Don’t Be A Stranger - Self Mastery Essentials

That is one of the reasons gaining a deeper understanding of your character is very important in the pursuit of your dreams. It is also important in your relationships.

By gaining a deeper understanding of yourself you begin to see what your strengths and weaknesses are. You must recognise and celebrate your strengths. Everyone, no matter how messed up they might appear to be, has some strengths and these can be a source of comfort and encouragement even for those who don’t see themselves as having much self worth.

Know your weak points too
But do not stop there as many motivational speakers and “feel-good” enthusiasts would have you think. They look only at the positives and encourage people to focus on and build themselves up in these areas. This is unwise advice. Your weak points can be a huge liability and can cause you to fail even though you have many strong points. Your enemies, and in this case your environment, know that you are most vulnerable at your weakest point. Therefore that is the best place to attack you or to challenge you.

It is therefore important to know your weaknesses as well and to change them. Notice I did not say that you should cope or manage your weaknesses. I used to be of the thinking, like many people, that it was a very difficult if not impossible thing to change your attitudes and your behaviour. The phrase that most often comes to mind is “that’s just the way I am.”

A generational blessing or curse?
Worse still I have heard of characteristics being passed down from generation to generation like a baton, particularly in our African culture where people are often proud to have inherited their grandfather’s stubbornness or their uncle’s anger or their father’s shyness.

There is a great deal of truth in the idea that other people, especially parents, can have a strong influence on our personal characteristics. But there is little point in carrying and portraying some of these undesirable features like they are some heirloom we are to be proud of and have no choice over. Often, when we are faced with our own unpleasant characteristics we dismiss them as such and just resign ourselves to them.

You can change
You need to understand that it is possible and necessary for you to change your undesirable characteristics and behaviours. Once you do, deeply analyzing and knowing yourself is not the scary prospect it would first seem. It becomes an exciting, challenging and liberating experience. Self-awareness gives you the capacity to learn from your mistakes as well as your successes. It enables you to keep growing.

Nobody is perfect
A further benefit of understanding and developing yourself is that in so doing you begin to have a deeper appreciation and tolerance for other people’s attitudes and behaviours. You may be very intolerant or critical of other people for various reasons like I was. But by understanding that even you have your own flaws and areas that need to be worked on you gain a better appreciation for other people’s challenging areas and are more empathetic.

It also becomes clear to you that, though others may have weaknesses in certain areas, they are not permanent or pervasive flaws. Like you, they too can change if they better understood themselves. Like you, they too have their good points.

Good leaders learn their specific personal strengths and weaknesses, especially in dealing with other people, then build on the strengths and correct the weaknesses.

Judge not
The above statement was quite a revelation to me because at one point I would judge people based on my own standards and expectations. It rarely occurred to me that what I wanted or what I expected was not necessarily what they wanted or expected. What I may perceive to be a failure, they may see as a success. So it was no longer about me, but about the other person. There is goodness in everyone. There is something to celebrate in everyone.

Hire a personal coach
But how do you go about gaining this deeper understanding of yourself. One of the best ways to do so is to get a personal coach. This is someone who is trained to help you in your personal life and, depending on their training, can assist with things like setting goals, overcoming personal problems and interpersonal relationship problems, career decisions and even business issues.

There are various tools available to coaches that will quickly reveal your weaknesses and strengths and help you to make quick progress in any area of your life. Such tools include profiling tools and tools that are aimed at improving your ability to use both your logical left brain and your creative and intuitive right brain.

The DiSC™ profile
The DiSC™ profiling system is one such example. It looks at your behaviour based on your Dominance style, your Influence style, your Steadiness style and your Conscientiousness style. I found it to be particularly accurate and helpful in gaining a better understanding of myself.

The great thing about getting a coach is that they are usually people that are trained to help you deal with things that you want to deal with in a nonjudgmental manner. Furthermore, they simply facilitate your gaining a deeper knowledge of yourself and help you to come up with your own solutions to challenges.

This is different from a mentor who, as well as doing these things, can also give you advice and offer their own perspective of things based on their knowledge and experience. It is possible that you can find someone who can both coach and mentor you.

Vernon Howard said "Self-knowledge is the great power by which we comprehend and control our lives." Don’t be a stranger to yourself.