Analyzing
your mind is a way of knowing yourself and your actions is a way of
understanding yourself. Knowing yourself will give you a better definition of
yourself which you will walk by all time and it will be easy for you to observe
and change the bad sides of you.
Check yourself when you experience
strong emotions. Sometimes, you’ll find yourself
getting really, strongly angry, sad, happy, or excited. Understanding what sets
off these stronger-than-normal reactions, what their root cause is, can help
you understand yourself better.
- For example, maybe you get really violently angry about people talking during a movie. Are you really angry about the talking or are you angry because you felt like it was a personal sign of disrespect towards you? Since this anger doesn’t help the situation, you might be better off trying to find ways that you can be less concerned about people respecting you, just to keep your own blood pressure down.
Watch out for repression and
transference. Repression is when you don’t want
to think about something so you help yourself to forget it even happened.
Transference is when you emotionally react to one thing, but what you’re really
reacting to is something else. Both of these behaviors, which are very common,
are unhealthy and finding out why you do them and finding ways to handle those
emotions in a healthier way will make you a much happier person.
- For example, you might think that you’re not sad about your grandma dying, but when your family decides to get rid of her favorite old chair you get really angry and upset. You’re not really upset about the chair being gone. It was stained, smelled funny, and probably contained radioactive foam for all you know. You’re upset that your grandma is gone.
Notice how and when you talk about
yourself. Do you turn every conversation you
have into a conversation about yourself? Do you make jokes at your own expense
whenever you talk about yourself? How and when you talk about yourself can
reveal a lot about how you think and how you perceive yourself. It’s healthy to
talk about yourself sometimes and it’s good to realize that you can’t do
everything, but you should pay attention to extremes and think about why you go
to those extremes.
- For example, your friend might have just finished her PhD, but when you’re all talking about it, you turn the conversation to be about when you were working on your master's. This might be because you feel embarrassed that you only got a master's and they finished a PhD, so you want to make yourself feel more important or accomplished by making the conversation about you.
Look at how and why you interact
with others. When you interact with people, do
you tend to put them down? Maybe you’ve noticed that you only choose to spend
time with people that have more money than you. Behaviors like this can also
teach you things about yourself and what is really important to you.
- For example, if you’re choosing to only spend time with friends that have more money than you, it may show that you want to feel more wealthy by letting yourself pretend you’re equal to your friends in that way.
- Think about what you "hear" vs what was said. This is another thing you can look out for when examining your interactions with your friends and family. You might find that what you hear is something like “I need your help” when what they actually said was “I want your company”, revealing that you have a strong need to feel useful to others.
See how long you can wait for
gratification. Studies have shown that people who
can delay satisfaction have a generally better time getting through life,
getting better grades, more education, and maintaining a healthier body. Think
about situations where you could have delayed gratification. What did you do?
If you have trouble delaying gratification, this is something to look out for a
work on, since it often plays a role in success.
Analyze whether you need to tell or
be told. When you’re doing something, like
work, think about whether you seek out your next task without having to be
asked, whether you need someone else to tell you what to do before you act, or
whether you’d rather skip all of that in favor of just telling someone else
what to do. Each of these things can say different things about you, depending
on the situation.
- Remember that there’s nothing wrong with needing someone to give you instructions and guidance before doing a task. It’s just something to be aware of so that you can better understand and control your own behavior when important things come up. For example, if you know you’re bad at taking control in a situation but you know you need to, you can think about how your reluctance is just “a habit” that you can break and not a necessity.
Look at the way you react in tough
or new situations. When things get really tough, such
as when you lose your job, a loved one dies, or someone is threatening you, the
more hidden or restrained parts of your character tend to come out. Think about
how you’ve reacted in the past when the tension has gotten high. Why did you
react the way that you did? How do you wish that you’d reacted? Would you be
more likely to react that way now?
- You can also imagine these scenarios, but be aware that your hypothetical responses may be clouded by your bias and not accurate to how you’d really react.
- For example, imagine you were moving to a new town where no one knows you. Where would you go to make friends? What kind of people would you try to make friends with? Is there anything you’d change in terms of what you tell people about yourself vs what all your current friends know about you? This can reveal your priorities and what you’re looking for in your social interactions.
Think about how having power
influences your behavior. If you’re
in any kind of position of power, you might want to think about the effect it
has on your behavior. Many people, when put in a position of power, will become
harsher, less open-minded, more controlling, and more suspicious. When you find
yourself making decisions that affect others, think about why you’re really
making that choice: is it because it’s the right thing to do or is it because
you need to feel in-control of the situation?
- For example, when you’re babysitting your little brother, do you put him in timeout just for a small problem? Does this really help him learn or are you just trying to find reasons to put him in timeout?
Examine your influences. The things that have an influence on how you think and how
you see the world can say a lot about you, whether you actually conform to what
they teach or not. In seeing where your influences have shaped your behavior,
you can better understand the root of the behaviors you do have. In seeing
where you deviate from those taught behaviors, you can also identify your
uniqueness and your own personal thinking. Thinks that influence you include:
- Your media intake, such as TV shows, movies, books, and even what porn you watch.
- Your parents, who might teach you things varying from tolerance vs racism to material wealth vs spiritual wealth.
- Your friends, who will pressure you into enjoying certain things or introduce you to a new and wonderful experience.
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