Knowing Yourself
Apr. 15th, 2020 08:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fuzzyredI have decided to start working on personal development again, and I thought self-identity would be a good place to start. This might be a long process, since self reflection has never been my strong suit. I am starting with an article from Psychology Today, Know Yourself.
It suggests using the acronym "VITALS" to help in knowing yourself. Values, Interests, Temperament, Around-the-Clock, Life Mission and Goals, and Strengths/Skills. I'm going to tackle these things one post at a time, once a week, as best I can. I'm going to try to be detailed and honest, but I'm new to this. If anyone has any questions, or alternative perspective, or suggestions, feel free to chime in, I always appreciate extra opinions.
Values
Being definitive is hard for me; I've never been one with a strong passion or unwavering beliefs. I do my best to have standards, and live up to them, but I am conflict avoidant and people-pleasing by nature, so I don't always stand up for myself or my beliefs. Certainty scares me. Actually, if I'm being honest, failure and being wrong scares me. The thought of looking like a fool is terrifying so I fall back on wishy-washiness. It's much easier to avoid culpability if you precede everything with multiple qualifiers and give lots of "maybe"s and "perhaps"s as answers. That being said, I want to work on being more assertive, and being confident enough to take a stand on things important to me. At this time, my values might be closer to ideals than things I would take a firm stand on, but I am hoping to get there.
Family
This is one that is very important to me. I love my family and I feel that a strong family life is important. I'm blessed to have a family worth keeping, even if they drive me nuts sometimes, and I admire people that have close ties (these don;t necessarily need to be with birth family). I don't always make enough time for my family, but I try to be there for them as best I can, and finding a balance between work, life and family is something I am still working towards.
Honesty and Integrity
These are values I admire and look for in others, and that I do my best to uphold myself. I have failed in the past, but I am working now to do better. I want to be a person that is honest and shows integrity, and not meeting that standard leaves me feeling like I failed. I will admit that this one is a bit of a battle for me. Honesty trips me up when I feel like an honest answer will lead to conflict. I'm awful at lying though so I usually aim for avoidance, if I can't bring myself to tell the truth. More often lately I have been working to simply stay honest, and handle what happens after. I tend to assume the worst of people's reactions, so I've been trying to not do that anymore. I've had mixed success with that.
Integrity is a challenge of its own, because I have a hard time denying myself pleasure. This poses a problem when it comes to a matter of boundaries, especially since I tend to draw the line in a different place than most people to start with. This often becomes a balancing act of pursuing my pleasure, and not doing something that would hurt someone else (a thing I don't want to do.) I am getting better at this one with practise, learning when to call a halt to things, even if it hasn't crossed a personal line, because hurting others does cross a personal line.
Kindness
Being kind to others is something I try very hard to do. It doesn't matter whether they are like me or if they are different, I do my best to be kind and respectful and I appreciate others that do the same. This world would be a much better place if there was more kindness, so I do my best to act the way I would like to see others acting. I don't always manage this; sometimes I like my judginess and pet peeves get in the way. However, I am working to be aware of when these things rear their head and do my best to counter act them. Kind words and gentle actions do a lot more good than violence and hate, and I am working to do more of this in my every day life.
Critical Thinking
Facts, critical thinking, and rationalness are good qualities to have, and I much prefer surrounding myself with those kinds of people than with ones who sensationalize things, or who tend to be sheep. I do alright at staying rational and grounded, but I need to work on my critical thinking. I can be too trusting, naive, and occasionally too lazy to remember to double check things. I like knowing the details of things, the hows and whys, and I need to remember that those are important enough to wade through the depressing bullshit of the news and people who insist that "things just are like that." I want to make the world a better place, and arming myself with facts and looking critically at others' arguments is a good place to start.
Respecting limits
I'm bad at reading non-verbal limits, but I am trying to get better at this. To my knowledge, I have not pushed past a limit once someone has told me "no", and I think I have managed to avoid pressuring people on "soft limits". This last one is particularly important to me because I have such a hard time giving a firm no. People who respect that said I no up front and don't listen to "heat of the moment" yeses, or people who understand when I say "sometimes but not all the time", are precious people and I value them greatly. This is a quality I would also like to have, I think precisely because I need it so much myself. Things to work on here would be to improve my people reading skills (to notice discomfort sooner/better), and to respect my own limits by giving firmer noes, instead of making myself uncomfortable.
Have a passion/motivation
Having things to do is important. This could be cooking, fiber crafts, wood working, gardening, writing, art, anything really. I'm not whole-heartedly passionate about any one thing (that I've found so far), but I do have interests; things I keep coming back to and that I want to learn more about. Simply lazing around with no purpose at all isn't who I want to be or who I want to be around. It doesn't have to be some noble and lofty purpose, just a reason to get out of bed in the morning, even if that reason is dusting all the shelves and straightening the linens. I'm making an effort to set aside more time to work on my hobbies, to improve the ones that need it (gardening and cooking), and to learn more about the ones I'm curious about (fiber crafts, languages, art). I don't want my interests to get lost in the doldrums of life, and putting time into them helps me remember what is important.
