How to know yourself

To gain inner peace and joy, you must know yourself. Confirm your unique qualities and understand your true self. Daily reflection and meditation can help you gain a deeper understanding of your identity. As you deepen your understanding of yourself, you will be able to establish a deep and meaningful connection with yourself.

Method 1: develop self-awareness

1. Learn to be honest with yourself. Knowing oneself means understanding all aspects of one’s identity, personality, and essence. This is not to make you criticize yourself, but to try to understand all aspects of your personality. Understand the unknown side of yourself with an open mind.
When self-assessing, pay attention to what makes you uncomfortable. These emotional signals can let you know if you have been avoiding a subject. Do you feel unconfident about your characteristics? If so, how can this be overcome?
For example, if you don’t like looking in the mirror, ask yourself why. Are you not confident about your appearance? Feeling anxious about your age? Consider whether these fears can be overcome.

2. Ask yourself some questions that require deeper thinking. This can help you recognize what makes you happy and what can cause you stress. Use this information to spend more time on activities and goals that are meaningful to you. Ask yourself:

• What do you like to do?
• What is your aspiration?
• What do you hope you can pass on?
• What is your biggest criticism of yourself?
• What mistakes have you made?
• How do other people think of you? What do you want them to think of you?
• Who is your role model in life?

3. Pay attention to your inner voice. The inner voice conveys your feelings and beliefs. Whenever something happens that makes you feel frustrated or happy, it will respond. Pay close attention to your own voice. What is it telling? How does it see the world around you?
Stand in front of the mirror. Begin to describe myself silently or loudly in my heart. Are these adjectives positive or negative? Is it focused on your appearance or behavior, success or failure?
When you start to have negative thoughts, stop and ask yourself why you have this reaction. Criticizing or humiliating yourself may mean that you are resisting bad ideas.
These positive or negative thoughts define how you see yourself. If the personal image you describe is different from the person you really want to be, you might as well take actions to improve yourself or learn new personal traits.

4. Write a diary every day. This can help you understand your motivations, emotions, and beliefs so you can make adjustments in your life. Take a few minutes every day to record your actions, feelings, and thoughts that day. If you have a negative experience that day, write down why it affected you. If you make a mistake, confirm how you can do better.
Find out from the diary whether you have a certain pattern of thinking or behavior. You may gradually realize that you are always repeating specific needs and desires.
Write whatever you think of. Free writing helps liberate your subconscious thoughts and confirm your worries.
You can also use some hint words to guide yourself in writing a diary. Choose reminders that ask you to describe a certain aspect of your personality or habits.

5. Incorporate mindfulness into life. Mindfulness helps you return to the present and understand your thoughts and behaviors. Mindfulness usually includes meditation and other techniques, but the focus is on paying attention to yourself and the world around you.
Take some time to check your five senses. What are you touching, tasting, hearing, seeing and smelling?
Don’t stare at the computer or TV to eat. Take a break and concentrate on your meal. Savour the taste, texture, temperature and feelings of each bite of food.
Take a few minutes a day to pause what you are doing and observe the world around you. Try to pay attention to the information feedback from each sensory. What do you hear, feel, taste or smell?
When you have an emotional reaction, ask yourself why do you feel that way? What caused this?

6. Confirm your own body image. Describe your appearance on paper. After finishing, check which adjectives you have written. Is it positive or negative? If you find yourself producing negative body images, try to find a way to love your body. Learn to feel confident about your body, and then transfer this confidence to other aspects of your life.
Convert negative perceptions into positive perceptions. Don’t like moles on your body? Think of them as beauty moles, you should know that many well-known actresses have beauty moles!
If you are really dissatisfied with a certain characteristic, consider making some reasonable changes. For example, if you don’t like having acne on your face, you can go to a dermatologist or learn makeup.

Method 2: understand your personality

1. Know your role in life. Everyone plays multiple roles in interpersonal relationships, work, and social interactions every day. List the roles you play in your life and write down what each role means to you. The roles we play in life include:

• parents
• friend
• team leader
• Emotional support
• Tutor or student
• Close friend
• Creator
• Problem solver

2. Write down your values, interests, temperament, activity habits, life goals and strengths. Open your notebook or word processor and try to define yourself from these 6 aspects.
Value: What is most important to you? What are the characteristics of yourself and others that you are proud of? What motivated you to accomplish something?
Interest: What type of things are you curious about? What do you like to do in your free time? What fascinates you?
Temperament: Use 10 adjectives to describe your temperament.
Activity habit: How do you spend the day? What are the favorite and disliked moments of the day? Are there any daily rituals to be done every day?
Life goal: What is the most important life event for you? Why? What is the plan for the next five years? What about the ten-year plan?
Advantages: What are your abilities, skills and talents? What are you good at?

3. Take an online personality assessment test. Although the personality assessment test has no scientific basis, the questions inside will prompt you to think about all aspects of your personality. There are many trustworthy personality assessment tests available online, including:

• MBTI personality classification index
• Minnesota Multiple Personality Test (MMPI)
• PI Behavior Driven Assessment
• Five personality traits assessment

4. Invite others to comment on you. Although you shouldn’t let others define yourself, seeking the opinions of others may help you understand things that you have never noticed.
First ask the person you love how to define your personality or characteristics.
If you want, you can also ask your boss, mentor, or acquaintance how you think about your character.
Even if you disagree with someone’s observations, it doesn’t matter. You are not defined by these comments, and maybe you will get more recognition from others.

5. Measure your own satisfaction from the results. After completing the personality and characteristics assessment, see if you are satisfied with yourself. Are these values ​​and characteristics what you want? If the answer is yes, try to enlarge them or use them as a basis to shape yourself. If the answer is no, set goals to improve yourself according to the specific situation.
Use your own strengths to find happiness. For example, if you find that you are creative and like to make things by hand, you can take art courses or make handicrafts.
If there is something you want to improve, use what you know about yourself to tailor a plan. For example, if you find that you are very introverted and want to become more sociable, you can participate in small group social activities. As long as you balance the time for yourself and others, you can also have a social life that suits you.

Method 3: meet your own needs

1. Take care of yourself. If you are overwhelmed by stress and work, it may be difficult to find time to reflect. You must take care of your physical and mental health so that you can live in peace with your true self.
Develop the habit of exercising every day. You can do 20 minutes of aerobic exercise, or just brisk walking.
Get at least 7-9 hours of sleep every night.
Eat healthy foods composed mainly of unprocessed fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Find time to relax every day. You can meditate or do activities that help relax, such as knitting, jigsaw puzzles, or reading a book.

2. Balance work and life. Life is not only defined by career or work achievement. It’s good to be proud of your work, but in addition to work, you have to leave some personal space for yourself. Don’t take work home. Spend some time each day focusing on other goals, interests, and hobbies.
Work is important, but you should also value your own happiness.
Set boundaries in the workplace to ensure that work does not affect your other relationships. For example, do not reply to non-urgent emails during non-working hours.

3. Set boundaries in interpersonal relationships. Knowing your limits can make you happier in interpersonal relationships. Try to identify which communication makes you feel uncomfortable, stressed, or unhappy to set personal boundaries.
Ask yourself what situations make you feel uncomfortable. For example, do you hate crowds? What types of jokes make you uneasy?
Are there people in your life who demand too much of you or force you to do things you don’t want to do? Confirm which requests or requirements you do not want to complete.

4. Set goals that make you happy. Set goals to help you achieve your dream life. Think of a few goals that can help you achieve your dreams. Set goals that make you happy, not goals that are driven by external desires such as money and reputation.
For example, maybe your goal is to write 500 words a day. This is because you like to write, not because you want to be a famous writer.
You can set small goals on a personal level, such as improving your cookie decorating skills during the holidays.
If the goal set is large, it will be easier to achieve it by breaking it down into several small goals. For example, if your dream is to travel all over Europe, you can set a few small goals such as saving money, buying tickets, and planning a trip.

5. Regularly review your needs and desires. Reflect on your life from time to time. Has any desire changed? Has something new happened that changed the focus of your life? Knowing yourself is a continuous process, just like treating an old friend, caring about your latest situation from time to time.
Look through your diary from time to time and pay attention to whether your habits or focus of life have changed.
After major changes in life, such as a new job or moving house, you can also reassess whether your habits, practices, and desires have also changed with the environment.
If certain habits or behavior tendencies no longer meet your needs or goals, you may wish to correct them. Change to more creative activities to help you achieve your goals.