  The concept of Self is not that clear, yet we all seem to sense a pattern of qualities, traits and characteristics that are completely one’s own. 

How do you come to know who you are?  This seems to be a silly question as you spend every minute of your life with yourself, yet we can still be astonishingly ignorant about who we really are.

And when you arrive at knowledge about yourself, what do you do with it?  How does this knowledge help you through life? 

Self knowledge is the foundation of any fulfilling life, because with knowledge rooted in your Self you can take powerful action towards the life you wish to create.  Taken all together - knowledge of self, powerful action, and imagined life outcome - this is Self Awareness.

“Ninety percent of the world’s woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues.  Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves.”  -  Sydney J. Harris

Look Within Yourself

When searching for self knowledge, look for patterns and trends in your behavior, thoughts, and emotions that have held up over time, even if they don’t look exactly the same at different points in your life.  Here are some things you can look for:

• Proclivities
• Underlying Fears
• Underlying Motivations
• Underlying Goals
• Environmental Preferences
• Personality Preferences
• Values
• Likes/Dislikes/Loves
• Strengths/Weaknesses

How do you find these things?  Through reflection and through paying attention to what you are doing.  Take some time on a regular basis to think back on what you have done in your daily life and ask yourself these questions:  “What was I doing”? and “How did I feel while doing it”? 

Also, practice asking yourself these questions while you are going about your day.  Begin to notice what you are doing and how you feel about it while it is happening.

“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart…. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” - Carl Jung

Look at Yourself from Without

It may seem that self knowledge only involves looking within yourself, when, in fact, it also involves looking at yourself from the perspective of others.  Looking only inwards is like driving a car without peripheral vision or mirrors.  You can drive straight ahead, but won’t know how to react to something coming at you from the sides or rear.  Sooner or later you’re going to crash the car. 

Do you know how people see you?  Are you communicating to people what you think you are communicating?  Imagine yourself sitting across the table from you.  Literally, imagine yourself out of body staring at yourself.  What do you see?  What is your facial expression like?  How are you dressed?  Body language?  Tone of voice?  What is your impression of this person sitting in front of you? 

Also, notice how people react to you.  Do people often react in a way that puzzles you?  Did you get a reaction you didn’t expect?  Do people seem to take what you say or do in a way you didn’t intend?  Reflect back on the situation after it has happened.  Again, watch the situation from the perspective of a third party and observe how others are reacting to you.

If you cannot see what you look like to others, you cannot direct your action appropriately and can never use the knowledge you have gained.

Act Powerfully

Action that is based on self knowledge is powerful action because it has roots in who you are.  Taking action that is rooted is always better than rootless action because it has a strong foundation.  When you take powerful action you not only know what to do, but why to do it, and knowing why to do something is dependent upon knowing what you’d like the outcome to be.

On the other hand, rootless action is not powerful because the consequences are completely up to chance.  Instead of being proactive, you are simply reacting to the situations around you, because you don’t have a good idea of where you’d like to go.  Your action has ”what,” but no “why.” 

The active creation of your life is an incredibly rewarding experience, and is really never finished.  Essentially, using your self knowledge, you imagine the life you want to have and direct your action towards that.   Although you can’t control everything that happens to you (external forces are acting on us all the time), you can actively take part in the aspects that you have more control over.

There is no such thing as a “successful life” that is not relative to your Self.  Each of us has our own idea of what a fulfilling life would be, we just have to figure out what that is.  Creating a life is not as simple as going to the ”Choose a Life Website” and picking the features that seem the coolest.  There is a very specific way in which each of us will live fulfilled, and without self knowledge you will never know what that is.

“A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get into accord with them, for they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.”  - Sigmund Freud

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