Welcome, friend. If you’re reading this, you’re probably on a very important, but somewhat confusing journey. Or maybe you’re not sure if you want to embark on this journey yet. I want to invite you to stop living a life of emptiness, doubt, and fear. The key to doing this is knowing yourself and, more importantly, knowing who you were made to be. Let’s look at some answers to the questions Is it important to know myself? Who am I really?
Today we will be discussing:
- Is it important to know myself?
- Who am I really?
- How to describe myself
- Why it’s important to know yourself
- How to know yourself
How To Describe Myself
It’s time to ask some honest questions. How would you act if you lived alone in the woods for a month? What would you think about? I’m sure it’s hard to imagine – which proves how much of our identity is formed by the world around us. If you can barely visualize what it would be like to be removed from society for that long, then don’t you think that society has a pretty strong grip on your view of yourself?
From a young age, we’ve been surrounded by voices trying to define us. According to Forbes, the average modern American consumes five times more information than the average American did fifty years ago (1). Nielsen reports that our average screen time per day is now over 11 hours (2). 11 hours of consuming others’ opinions, daily. Is it any wonder that you’re here, reading this article, and wondering who you really are? You’ve been defined by others for your entire life.
Why It’s Important to Know Yourself
If you don’t start getting to know the real you, the way you would grow a relationship with a friend, then your confidence and satisfaction will remain low. You have incredible potential, but you won’t realize it until you are grounded in your identity. Without this confidence, you will have a hard time taking risks. You might find that your life grows dull because you’ve confined yourself to a safe routine. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, you might be bouncing from lifestyle to lifestyle, from crisis to crisis, and still not knowing what you really want.
Knowing yourself will not only increase your confidence, but it will also increase your creativity.
Once you’re able to separate your own original thoughts from those of others, it will be far easier to express yourself. Creativity isn’t simply art-related, either; it’s an asset in the workplace and in your relationships. It is a tool to get to know yourself even better.
Finally, once you are grounded in who you are, you’ll meet every decision with increased clarity. Those huge life decisions won’t be nearly as scary anymore. Once you know your place, purpose, personality, and passions, you’ll start making choices from a place of security. Knowing why you are making decisions will actually make your whole life more satisfying. Your path will be a direct reflection of who you are, not what other people want you to be.
How to Know Yourself
Of course, all of this is easier said than done. I want to warn you that not many people will understand why you’re placing such an emphasis on knowing yourself. It’s not common in our culture to set aside time and effort to answer this question. But just to encourage you one last time, it is worth it. Let me give you a picture of someone who is in her mid-forties and has yet to discover who she is.
I know someone who runs a wonderful non-profit. Her work is important and she accomplishes a lot with the help of her team, but she still has great unrealized potential because she isn’t grounded in her identity. She grew up with the belief that her primary purpose is to help other people, and not to ever care about herself. As a result, she’s an incredibly helpful person, but she doesn’t know how to prioritize her time and effort. There is always someone in her life who needs help, and she often leaves her workplace to help them. Her nonprofit struggles along with a director who is half-present, all because she didn’t take on the challenge of honestly knowing herself.
On the other hand, I want to illustrate what my journey of self-discovery has been like.
I want to give you this example, not because I’ve “arrived” at success by any means, but because I know firsthand how difficult, yet how important, this journey is. When I find myself in a season of doubt and insecurity, I do everything I can to retreat and talk with my Creator. I’ve taken multiple trips to my friend’s forest to camp in a trailer alone. I spend a week out there at a time, walking through the trees, journaling, and spending time with the God who made me. Very few people understood why I was doing this, and it certainly doesn’t have to look the same for you. I’m just saying that you’ll need to be okay with looking crazy for a little while. It will be more than worth it!
You were handcrafted by a kind and creative God, and he has such great plans for you. I beg you to not let the world and its opinions keep you from the great adventure of life. Your dreams are possible, but they’re just outside your comfort zone. So is everything that’s worth anything.
You can begin your own personal relationship with God. He loves you created you for a wonderful purpose. We invite you to find out how know Him by watching the GREAT NEWS FOR YOU Video on this page.
SOURCES
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolefisher/2019/01/24/how-much-time-americans-spend-in-front-of-screens-will-terrify-you/?sh=659ae541c67a
- https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2018/time-flies-us-adults-now-spend-nearly-half-a-day-interacting-with-media/
