When was the last time you did a “Self-Assessment”? Put yourself through an annual Mental/Spiritual Health exam? It can start with thinking about your thinking: it would help if you thought about your thoughts. Do you direct your mind? Give it guidance? Thoughts held in mind attract in kind, what you focus on expands. I have a whole series of affirmations, quotes, and visualizations that I utilize when my mind begins to wander especially when toxic thoughts or stinking thinking loom.

Can you go to the balcony? Look at yourself from a 3rd party perspective? See yourself as others see you? Solicit honest feedback? Make it safe for others to be frank with you? Direct and objective? Even, if need be, boldly, brazenly, blunt? Even if it is misguided, can you find the grains of wheat amidst the chaff? Even if off-base, feedback can give you valuable insight into how they see the world and how you can best reach them.

It can be instructive to write out your Self Concept (who you are, what kind of a person you are, how you view the world, your primary emotions), your Identity (what you are, age, occupation, accomplishments, nationality, religion, gender etc.) and delve into your sense of self, your Self Esteem (how you feel about who and what you are). It’s like anything complex in life, the better the instruction manual, the better the results. The challenge is that while there are many sources of help, in the final analysis, it’s up to us to write out our own instruction manual.

Often that starts out with creating a diagnosis of what needs to be changed/fixed. The more adept you are at ferreting out dysfunctional past sub routines or the hidden programming that you inadvertently absorbed that no longer serves you i.e. the more self-aware you are, the better you know you: the more understanding and control you will have of your emotions and the better life you will live.

Closing Quotes:

“You can’t improve what you won’t face and own.” – Michael Hyatt

“The most important conversations you’ll ever have are the ones you’ll have with yourself.” – David Goggins, ultramarathon runner

“You have to look at yourself objectively. Analyze yourself like an instrument. You have to be absolutely frank with yourself. Face your handicaps, don’t try to hide them. Instead, develop something else.” – Audrey Hepburn

As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier