Figure out who you are. Optimize who you are. But never apologize for who you are.
“Self-awareness involves deep personal honesty. It comes from asking & answering hard questions.”
Every single YouTube video on this topic has a new habit list for you to follow. There’s always a new trend such as waking up at 5 am, or running 10km before you go to work.
I’m going to do quite the opposite: I’m simply going to tell you to do whatever works for you.
Because what’s the point in striving for perfection? The simple act of improving is where all the fun is.
"The truth is that most people are living their lives based on the opinions of other people".
I know I want to be more self-aware so that I’m able to adopt an even higher level of happiness within my daily life. For a long time, I’ve always dreamt of improving my fitness routine, eating more healthily, and genuinely taking care of my body.
But Pizza & Ice Cream got in the way. At least several times a week, I am watching Netflix while eating a large pepperoni pizza. My mindset needs to change.
But how do I transform my habits to align with my goals?
To start, I need to remove unhealthy items from the kitchen so I am no longer tempted by sugary foods that go against the guidelines I set for myself. After all, one of my most significant weaknesses is choosing options that may not necessarily be the best thing for both my body & long-term goals.
Nobody is going to tell you that a magical transformation of your thought process & mindset will be easy. It’s not. But if you take the time to understand your mindset, and create actionable steps to become the person you want to be, you’ll start feeling completely unforeseen levels of happiness & self-worth.
What does your ideal life look like?
Gary Vaynerchuk talks a lot about happiness & reverse engineering your ambitions to achieve your goals. “All the information in the world is at your fingertips. Do you want to learn something new? Cool. Go do it. Do you want to reach out to that person you admire? Great. Go hit them up directly”.
If you have a clear destination of where you want to take your life, and how you’re going to accomplish it, all you have to do is put in the work.
What things do you value in life?
“Values are like fingerprints. Nobody’s are the same, but you leave them all over everything you do”.
What you do will make an impact in the world (no matter how small). But you have to ask yourself what kind of impact you want to leave. How do you want to treat others? What drives you towards success?
Start considering how your thoughts, actions & words will affect those around you. Do they align with your vision of an ideal life? Anything that changes your values will change your behavior.
What type of person do you want to be?
“You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to do it”.
Most people are living an unhappy life that is below their potential, accepting their problems, and simply believe that’s the way things are supposed to be.
But if you are reading this story, I’m going to assume that you’re not like most people. You are somebody who strives for success, wants to live a happy life, and become the best version of yourself. So keep reading.
These self-limiting beliefs don’t just stop us from achieving success. They also stop future generations from accomplishing their ambitions.
JK Rowling’s “Harry Potter” pitch was rejected 12 times by publishers.
Walt Disney was fired by his newspaper editor for not having any imagination.
It took James Dyson 15,000 failed prototypes to create the world’s first bagless vacuum cleaner.
Nobody is going to stop you from achieving your dreams but yourself.
📷Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash
📷Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash
What are your strengths & weaknesses?
“Figure out who you are. Optimize who you are. But never apologize for who you are”.
If you genuinely wish to be self-aware, you need to be able to understand what you’re good at, and what you need help with. You’ll be shocked at how quickly your happiness turns into a new sense of confidence within every single aspect of your life once you can accept your insecurities.
Ask yourself how you can focus more attention on your strengths. That’s how to conquer your fears, dreams & ambitions with self-awareness.
There comes the point in time where you have to stop caring about other people’s lives and live your own.
What works for one person will not work for every single person on the planet. But when we evaluate our strengths & understand our weaknesses, it becomes much easier to create strategies for accomplishing whatever you want to do.
If you’re reading this, you’re prepared to do what 99% of won’t, so you can accomplish what 99% of people can’t.
You are someone who wants to take bolder steps towards your definition of a happy life.
It starts here.
Self-awareness is about knowing who you are. It’s the realization in your mind that you can accomplish everything you choose to.
But you have to figure out how.
By understanding your strengths & weaknesses, it becomes easy to conquer your ambitions as you’ve planned out how to optimize your strengths to achieve the goal.
“Your perception of me is a reflection of you; my reaction to you is an awareness of me…”