How to Know What You Are

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One study suggests having a amend ability to know yourself can help you make effective decisions and attain goals.^[1] Beyond the realm of science, the importance of knowing who you are is recognized by everyday people and pop civilisation icons, too. Beyoncé said, "Knowing who you are is the greatest wisdom a human existence tin possess. Know your goals, what you love, your morals, your needs, your standards, what you volition not tolerate and what you are willing to die for. Information technology defines who you are." Keep in mind, that as you grow older and are exposed to unlike people and experiences, who you are steadily evolves. If yous are having problem defining who yous are, appoint in self-reflection to uncover your truest cocky.

1. one

   Figure out what you lot like and don't similar. People often concentrate the hardest on what they like. While figuring out what brings y'all joy or pleasure is important, it is likewise helpful to know what causes you unhappiness or dissatisfaction. One of the starting time steps of self-reflection is sitting downward and developing a list of all the things yous like and all those you dislike.^[two]

   • Your likes and dislikes are often how yous describe yourself to others. These are things that may separate us or relate us to those around us. Agreement these things helps you to know what yous want to move toward in life and what y'all want to stay away from. Knowing your likes and dislikes can guide your career choices, where y'all live, your hobbies, and what kind of people y'all surround yourself with.
   • Use this activity to see if your likes and dislikes are too rigid. Take you been placing yourself in a box? Is at that place something that you would like to do or attempt that is outside of what you lot think you lot should be on newspaper? Build upward the courage to try something totally new. You might unveil a dissimilar side of yourself.

2. two

   Examine your strengths and challenges . Just as likes and dislikes can requite you lot incredible insight into who you are, and so tin can understanding the things you lot're skillful at and not-so-good at. On a split up piece of paper, create a list of strengths and challenges.

   • For most people, strengths or talents may also overlap with their likes, and challenges may overlap with their dislikes. Let's say yous like cupcakes, cookies, and pastries and a strength of yours is baking - the ii are aligned. On the other hand, y'all might dislike sports and a challenge of yours is concrete coordination or endurance.
   • In many cases, the things that are challenges may become things you dislike because you are not naturally good at them. This tells the why of what you exercise or don't like.
   • Simply knowing these things is meaningful in itself. Nonetheless, you can dig deeper and decide if you want to piece of work to improve on whatever of the things you find challenging, or if you lot want to focus your energy on things you are already skilful at.

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3. three

   Assess what brings you comfort. Nosotros can learn much virtually ourselves when we are at our all-time, but we can also glean significant agreement from when nosotros are feeling low. Think hard nigh the concluding time(south) you were feeling down or stressed. What kind of comfort did you seek during this time? What made y'all feel better?

   • Knowing what soothes you tells you a lot about yourself as a person. It could be that you always achieve out to a sure person to elevator you support or have your mind off things. You might watch your favorite movies or escape into the pages of a favorite novel. The source of comfort for you could exist food, which is common in people who eat emotionally.^[3]

4. 4

   Record your thoughts and emotions in a periodical. ^[4] A great way to learn more near yourself is to become an observer of your thoughts and feelings. Exercise this for a week or more to get a bigger moving picture of the topics that constantly come to your mind or identify mood states that you often feel. Are your thoughts positive? Negative?^[5]

   • A review of your journal might reveal several subtle statements virtually a management you'd like to take your life that yous may non be consciously aware of. You might write over and once again about wanting to travel, about a certain person you lot like, or a new hobby you desire to choice up.
   • After finding reoccurring themes in your journal, take a moment to retrieve about what these thoughts and feelings mean - and whether yous want to deed on them.

5. 5

   Accept a personality exam. Some other method to learn more than virtually yourself is by completing a personality assessment online. Some people don't like being categorized, while, for some, placing labels on themselves and their behaviors brings order to life. If y'all are a person who enjoys understanding yourself by examining how y'all relate to (or differ from) others, taking a free online personality examination might be helpful.

