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November 2013 ~ Who Do You Think You Are?
Are you a busy executive who keeps on top of everything?
Are you a frazzled middle manager who is pushed by everyone and seemingly in control of very little?
Are you a busy parent trying to balance the needs of children with the demands of the workplace?
Are you a college student just starting on a career?
Are you thinking about retirement and chucking all the business ‘stuff’ for a life with less stress?
Have you lost a job and aren’t how to find your way to something that uses your gifts, skills and talents?
Are you concerned about where you fit in a world that seems to be going in a direction that is not what you want to see?
Most of us will find ourselves in some or all of those positions over our lifetime. Human beings are very complex individuals and over time, we change, we grow, we regress, we slow down, we move faster, we relax, we stress, we struggle and we enjoy our lives.
We are made up of many moving parts — sometimes, they work together and sometimes it seems that the various parts of our self are warring among the facets.
More than 2,000 years ago, Socrates said, Know Thyself. It was good advice in his day and still good advice today.
What does it take for us to be happy? There are many, many theories and in our current culture, there are a multitude of marketing ploys that will tell us that buying a specific product will make us happy. Those products won’t make us happy for very long because they don’t get to the truth of who we are.
The truth is, we are happiest when we are doing what is best for us. What is best for each person is an individual thing — as different for each person as a snowflake is different from every other snowflake. We are each individual and unique human beings, made up of different physical bodies, different personalities, different beliefs and different needs.
We may find that we like one thing when we are working and another thing when we are with friends and another thing when we are with family and another thing when we are relaxing.
We have many facets to the "us" that is the collection of attributes making up the person we call "me."
Over our lifetime, we will encounter many different ways of "measuring" or "evaluating" this person called "me." Some of them will categorize us into colors or words or traits or grades or scores or rankings or puzzle pieces or archetypes. Each of them can offer us something of value and each one will group us with others "like" us, yet not completely like us. Each of them can teach us something and each can help us stretch to learn more about our self and others.
Who we are today is also a derivative of all that came before us: our parents, grandparents and distant ancestors. Within our DNA, we carry codes that will be passed onto our children, grandchildren and all of our physical descendants. The Universe has a very complex method of passing along those physical traits, tendencies and proclivities, sometimes shuffling them from one generation to another like a random game of cards.
Our parents, families, teachers and caregivers pass along certain cultural habits and ways of being or doing that are so ingrained in us that we are often not conscious of what they are. Our religious beliefs, our social beliefs, our political beliefs and our philosophical beliefs may come to us unconsciously. We may consciously choose to change from what we were taught over time to something slightly different than our parents, or we may try to become radically different from our parents.
What we like when we are in college may turn out to be very different from what we like when we are at the peak of our career or when we retire.
As human beings, we have many things in common with all other human beings: we need to love and be loved, we need to feel safe, we need to eat, we need to rest, we need to play, we need to work, we need to study, we need to communicate, and we need to feel good about what we do and who we are.
With all these complexities — and we have just scratched the surface — how can anyone begin to know who they are?
The simple answer: start where you are now.
- Take some time to learn about yourself and what feels good for you; learn about what feels "right" for you – not what feels right for anyone else.
- What brings you joy?
- What makes you feel happy?
- What do you do that seems like no effort at all?
- What activities could you do all day without feeling stressed?
- What do people say are your best gifts and talents?
- If you didn’t have to make money, what would you do with your life?
Within those questions is the key to start knowing more about yourself. There are many, many tools and processes and systems available in the world today to assist with the process of self-discovery. There are so many that we could not possibly identify all of them, so we won’t try. Each person will find their own way to what works best for them.
This month, when we celebrate Thanksgiving in this country and being grateful
for all that we have:
- Take time to do more of what makes YOU feel good.
- Take time to appreciate the many gifts and talents that you bring to the world.
- Take time to be grateful for all the ‘lessons’ life has given you that helped you grow into the person you are today. Even if they seemed hard at the time, those ‘lessons’ and ‘challenges’ gave you the power to become a stronger person.
- Take time to be grateful for the many people in your life that have brought you joy.
- Take time to be grateful for the many things in your life that support your health and happiness.
- Take time to appreciate yourself, simply for your magnificence in expressing the individuality of that very special person that you are today and for the person you will become in the future.
- And, take time to appreciate those special people that you know, simply for the magnificence in expressing their own individuality as that very special person that they are.
May each day bring you new blessings and new awareness about the magnificent person you are.
If you are thinking about creating sources of income, new business ideas or exploring expansion of a existing business, our book Income Without a Job has some great exercises to assist with that.
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