5 ways knowing yourself can transform your life

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<H1> 5 Ways Knowing Yourself

Can Transform Your Life

Transformation life cycle of banded swallowtail butterfly (Papil

Written by Coach Tina

Last Updated: 1/9/2024

In my experience as a life and career coach, teacher, and human I have seen people go through powerful personal and professional transformations. Sometimes they choose the change they want and sometimes the change happens to them and they have to learn to manage it. Either way, there is one constant: it requires them to connect with their true selves again.

In my work, I have been lucky to work with kind, thoughtful, achievers who have reclaimed their sense of authenticity, confidence, and empowerment, navigated career challenges and growth, challenged their outdated beliefs, harnessed their inner courage and peace, and led themselves to the life they want.

And it always starts with knowing yourself.

Knowing and understanding who you are, where you’re strong, how you see the world, and what you want is essential for any personal change. You can call it self-connection, self-concept, or self-relationship, but the truth is, you can only achieve real breakthroughs when you deeply know yourself. To transform your life, start by looking inward.

<H1> What does it mean to know yourself?

If you’re a concrete thinker, the term “knowing yourself” seems vague and lacking specifics. Is it knowing as a thinking skill- as in knowing information, or knowing as in being acquainted with someone? How can you be acquainted with yourself? What is the self? Isn’t it us?

Here’s the definition of “know oneself” from Merriam-Webster:

to understand oneself fully: to understand one's own emotions, desires, abilities, etc.

Example: “I was so young then. I really didn't know myself.”

To “understand oneself fully,” this definition hints it will include your emotions, desires, abilities, and “etc.” Filling in the “etc.” will depend on your definition of what oneself is- maybe you see this as your identity, your behaviors, your impact, or how others see you.

Woman in colorful clothes walking alone on a mountain top on a journey for self knowledge

Beautiful Photo thanks to: Quang Nguyễn Vinh

Thinking in concrete terms, knowing yourself can be:

those things you can measure in some way
your habits, your behavior strategies, your actions
your skills, your strengths,
your preferences
your external personality.

Thinking in the abstract, knowing yourself can be:

a feeling of being solid in who you are
a feeling connected and aligned with the best parts of who you’ve been
something felt in your presence and demonstrated in your actions
your desires and force within to meet those desires
your levels of self-belief, self-compassion, self-worth, and self-trust.

In the work I do with my life and career coaching clients, we combine concrete and abstract ways of knowing ourselves. This helps to better understand and take ownership of the personal and professional transformation my clients desire.

In the following section, I share how have seen this awareness invigorate personal change and transformation in 5 key ways.

<H1>>Knowing yourself transforms your life by supporting you to:

<H2> 1. Understand and Manage your Responses

When you start to understand you are responsible for your reactions- no matter how annoying or triggering an external situation can be you begin to look at yourself differently. No longer is the answer “Everyone in my life is (uncaring/inconsiderate/rude/whatever need or reassurance you are looking for in them to restore in you).” Instead, you can say “It completely makes sense I’m feeling this way. It’s clear I’m feeling a need for (safety/certainty/belonging/connection/significance/nurturing/validation, etc).”

Once you see how your reaction makes sense, you open the door to give yourself compassion. When you accept that you are feeling empty of some quality and are seeking a solution through your interactions with others, you invite self-compassion and understanding into the conversation. It becomes easier to say, “Self, I know what you are going through, and why this is important to you. I will give you the reassurance/acceptance/nurturing, etc that you need.”

Once you are aware of your preferred strategies and the needs, fears, or resistance behind them, you are better able to give yourself compassion and understanding. This is the practice that helps you manage your reaction into a healthier response.

Which will help you to...

<H3> <H2>2. Improve your relationships

Once you are better able to manage your responses, you will notice an improvement in how you experience your relationships. Communication becomes easier, as you likely have already communicated with yourself about how you feel and what you need in your own time alone. Then once you are ready to approach your partner you will be able to clearly articulate your needs and requests in a way that honors your healthiest self.

Knowing yourself deeply also helps relationships by helping you to see yourself in relation to others.

