Know Yourself

At the center of the systems and habits approach to improvement is the ability to understand yourself. For this method to work, you have to learn how to know your strengths and weaknesses. Then we leverage strengths and fix weaknesses.

This sounds easy. We all assume we know us. We know our innermost thoughts. We know what we did yesterday. We know how it felt to be in each and every situation.

But this doesn’t translate into us knowing more about ourselves. In fact, we are biased. We miss reality because we feel we know more.

This is why most people can quickly tell you the faults of those around them. They see others' flaws. They know what they need to improve.

But turn it around to what I need to improve and I shut down. Instead I have a blind spot. I misread myself.

Malcolm Gladwell explores this in his book Talking to Strangers. He says, “We think we can easily see into the hearts of others based on the flimsiest of clues. We jump at the chance to judge strangers. We would never do that to ourselves, of course. We are nuanced and complex and enigmatic. But the stranger is easy.”

He goes on to explain the danger in judging strangers. But for me the more interesting part is the fact that we can’t see ourselves. Instead we let the complexity convince us what we want to believe.

This means that when we sit down to work on improving we won’t be dealing with the real us. Instead we are trying to work with a completely flawed perception of us.

To improve, we have to see the real us. We have to see through our blind spots. This is the only way to address the small habit that is sabotaging your relationships. This is the only way to fix the poor routine that is leading to weight gain and depression.

There are two tricks that I have learned to better see myself. First, I look for patterns. If a situation ends poorly but I have all sorts of reasons why I won’t spend too much time analyzing. But if a similar situation then comes about, I will put a ton of effort to see through my beliefs. Patterns tip you off to the real situation.

The second trick is to start improving where you know you have a weakness. This helps to turn that into a strength and in doing so gives you confidence that you can fix weaknesses. This eases up your ego, so it doesn’t mask everything. It let’s some things through.

It also helps you to see the depth of weaknesses. Often there is more than meets the eye. Getting in and fixing something starts to bring forward other, related issues.

Getting to know yourself isn’t about thinking about what you want. It isn’t about detailing who you believe yourself to be. It is about spotting the patterns that conflict with your beliefs. It is about working to improve so you can better spot weak areas going forward. This will start to build confidence that you can use to keep trudging through the difficult process of improvement.

Everyone wants to be successful and happy. But if we can’t see past our own biases we will likely miss areas that can improve. Through improvement we can keep getting better and better in many different areas. This can lead to success and happiness and the ability to change and grow aspects of yourself.