I'm hoping that having written these down will help them stick, and help me focus on strengthening the ones that need it. If you have questions about anything above, want to share any of your own values, or are curious why something didn't make my list (or just my opinion on it), feel free to ask; I love discussions and getting to know people. (I may also like talking about myself just a little bit.) Thanks for reading everyone! :)
It suggests using the acronym "VITALS" to help in knowing yourself. Values, Interests, Temperament, Around-the-Clock, Life Mission and Goals, and Strengths/Skills. I'm going to tackle these things one post at a time, once a week, as best I can. I'm going to try to be detailed and honest, but I'm new to this. If anyone has any questions, or alternative perspective, or suggestions, feel free to chime in, I always appreciate extra opinions.
Values
Being definitive is hard for me; I've never been one with a strong passion or unwavering beliefs. I do my best to have standards, and live up to them, but I am conflict avoidant and people-pleasing by nature, so I don't always stand up for myself or my beliefs. Certainty scares me. Actually, if I'm being honest, failure and being wrong scares me. The thought of looking like a fool is terrifying so I fall back on wishy-washiness. It's much easier to avoid culpability if you precede everything with multiple qualifiers and give lots of "maybe"s and "perhaps"s as answers. That being said, I want to work on being more assertive, and being confident enough to take a stand on things important to me. At this time, my values might be closer to ideals than things I would take a firm stand on, but I am hoping to get there.
Family
This is one that is very important to me. I love my family and I feel that a strong family life is important. I'm blessed to have a family worth keeping, even if they drive me nuts sometimes, and I admire people that have close ties (these don;t necessarily need to be with birth family). I don't always make enough time for my family, but I try to be there for them as best I can, and finding a balance between work, life and family is something I am still working towards.
Honesty and Integrity
These are values I admire and look for in others, and that I do my best to uphold myself. I have failed in the past, but I am working now to do better. I want to be a person that is honest and shows integrity, and not meeting that standard leaves me feeling like I failed. I will admit that this one is a bit of a battle for me. Honesty trips me up when I feel like an honest answer will lead to conflict. I'm awful at lying though so I usually aim for avoidance, if I can't bring myself to tell the truth. More often lately I have been working to simply stay honest, and handle what happens after. I tend to assume the worst of people's reactions, so I've been trying to not do that anymore. I've had mixed success with that.
Integrity is a challenge of its own, because I have a hard time denying myself pleasure. This poses a problem when it comes to a matter of boundaries, especially since I tend to draw the line in a different place than most people to start with. This often becomes a balancing act of pursuing my pleasure, and not doing something that would hurt someone else (a thing I don't want to do.) I am getting better at this one with practise, learning when to call a halt to things, even if it hasn't crossed a personal line, because hurting others does cross a personal line.
Kindness
Being kind to others is something I try very hard to do. It doesn't matter whether they are like me or if they are different, I do my best to be kind and respectful and I appreciate others that do the same. This world would be a much better place if there was more kindness, so I do my best to act the way I would like to see others acting. I don't always manage this; sometimes I like my judginess and pet peeves get in the way. However, I am working to be aware of when these things rear their head and do my best to counter act them. Kind words and gentle actions do a lot more good than violence and hate, and I am working to do more of this in my every day life.
Critical Thinking
Facts, critical thinking, and rationalness are good qualities to have, and I much prefer surrounding myself with those kinds of people than with ones who sensationalize things, or who tend to be sheep. I do alright at staying rational and grounded, but I need to work on my critical thinking. I can be too trusting, naive, and occasionally too lazy to remember to double check things. I like knowing the details of things, the hows and whys, and I need to remember that those are important enough to wade through the depressing bullshit of the news and people who insist that "things just are like that." I want to make the world a better place, and arming myself with facts and looking critically at others' arguments is a good place to start.
Respecting limits
I'm bad at reading non-verbal limits, but I am trying to get better at this. To my knowledge, I have not pushed past a limit once someone has told me "no", and I think I have managed to avoid pressuring people on "soft limits". This last one is particularly important to me because I have such a hard time giving a firm no. People who respect that said I no up front and don't listen to "heat of the moment" yeses, or people who understand when I say "sometimes but not all the time", are precious people and I value them greatly. This is a quality I would also like to have, I think precisely because I need it so much myself. Things to work on here would be to improve my people reading skills (to notice discomfort sooner/better), and to respect my own limits by giving firmer noes, instead of making myself uncomfortable.
Have a passion/motivation
Having things to do is important. This could be cooking, fiber crafts, wood working, gardening, writing, art, anything really. I'm not whole-heartedly passionate about any one thing (that I've found so far), but I do have interests; things I keep coming back to and that I want to learn more about. Simply lazing around with no purpose at all isn't who I want to be or who I want to be around. It doesn't have to be some noble and lofty purpose, just a reason to get out of bed in the morning, even if that reason is dusting all the shelves and straightening the linens. I'm making an effort to set aside more time to work on my hobbies, to improve the ones that need it (gardening and cooking), and to learn more about the ones I'm curious about (fiber crafts, languages, art). I don't want my interests to get lost in the doldrums of life, and putting time into them helps me remember what is important.
I'm hoping that having written these down will help them stick, and help me focus on strengthening the ones that need it. If you have questions about anything above, want to share any of your own values, or are curious why something didn't make my list (or just my opinion on it), feel free to ask; I love discussions and getting to know people. (I may also like talking about myself just a little bit.) Thanks for reading everyone! :)
