There were a series of events that occurred the past couple years which allowed me to think about what I wanted out of life. Now over the past year, I've been intensely committed to improving myself through the study of personal growth material, to challenge and develop a deeper understanding of myself.
It definitely wasn’t as serious as that evil dad from the Twisted Sister Video, but I did ask myself, “What do you wanna do with your life?”
This is such an easy question to avoid and forget about completely. It also may seem mildly intimidating, since commonly we don’t realize we have a choice in the matter. The idea of doing something with one’s life is exactly that –you must do something with it.
This task of figuring out your mission, finding your purpose, following your passion, and seeking curiosity takes time, effort, patience, and persistence. Making the time and commitment to doing this will force you into new habits and potentially make you feel uncomfortable, but hopefully really freaking excited!
I will share a few ideas that stand out for me in (loosely) summarizing self-discovery.
Ask; Listen; Think; Determine
1. Ask yourself good questions.
Not ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions (although those are helpful), but instead ask, “How would I feel if I …? What would it look like if we… What will ____help me understand? What do I want do in the next 3 years? Who do I want to be come for my [partner, family, community]?
2. Be quiet with yourself.
Make time, set a ritual, and value yourself enough to just sit still for at least 5-10 minutes everyday. Call it a meditation or a time to relax it really doesn’t matter although once the outside world slows down you get to hear the inside world. You can get those good questions answered and understand where to go next.
3. Think, and then think why you think.
As one starts to think about themselves you’ll realize that some thoughts have a common thread, or some ideas sound inherently restrictive. Understand why you feel or believe that certain response, and you may come to the realization that those feelings or beliefs are not true or doesn’t help you at all. The majority of “truths” and ideas are most of the time not true at all, or just something that someone else told you to believe.
4. If this then that.
If your beliefs don’t matter or serve you anymore, you have the ability to make your own opinion about it. This is when personal development gets interesting because you must look at yourself as an individual that can develop new ideas, habits, education, and so on. You’re not defined by anything unless you believe that’s all you know. If you want to be redefined by [blank] then, you must do, think, believe, or act like [blank].
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The key to personal growth and helping yourself is that, one must learn to understand oneself in several ways –within a job, career, family, or relationship, and way beyond that.
This key point gives me the work-around answer to, “What do you want to do with your life?” I want to spend the rest of my life understand myself and what make me happy so I can help other people. I’ve been liking fluffy and vague wording nowadays although I really believe that we do need to understand ourselves to know where we are going and why.
The reason I’m even sharing this post is to develop the context of why I have chosen to start a personal mission to restore my health. I’ve been diagnosed with 2 autoimmune diseases and I think a diagnosis is a one-sided opinion of a doctor given the present results. With that said, I don’t believe my current results are who I am, and I have the ability to think whatever I choose about my body. I have chosen to embrace my conditions and a will try everything I can to personally grow myself into a perfectly happy healthy life.
My post are intended to reveal several sides of my character but more importantly I’m looking to develop my own content and understanding to help others to develop their own, regarding self-image, health, diabetes, lifestyle, and wellness.