   • Websites such equally HumanMetrics.com require you to answer a series of questions about your preferences and how you view the globe or yourself. The tool then analyzes your responses to provide yous with a personality type that can help y'all understand which interests or occupations you might thrive in besides as how you communicate with those around you.
   • Proceed in mind that any free online assessment you take cannot be considered completely valid. These tests can offer you a full general understanding of who you lot are. However, if you want an in-depth analysis of your personality, you will demand to encounter a clinical psychologist.

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1. 1

   Probe deeper to learn your core values. Your values are basic standards you lot hold beloved that influence your decisions, behaviors, and attitudes. These are beliefs or principles that y'all will correspond or fight for: family, equality, justice, peace, gratitude, dependability, fairness, fiscal stability, integrity, etc. If y'all don't know your core values, you can't verify whether y'all are making choices that align with them. You lot can discover your core values by:

   • Thinking of two people you admire. What traits practise you admire in these people?
   • Thinking of a time when y'all felt really proud. What happened? Did yous help someone? Achieve a goal? Stand up for your rights or those of someone else?
   • Thinking about what problems y'all are most passionate about in your customs or the globe. These may include, but are not express to government, the environment, pedagogy, feminism, crime, etc.
   • Because what three items y'all would save if your business firm were on burn down (bold all the living beings were already prophylactic). Why would you lot save these three things?

2. 2

   Question whether or not you are living a life you are proud of. As F. Scott Fitzgerald famously puts it, "I promise y'all live a life yous're proud of. If you find you're not, I hope you accept the force to outset all once again." If you were to laissez passer away today, do you recollect yous have left backside the legacy you hoped for?

3. 3

   Inquire yourself what you would love to exercise if money wasn't an consequence. When we're children we often accept lofty dreams for ourselves. As nosotros go older, and more influenced past society, we alter those dreams. Get back to a time when you had an undeniable dream to exercise something, a dream you shut out considering information technology wasn't the right time or your coin wasn't sufficient. Write downwardly how you lot would spend your mean solar day if you didn't accept to consider your fiscal status. How would you alive your life?

4. four

   Make up one's mind how your life would be if y'all weren't agape of declining. Nosotros often miss out on amazing opportunities or don't take chances because we worry that we will fall flat on our faces. Self-doubt can ascertain your whole life, if you don't work to overcome it. Sadly, it can besides strongly impact the amount of "what if's" you accept as you age. Here are a few ways to overcome your fright of failure, if y'all think it'south holding you lot back from being the person y'all want to exist:

   • Know that failure is necessary. When nosotros make mistakes, we are able to evaluate our actions and refine our methods. We abound and learn through failure.
   • Visualize success. 1 way to brush off a fear of failure is to constantly imagine yourself accomplishing your goals.
   • Stay persistent. Go along moving towards your goals despite setbacks. It is oft that we achieve our wildest dreams right when we were about to give up. Don't let small failures cause you to lose sight of the bigger goal.

5. 5

   Ask others their interpretations of you lot as a person. One time you lot accept asked these other questions of yourself, reach out to a few people honey to you and enquire them who they retrieve you are. Their assessment can be a list of characteristics or an example of a specific moment that, in their opinion, summarized yous as a person.

   • After you accept asked the opinions of several relatives or friends, ponder their answers. How did others draw yous? Were you lot surprised by their assessments? Were you upset? Do these interpretations fit with the person yous want to be or how you view yourself?
   • If yous value the opinions of these people, then you can enquire yourself what you need to do to create more than harmony with how they view you and how you view yourself. Maybe you have a skewed view of yourself and need to reevaluate your actions.

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1. one

   Figure out if you are an introvert or extrovert. If you took an online personality assessment, one of the factors you may have been assessed on was introversion-extraversion. These are terms used past Carl Jung which depict where you get your energy from in life - either the internal or external world.^[6]

   • Introvert describes a person who gets energy from examining an inner world of thoughts, ideas, memories, and reactions. These people enjoy solitude and may adopt to spend fourth dimension with i or two people with whom they share a connectedness. They may exist reflective or reserved. Extrovert describes a person who gets energy from interacting in the external earth. They enjoy being involved in a diversity of activities and engaging with all sorts of people. They go excited when they are effectually others. They may take action before thinking a determination all the way through.
   • Many pop interpretations describe introverts equally being shy and withdrawn, while extroverts are said to be sociable and outgoing. These interpretations are faulty as most researchers have come to understand these traits as existing on a spectrum. No one is 100% introvert or extrovert, but rather leans on i or the other under certain circumstances.

2. ii

   Decide what kind of friend you are. Knowing who yous are also encompasses knowing your expectations, feelings, and actions relating to friendship. Reverberate on your past friendships. Practice you lot like to talk to your friends every day or every bluish moon? Exercise y'all often organize become-togethers or are yous just the person who gets invited? Practise you value spending quality fourth dimension with friends? Do you share intimate details near yourself with your friends or are you very guarded with what you share? Exercise you uplift/encourage your friends when they are feeling downwardly? Do you drop everything for a friend in need? Do y'all place reasonable demands on friendships (i.e. don't expect your friends to e'er be available or only exist friends with y'all)?^[7]

   • Once you've asked yourself these question, decide if you are content with the kind of friend you are. If not, talk to your closest friends and come across if they have advice on how yous could exist a ameliorate friend in the future.

3. 3

   Evaluate those around you. It is said that you are the boilerplate of the five people closest to you. The idea is based on the constabulary of averages: the outcome of a particular event will be based on the average of all possible outcomes. Relationships are not exempt from this rule. The people you spend the most time with strongly impact y'all - whether yous want them to or not. Look closely at your closest relationships, considering these people define who you are, besides.^[viii]

   • Of course, you are your own person, capable of making your ain choices and forming your own conclusions. Still, those around you subtly touch on your life in numerous ways. They may introduce you to new foods, style, books, and music. They may requite you referrals for jobs. They may stay out late partying with y'all. They may cry on your shoulder afterward a break upward.
   • Tin yous run across portions of yourself that were derived from those closest to yous? Are you happy with what has rubbed off on you? But put, if yous are surrounded by positive, hopeful people, you will feel and act similarly. If you are mostly around negative, toxic people, these attitudes may as well deject your life. If you want to know who you are, wait around you for the answer.

4. iv

   Recall nearly the things you do when you're lone. What you do with others says a lot about you, but what you do on your ain does, too. Oftentimes, nosotros are heavily influenced by our social groups to think, act, and experience a certain way. When nosotros are completely alone, notwithstanding, we are closest to our truest selves - mostly untouched past gild.

   • When you are solitary how practice you spend your time? Are you unhappy when yous are alone? Are you pleased? Practise you read quietly? Do you play loud music and trip the light fantastic in the mirror? Practise you fantasize about your wildest dreams?
   • Think almost these things and what they say about you.

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• Take several days or weeks to reverberate at length on each of these exercises and so that yous tin identify your true cocky. Don't practice all these exercises at once.

• Cover who yous are, no thing what anyone else says. Just you can be you!

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Things You lot'll Demand

• A notebook/periodical and a pen

About This Article

Commodity Summary X

To know who you are, start by taking an online personality test to get a general understanding of how y'all view yourself. So, make specific lists, such as likes and dislikes or strengths and challenges, for a deeper understanding of yourself. Alternatively, ask yourself probing questions such as "Am I living a life I'm proud of?" or "What would I love to practise if money wasn't an issue?" Along with self-examination, ask a few of your closest friends for their interpretation of yous as a person. For more communication from our Mental Health reviewer, including how to piece of work towards being a better version of yourself, go along reading.

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Source: https://www.wikihow.com/Know-Who-You-Are

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