"Know yourself your own if you want to succeed",is a popular motivational quote that we often hear from successful people who have realized their dreams. Today many people idolize other people. Not infrequently they do anything to be like their idol, I think this is foolish. I do not mean to say that to be like your idol is wrong, it does not mean that you must be that person.
If you are ignorant, or deluding yourself, about what you are really like, you will be held back in your development as a human being because, in effect, you're working blind. You can't really get somewhere unless you have a good idea where you are at the moment.
Many people think more easily solve problems if we become someone else who may have nothing to do with the problems we face. Fame, wealth, position and even all the others have to be something that often makes us want to live like them. Therefore we try to be that person.
Do not forget the achievement of a person is directly proportional to their hard work to realize the dream into reality. Today we see our idol success that they dream, that in accordance with their hard work to achieve their dreams.
Sometimes we are often unable to distinguish between dreams and reality. So far, we have a dream to succeed and realize that dream into reality. However, never try to start making those dreams come true. Dream is something abstract when we are not able to realize it, not even someone who rarely has a dream too high to make him look stupid.
Know yourself more than just understanding your character. I'd say that honest self understanding is both necessary and hugely valuable if individuals, communities and perhaps even the whole human race are to develop further in a fruitful and positive way.
Think about this. Do you ever perplex yourself or find yourself asking 'Why on earth did I do that?' Have you ever noticed how people seem to have very different perceptions of themselves compared to how others view them? Low self esteem is so often a lack of genuine self understanding.
Why is it important for us to not be too self deluded? Well, for one thing, research shows us that people whose 'conscious' and 'unconscious' motivations are aligned - i.e. what they say matches up with what they do - are happier and healthier than their less self knowledgeable peers. Having a more balanced and objective take on yourself can make you happier and more effective in pursuing your goals.
Truthfully, much of our behavior is driven by unconscious processes. It's been estimated that every second our five senses take in eleven million pieces of information. We know this because scientists have counted the number of receptor cells on each sense organ and the nerves that go from these cells to the brain. However,we can only consciously process about forty bits of information a second. So large parts of our experience are unavoidably unknowable to us as far as conscious awareness is concerned.
We don't need to be conscious of every subliminal causal factor behind our behavior. But sometimes it really does matter to know that what's influencing you is not what you think it is.
People often completely misattribute their own actions and behavior. A friend of mine was once about to give a speech. Normally, he would have been very relaxed about this. I was there at the time, and he told me he felt rather sick and his heart was racing and so he concluded that he must be really nervous. Later, he discovered he had food poisoning, but he'd attributed what was really the effects of a bad meal to anxiety about his speech.
One way to know ourselves better is to get better at tolerating our own uncertainty about what lies behind our behavior. For example, if I blush when I'm talking to someone, this response may take me by surprise as much as the person I'm talking with.
I didn't know I was going to blush, but it happened. Maybe below my conscious awareness this person reminded me of someone I was attracted to at school. However, if, as is likely, I'm unaware of this, I might rationalize and come up with a reason to explain my red face. I might tell myself I blushed because I felt they were being a little rude in how they were speaking to me. Now I've made up a theory that takes me away from true self knowledge. But if I relax with not knowing, and don't immediately look for an 'explanation', I give my unconscious mind a chance to produce its own reason - which, generally, will be more accurate.
It might go like this. After the blushing incident I might say to myself: "Hmm, that was interesting! I wonder why I blushed? I don't usually! There must be some reason!" Perhaps later in the day, when I'm not consciously thinking about it, my unconscious mind will produce an image of that girl I was attracted to in high school all those years ago, and I see the match between the woman I'd been talking to today and the girl I was too shy to speak to at fifteen.
So hold back. Don't jump to conclusions or theories about your own responses too quickly, especially when they strike you as unusual.
It's often said that to really understand someone's motivations you need to watch what they do and not just listen to what they say. If someone repeatedly tells you they love you, but also regularly treats you badly, then what should you believe - their words or their actions? If someone lectures others about the importance of punctuality but is always late themselves... well, it's that repeated tardiness that unlocks the real knowledge as to what they are like.
Get into the habit of watching your own behavior as objectively as possible - almost as if you were another person. Forget about the image you try to present to others or what you like to think about yourself, even if those things are negative.
We readily assume that we can judge and predict our own behaviors better than non-involved strangers can, but the research doesn't bear this out. In one study, college friends were much more likely to accurately predict the outcome of a romantic relationship than either partner in the couple itself. Even people who didn't know the couple at all could do this just by watching the two partners interact. And two researchers called Nisbett and Wilson found that complete strangers can often make more accurate predictions as to how we'll react to something than we can ourselves.
So in summary, we can come to understand ourselves better by:
•understanding that we don't have immediate conscious access to all our motivations.
•Realizing that it's easy to make up reasons that flatter us or fit a preconceived pattern of low or high self esteem but that don't actually match up with the truth.
•Accepting that we might be responding automatically to a new person or situation simply because of a superficial resemblance to a previous person or time.
•Refraining from jumping to conclusions about our own actions, motivations and responses.
•Watching ourselves as calmly and objectively as possible, focusing on what we do, not just on what we tell ourselves and other.
THE END.
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