Who are you? Have you ever gotten to know yourself?
If you’ve been a “people pleaser” or “love addict” like me, you’ve seen that we spend a lot of time thinking about others, but not even a fraction of that time thinking about ourselves. However, as you will see time and time again in discussions of healthy love, a person cannot fully appreciate others if they do not know, love, and appreciate themselves.
So how does one go about “knowing oneself”? I recommend the following four approaches to discovering what really makes you tick.
1. What is your Intelligence? Although there are 70 different ways to measure intelligence, some theories are more popular and useful than others. Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences makes knowing yourself easy, with just eight types of intelligence. Teachers like me use this theory in the classroom to show students that we are all smart in different ways. Take one of these tests yourself (Google’s Multiple Intelligence test) to see what your strength might be.
2. What is your personality like? Do you moderate or abstain? Rebel or questioner? Answer these unique questions from happiness and habit expert Gretchen Rubin in the world of psychology.
3. Do you hate yourself? Interrupt the “unworthiness trance” by identifying where it’s really hard on you. Negative self-talk can happen more than you think. As you use these questions, you will discover different areas of your life where you can consider yourself less than. The questions are originally from Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance, and were converted into list format by Morgan Thomas. Visit https://mmorganthomas.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/37/
4. What are your top 5 values? According to Natasha Lindor, life coach, values are what should drive your choice of work, leisure activity, relationships and lifestyle. So how can you dig out what’s really important to you? Google “values”. Look at the top entry. There is a list of 100 words of value. From this list, circle/write down the top ten that are most important to you. Then narrow them down to the five most important values.
And there you have four ways to really know yourself. This article is short, but your work will be detailed. Being clear about who you are means that you can now make better decisions that will bring you more happiness. I can testify that doing these exercises has helped me go from being a codependent abuse victim to a strong, happy, independent woman. I hope it does the same for you.
