All About You (Part 1)

When writing this post in my head I was struggling hard not to make it sound too much like a New Age piece, with elements of spirituality and meditation because these things do have a kernel of truth at their root and, when we reach a crossroads in life or are seeking ways to give new meaning to our lives, introspection is a necessity to ensure that the road we will take is the right one for us.

Why is this so introspection important?

Simplistically the better we can understand ourselves, our motivations, our beliefs and our values, the better we can build ourselves a life that truly fulfils us.

But before we can really start searching and understanding those things, we need to acknowledge one important fact that has hindered our lives so far.

We are very good at lying to ourselves!

There is a huge list of cognitive biases that impact on our thinking and our perception of ourselves and the world around us. Many of these biases will be dealt with in later posts but for now it is important to recognise that how we perceive ourselves is just that – a perception.

Do this simplistic exercise:

Write down a list of 10-20 things that you can’t do.

Now working down that list how many things fall into the following categories;

            I could but I don’t know how to

            I could but I don’t have the confidence to do so

            I could but I don’t really want to

            I could but it would be wrong for me to do so

            I could but I don’t have the time/money/resources

            I could but to do so would have a detrimental effect

How many genuine “I cant’s” do you have left? My guess is not many, obviously there are some, usually based around physical issues. So for the vast majority of things we say we can’t do what we really mean is;

I could but I have come up with a reason not to do so.

Some of those reasons are very legitimate, e.g. climbing Mount Everest when you have a condition like COPD is likely to be detrimental to your health as you struggle to breathe at altitude. However other reasons are just an excuse not to step out of our comfort zones.

One of the keys to personal growth is learning to take time to challenge the beliefs we hold, especially if they are hindering us in what we want to achieve.

We are all very good at making generalisations and, because of that, we tend to lump things together in a way that hinders our thinking.

For example, someone might say they are not very good at communicating with people but if you dig further you find that is not quite true. If you ask, do you mean all people or people in a certain context? They may answer, all people but it is worse at work. Probe further, all people at work or specific people, again the may narrow down the field. Throw in another question, so you have never communicated effectively with anyone at any time? And you start to break down that belief which is just a generalisation developed from a specific instance.

It is harder to do that to yourself but it is something worth trying to do because as you break down barriers in your own thinking you can move forward in your life with much broader horizons.

Remember your life is all about you.