Note Three: How Well Do You Know Yourself?
(You are reading this because one random day, I said I was going to share one learning note a week in 2024 and some people liked the tweet).
Anita Eboigbe
I really love asking questions and it isn’t simply because I am naturally curious. Asking questions and seeking the right answers help me navigate life without earning too many unnecessary scars. I approach problems by breaking them down into questions and taking time to answer each by talking with other people, reading books and sourcing materials.
For me, the quality of solutions are linked to the quality of questions we ask about the problems, the willingness to seek answers and the courage to keep iterating despite failures.
This week, I asked questions about life and career as usual and my learnings led me back to the importance of self awareness. The ability to know oneself and to continually expand this knowledge is a subject I consciously keep top of mind but it appeared in every note I journaled this week. Maybe my brain kept picking it up because of some of the conversations I had about the topic last weekend or this is pure serendipity.
I interrogate my choices and actions a lot — why did I do this? Why am I living this life? What do I need to do better? What does ‘better’ mean? Why do I want the things I want? How do I curate the best life for myself?
Some of these questions are recurring and as circumstances shift, the answers and motivations change but I find that it is a deeply useful exercise that keeps me grounded when life feels like everything is floating in the air and I am being pulled in different directions.
As philosopher and author Mitchell S. Green says, “It seems to me the beginning of wisdom of any kind, including knowledge of ourselves, is acknowledgment of the infirmity of our beliefs and the paucity of our knowledge.”
The idea that one must interrogate themselves to gain deeper knowledge of self is often credited to have been popularized by Socrates with the saying ‘Man, know thyself’.
Like many others, I believe that it is a simple clarion call for humans to commit to deeper introspection and a possible mastery of self for personal and societal benefits. According to the ancient philosopher, self-knowledge is a continuous practice of discovery.
The world is filled with so many ideas and guides and templates. People popping up in corners with articles and materials, like this one you are reading, prompting you to live life a certain way or try particular methods. There appears to be way more groupthink now more than ever before with the internet collapsing humanity into different bubbles, each believing it has found the most important ambitions and life hacks.
It can all get overwhelming and it is getting increasingly harder to figure out where the influence ends and your actual decision starts. Who are you away from the hacks, plans, goals, communities, gadgets, jobs and the likes? Why did you choose any of the things you chose and what does success really mean to you beyond the headlines we are supposed to aspire to and be motivated by?
Who are you when it’s just you? Why do you do the things you do? Why do you have those plans and what is in it for you?
The self, according to Socrates, is best thought of as a ‘selfhood’ consisting of beliefs and desires, which in turn drive our actions. And in order to know what we believe, we first have to know what is true. Then we can reassess our preconceptions on a given topic once we have established the truth.
The concept of self is the one thing we can all moment align on. Humans are naturally selfish, however, the knowledge of self on the other hand is a superpower that blooms the more you explore it.
If you haven’t actively been forming an intimate relationship with yourself, now is a good time to start. There’s not a lot of value in outsourcing all your thinking and feeling of worth, in being afraid to figure out the things that really matter to you. What are you afraid to find?
Here are some questions you can ask on your journey to knowing yourself better:
- What are my strengths?
- What are my short-term goals? Long-term goals?
- Who matters most to me? Who are my support people?
- What am I ashamed of?
- What do I like to do for fun?
- What new activities am I interested in or willing to try?
- What am I worried about?
- What are my values?
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