Many conflicts are rooted in one person assuming or judging another’s preferences or actions by their own idea of right and wrong, instead of understanding the other person likely has a different set of values and priorities. Knowing and understanding your own value system and preferences as truly yours, helps you understand other people have their own unique values and preferences. It becomes easier to respect where others are coming from and stand in your strengths and priorities with ease. This then supports...

<H3> <H2> 3. Easier decision-making

When you know yourself, your desires, your values, and your needs decision-making becomes much easier. Knowing Tapping into what is important to you on a regular basis helps you choose what is aligned with your goals and what supports your healthy self. Over time you learn what decisions need more consideration, and how you utilize your values, strengths, preferences, and behavior strategies to make those decisions. If you are someone who is used to putting other people’s needs first, it becomes easier to choose yourself without hesitation or guilt, which helps you to...

<H2> 4. Choose opportunities to develop your strengths

Staying in connection with yourself on a consistent basis helps you to identify those areas that bring you strength, the activities you perform with strength, and the areas that you have a natural momentum, or “flow” when you do them. You will also become aware of the areas that weaken you.

Having this awareness of what activities bring you strength will help you feel motivated to schedule them into your weekly routine. This is a simple way to leverage your strengths- creating new opportunities to develop them during the daily tasks you already do.

Once you have developed your strengths in this small way, you can look for bigger opportunities or stretches to grow your strengths even further. The largest transformations we get are when we push ourselves a bit outside of our comfort zone, using our strengths and courage to try something new. This naturally leads to..

<H2>5. Increase your self belief and confidence

Regularly choosing activities that bring you strength and challenging yourself to new strength building opportunities will build your trust in your abilities and competencies- namely, your confidence. When you choose actions based on your inherent strengths and values, you align your life with what is true about yourself.

Connecting to what you know about yourself will make it easier to advocate for yourself with courage, as you are speaking from what you know is true about yourself and your preferences. Speaking from a place of deep truth and authenticity quickly builds confidence and personal authority.

Knowing yourself paves the way to self-compassion and self-acceptance, which are requirements to believing in your vision, priorities, desires, potential, competence, worth, and value in your life. This enables you to act with confidence and belief in your abilities.

<H2>Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: How do I know myself better?

A good place to start is taking time out of each day during a transition- morning, lunch, dinner, bedtime and asking yourself “What is going on with me now? How am I feeling? What do I need? Do I agree with everyone in the room, or is something different true for me? What am I learning about myself?”

The next logical step is beginning a journal practice, devoting time to be alone and connect with yourself, and making sure some part of your week includes you honoring your own decisions and commitments to yourself.

Q: What are some tools or methods to help you know yourself?

Assessments like Marcus Buckingham’s Stand Out, guided exercises and journal prompts like these, creating and reflecting on your life journey map, and the comprehensive course Know Yourself the Short Course.

Q: What are the challenges of knowing yourself?

A: If you consider your idea of yourself as a constant that will never change, or a set of rules that you must stick to, this will keep you from trying something new or growing as a person. For example, if you believe that you are a person that is defined by being analytical and logical, you may not try something that you think is more creative or emotion-based. So having a too firm grasp on “this is exactly me, and nothing else” will keep you in a fixed mindset, and hold you back from growing.

Q: How can you accept and love what you find about yourself?

Understanding that we are multifaceted, and we all contain shadow parts of ourselves we do not like to admit to, or society doesn’t accept. We tend to reject and isolate those pieces, but they are incredibly valuable for having an accurate and true belief about ourselves. When we accept our shadows, we understand how they contribute to our story, and what they might need from us to move forward towards healing. Just as we extend compassion to the difficult coworker or challenging child, we can learn to accept and collaborate with all parts of ourselves.

Next steps:

Do you feel the pull to know yourself better? I’m offering an affordable and comprehensive solution named Know Yourself the Short Course. This hybrid three module self paced course includes an embedded live 60-minute integrative coaching session at the end. This is perfect for if you need a quick deep dive back to the best of you- maybe in preparation for a new job, confidence boost, or to encourage movement on a new goal or creation. Visit www.movewithcouragecoaching.com/knowyourselfshortcourse to learn more.