Me, Myself and I

Get to know yourself so you can set goals that truly reflect who you are and where you want to be.

A great question to ask yourself is ‘If you woke up tomorrow and everything was perfect, what would be different?’ There are numerous self help guru’s in the world, all of them sprouting great wisdom and many memorable statements and questions. What’s interesting, however, is that the most profound statements are one’s you already know – common sense said in a way that resonates with you at the time.

That’s all well and good, but just how do you figure out who you really are? How do you sift through all the voices telling you who you should be, or what you should be doing, to get to the reality of your own authentic self?

PERCEPTION IS TRUTH

People react to you in the way you present yourself. Of course, we are aware that first appearances really do matter, but it’s not just about your fashion sense. It’s also about the way in which you behave – the unsaid and subtle ways you communicate. When you introduce someone to another person, you’ll usually do an introduction, outlining who or what that person is. The person you’re introducing your companion to will take cues from you about how to respond to that person. For example, if you introduce a friend as ‘the funniest guy you’ve ever met’, the person you’re introducing him to will expect him to be funny. It goes a bit deeper than that though; because his expectation is that the guy will be funny, he will look for things to laugh about, fulfilling the perception that the guy is indeed funny.

It’s the same when you introduce yourself to someone. What do you say about yourself? In whatever way a person perceives you, they will respond towards you within the boundaries of that perception – so, you actually begin to become that person. Perception becomes truth. But, how you present yourself to others has a lot to do with how you perceive yourself in the first place.

And because perception becomes your truth, it’s really important for you to find out who you really are. Most people have a vision of themselves and their future based on what their environment dictates. From family values to societal norms, it’s quite possible that most people aren’t aware of who they really are. If for example, your family believes that you should marry by the age of 27 and have at least two children by the time you’re 30, it’s likely that you’ve set your goals to incorporate that idea; even if that interrupts other goals you may have.

CHANGE THE PERCEPTION

So just how do you figure out who you are? You can’t completely isolate yourself from your background – many of the things that have happened in your life are an important part of your make-up. But being able to isolate your ‘shoulds’ from your ‘absolutes’ is important. Start with something simple life what you eat for breakfast (even if you don’t eat breakfast). Your ‘should’ will be that you must eat breakfast, and that your breakfast should consist of something low GI that will sustain you until at least 11am, it should be healthy and not too fattening. Let’s say it should consist of freshly squeezed orange juice, a poached egg and a slice of low GI health bread, preferably gluten free. But let’s say you don’t actually like eggs, or orange juice, or even toast. That doesn’t mean you have to forgo a healthy breakfast, it just means you’ll need to look at an alternative that you do enjoy. But what about the concept of ‘should eat breakfast’ in the first place. Do you really want to? Does it perhaps suit you better to eat a mid-morning snack? Your choice. You decide.

That may sound like a flippant example, but how many of those small things do you do throughout your day without actually considering whether or not it’s really what you want? Your values are what are important. You may not think that breakfast can be a value, but eating a healthy one does speak into a value of health. So, in finding out who you are, it’s a good idea to look at your values.

In this context, your values are what you judge to be important in your life; the things that drive your behaviour. If you don’t value health, you’ll probably leave breakfast off the menu and munch on a chocolate later in the morning when you feel your energy lagging. Start by listing what’s valuable to you. The questions below should assist you in finding out what you value most.

1.  Where do your thoughts go to most, even when you’re doing other things? Do you think about going overseas all the time? That may mean one of your values is adventure.
2.  What do you bring up in conversation most often?
3.  Where does your energy go? What do you do each day the most?
4.  Look around you – in your personal space such as your desk, car or home. Is there a theme? Do you have pictures of exotic destinations, your children or family, cars? Then consider what those things represent. For example, if its family, does your family represent stability, love, etc. If it’s cars, do they represent wealth or fun?
5.  Consider what you spend your most time doing. Many of us will answer, work. But if something is really important to you, you’ll make the time to do it.
6.  What do you spend the most money on? If you hate paying for certain things, that means they’re probably not important to you.
7.  What’s your area of discipline – what can you always be relied upon to do and to get right (or at least do your very best to get right)?
8.  What long-term goals are the most consistent in your life?

Once you’ve worked out some of the things you value most, you’ll be a lot clearer about who you are. This will help you to set goals and make decisions about your future that fit your unique personality and characteristics.

ACTIVATE TRUTH

Use your values as a filtering system for all your decisions. For example, if family is high on your value list and you get a job offer in Australia, it’s not going to match that value. However, if another one of your values is wealth building and the job is an opportunity to make huge amounts of money, for a two year period, then you can weigh up the decision more clearly – sacrifice some time with your family in order to feed your wealth building value. In that decision process, you can also account for visits home on a regular basis.

Knowing who you are and what drives you really does help you to make decisions that create contentment. You’ll find it easier to move forward if you’re not constantly checking your actions and desires against a set of perceptions that simply don’t fit you.