a. Be honest with yourself
i. Self honesty- knowing is better than not knowing.
1. The truth hurts sometimes, but trying to keep an obvious truth hidden inside yourself can hurt even more. Making excuses doesn’t help, rationalizing doesn’t help, yelling doesn’t help. Bringing yourself to a painful but honest realization will actually do you more good
a. How to be honest with yourself
i. Choose a focus for your introspection. Good ones include goals, career, money, family, spirituality, and love. ii. Set some time aside for yourself. Get up earlier or later than your family, or find a quiet space where you can sit and think. Some people think better while doing some other simple task (such as laundry) or while walking. Find out what works for you. iii. Take stock. What is your life all about? What is your purpose in it? What are you good at? What could you improve? iv. Be objective. Self-reflection and assessment can be a very emotional matter, but try to be detached.
v. Be specific. What have you accomplished, why did you do it? What would you like to accomplish? What bothers you? Why does it bother you? What do you like about yourself? vi. Keep things in perspective. So you haven't won your Nobel Peace Prize yet. Neither have most of the rest of us. You're only human, and nobody, including yourself, should expect perfection of you. vii. Write things down. Putting something in words helps you to be specific. You can write in whatever way you feel comfortable expressing yourself, be it lists, notes, cartoons, drawings, or maps. If you're not a writer, consider talking into a tape recorder or recording your thoughts some other way. viii. Consider the good and the bad, both. One way businesses do this is with a "SWOT" diagram. Take four pages or sections of a page and write in them the following
a. • Strengths. What are you best at? What do you love doing and do just for the passion of it? What do others compliment you on