Do You Really Know You?

by Bo Hayes February 26, 2017

How well do you really know yourself? How well do you know your beliefs, what you're passionate about, what makes you tick, what makes you happy, or what makes you upset. We live in a surface-level, social media driven day and age that hinders us from truly knowing ourselves. You see, we know everything that is going on with everyone around us, but I would be willing to bet that hardly any of us actually know ourselves deep down to our core. I'm guilty of this, I'll admit it. I find myself struggling to answer personal questions about beliefs or things about myself, and I'm willing to be transparent enough to write about it, because I know I'm not the only one that has fallen in this trap.

When is the last time that you spent time with just yourself? I don't mean sat alone with your phone in your hand, or with your laptop, or listening to music. I mean sat in complete silence with just your thoughts. The thought of this usually makes a lot of people uncomfortable, mainly because people are scared of what they might actually find when they take a deep look inside. Instead, people rush through life covering up any time they may have alone by aimlessly browsing through Instagram or Twitter; anything to keep their mind busy. Once again, I'm guilty of this. I'm sure you've all heard this before, "if you don't believe in something, you'll fall for anything." We often get easily shaken by the world around us, bouncing from one idea to the other, never really allowing ourselves to stand firm in our own beliefs. Why? Because many of us don't truly know what those beliefs are in the first place.

You've got to find out, deep down inside, what makes you tick. It's absolutely essential to living a better life and being able to stand firm when the world around you is trying to pull you in every direction. I challenge you to do something this upcoming week. It's Sunday afternoon, so take this thought with you into next week. I challenge you to spend time with yourself at some point over the next 7 days. Find some time alone and turn off your phone, the tv, anything that is outside noise, and just sit alone with yourself and your thoughts. Get to know yourself. Find out what it is that makes you YOU. Don't let your friend's or family's thoughts and opinions influence you. This is something that you have to find out for yourself, on your own. It's going to involve some transparency on your part. Peel back those layers and, even if you don't like some things that you find, keep going deeper. You have to find out what convictions you hold, what you're passionate about in this life, what your pet peeves are, what kind of person you want to be, everything. If you're serious about making a path to a better you, you'll find time to do this periodically. All it takes is an 20 minutes to an hour. But spend some time with YOU. Don't let the world change you. Find out what you believe in and let yourself change the world.

-BH

“One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.”- Shannon L. Alder