First Step: Understanding Who You Are
I talked a lot about self-monitoring because it is necessary to be aware of our behaviors and perform appropriately in front of the public. Our small actions may affect the career path or even future development. However, most importantly, before monitoring, we have to figure out the reason why we are acting in a certain way. Therefore, understanding ourselves is the premises of everything else.
Do We Really Understand?
“You may never live long enough to discover who you are, but by the time you reach the middle age you will hopefully realize who you are not are.” — JAMES ROZOFF
Recently in my Marketing class, I have learned a word — Myopia, which means producer produce the goods they think fit the market trends, however, the products they provided are completely out of consumers’ expectation. I also learned another word — self-concept, which means people think the individual’s belief in himself or herself and other people’s view of them are consistent While thinking about this carefully, regarding the producer as ourselves, we think we convey the correct information to the customers (represent other people) precisely, and we assume others are on the same page with us. In fact, however, our behavior does not pass the expect meaning to the others, and other people do not know us as well. Who causes the misunderstanding? Other people? Maybe not because the key factor is ourselves.
1. Face Our Defects
Lots of people cannot clearly know the real self because of they afraid to face the defects. Someone may think the existence of all the drawbacks is more like a proof that they are inferior to others. So, they hide all the weak attributes and only perform the strong characters. However, evading is never a good choice. Being brave to face the weakness is the thing we should do.
We should always have the awareness to facing the defects. It may feel embarrassing and uncomfortable at the beginning, but when we get used to it, we could fix the problems and understand ourselves better.
2. Think Before Act
Another important factor to know ourselves is thinking before acting. The impulse is the devil. Without thinking carefully, lots of actions or decisions we made are too simple and crude. To let other understand us we could truly think what the consumers think. In addition, the procedure of thinking in other’s shoes is a spiritual communication with ourselves, which help us to know and improve our defects.
“Instead of labeling your emotions as problems to solve, you can see them as signals to interpret. Instead of judging your desires as shameful aberrations, you can learn to meet them in healthier ways. Instead of calling yourself critical names when you cannot build or break certain habits, you can explore your motivations. You can become a student of yourself rather than always seeking a wiser teacher.” ― VIRONIKA TUGALEVA
It will be a long process to truly understand who we are, but each effort we put into the process will reflect somehow in the future.
