5 Tips to Get to Know Yourself Better

5 Tips to Get to Know Yourself Better

by | Dec 26, 2021 | Self-care

Practicing Self-Discipline Brings Great Results

Discipline is a term people toss around a lot. But what is it exactly? Is it the ability to control your impulses? The ability to focus on complex tasks even when you don't feel like it? Or maybe the ability to adhere to rules and guidelines even if you don't like them?

Here are five of the best tips to get to know yourself better. These tips will help jump-start your journey into self-reflection. By finding the answers you’ve been looking for, you can start to strive toward your true potential.

Let’s get started.

Tip #1: Be Still

For many people, it’s hard to sit alone in a quiet room and contemplate. They become uncomfortable and agitated.

Still, this is an important step to get to know the inner you, the part of you that is your true self. Be brave in the face of your imperfections and the self-talk. As soon as you begin to embrace the good as the real you; you can start discovering your true self.

It all starts when you take the time to sit still and listen to yourself. Think of it as a form of mindfulness meditation where you focus completely on the present moment.

Tip #2: Ask the Right Questions

Too many times, we knock ourselves down through negative self-talk. Instead, talk to yourself as you would a friend. Be kind and show empathy. The best way to do that is by asking self-discovery questions so you can get to know yourself better.

Write down the answers on post-its and hang them up next to your bed or bathroom mirror. You can also jot the answers down in a journal. In fact, experts say are journals are one of the most effective tools of self-awareness.

Here are some important questions you can ask yourself today:

  • What are my core values?
  • Who’s my biggest role model? Why?
  • What makes me feel safe? Or Who?
  • What are my short-term and long-term goals?

At the end of this article, you can download a full list of self-discovery questions.

Tip #3: Find Your Strengths

Each one of us is here for a reason. Each of us, adults and children have their own unique gifts, talents, skills, and temperament. Some things just come more naturally to each of us better than others. That’s the natural order of things.

Knowing what you’re good at is necessary on the journey of finding who you really are. Focusing on your strengths boosts self-confidence and increases your drive to achieve more. Only then, will you be able to make room for better, more productive things in your life.

Let’s not forget that it’s just as important to figure out what you’re not good at. Allow yourself to try different things. Then, by trial and error, you’ll know exactly what you’re good at and what you should steer clear of.

Interestingly enough, your strengths will almost always align with your core values. Together, they can help you manage your life path, both at home and at work.

Tip #4: Discover Your Passion

Now that you know what you’re good at, it’s time to hone in on the things that excite you and give your life meaning. This can be one thing or twenty—the point is to follow through.

Having that drive gives you purpose and strength. You savor each moment and push yourself to achieve new goals.

This positive energy you exude when you’re doing something you’re passionate about is vital. It allows you to want to be better and do more. That can only come when you truly enjoy what you’re doing.

Tip #5: Determine Your Call to Action

Your core values, purpose, and passion is unique to you. Now what is your call to action for those core values?

What are the behaviors you want to practice, that line up with your values? When you call yourself to action by behaving as your best self, your confidence rises, you feel good about yourself, you feel in alignment with your inner being.

When you feel frustrated, depressed, or angry it simply means you are not aligned with what you value.

This is one form of self-care that will work wonders for your self-esteem. Get to know yourself better and live your best self.  Watch those around you, especially your family respect you.

In Conclusion

We hope you found these five tips to get to know yourself better helpful. Figuring out who you are as an individual has many advantages for yourself and your family.

The most significant is that it puts things in perspective. It allows you to feel comfortable in the choices and decisions you make for yourself and your family. Knowing who you are keeps you from being swayed or overly influenced by the choices of others.

As a result, you’re able to focus more on your personal strengths and be more accepting of your weaknesses. Socrates also said, “Be as you wish to seem.” In other words, when you know what you want out of life, you know what you don’t want and the only thing that can hold you back is your imagination. So, be bold and dream big!

Getting to know yourself better is part of the first ‘C’ in the Four C’s of Successful Families. CLARITY is about the unifying set of values, virtues, mission, and purpose for your unique family (Team).  The other C’s are COMMUNICATION, CONSISTENCY, & COMMUNITY.

 

Want help getting to know yourself better? Download your full list of self-discovery questions. If you want, share them with other members of your family, especially your partner.

Self-Discovery Questions Download Below

Personal Development: Ten Character Traits Worth Developing

Personal Development: Ten Character Traits Worth Developing

by | Aug 19, 2021 | Self-care

Personal Development

Many adults in their professional lives are required to take Professional Development (PD) courses. They do so willingly or sometimes reluctantly with the hope of improving their status or ability to make progress in their career.

Many more adults delve into personal development courses, books, seminars, webinars, and coaches. They do so with a thirst to create the best version of themselves in their relationships with a partner, as a parent or bottom line – they are looking for greater joy, happiness, and success in life. 

There is little we can do as a parent that has more impact on our family than developing our own character, balancing the virtues that fill us. What we role model for our children, informs them of what is important to us as their leader.  

Why Build A Good Character

“You are your most important critic and your conscience your most important judge of character.”

Denis Waitley

Take a moment first to remind yourself that you have all of the virtues already. Building character is about developing / balancing those virtues and living up to your full potential. Virtues are a part of your inner-being. They might be shown in positive or negative ways or they may be over or underdeveloped, but they are there in full potential.

Personal development begins as we clarify how we want to be in this world and then act on those ideals and values consistently. Living a balanced life impacts how you feel about yourself and those in your sphere of influence, especially your children.

How Good Character Traits Help

  • Gain trust and respect from others.
  • Inspire and motivate others to build good character.
  • Improves confidence and self-respect.
  • Provide a core for making major choices and decisions.
  • Display leadership attributes in both professional and personal endeavors.
  • Also, good character traits are the backbone of a wholesome functioning society.

While the development of your virtues is not without stress, successfully developing these traits can be amongst the most pleasant and satisfying endeavors.

People often fall into the trap of thinking their character is fixed and cannot be changed. They assume they are either good or bad. However, research has shown that character is malleable. Virtues can be developed and balanced over time with practice and devotion.

Here is a list of 10 character traits/virtues worth developing. Each of them will impact every role you play in life – especially parenting. Working on all ten at once might be quite impossible, so a good idea is to pick one of these qualities and get started. 

Humility

This is the quality of being humble. The feeling or attitude that you are not more special, or more important than others. No man is an island and being a humble person entails accepting the contribution of other individuals in helping you accomplish all you have achieved. Acknowledging the role of your mentors, role models, and everyone else who’s helped you reach your goal. Humility helps us to learn from our mistakes and ask for help when needed.

Contentment

This is the mental and emotional state of content and satisfaction drawn from being at ease with one’s situation. According to research, this is the state of acceptance of one’s situation and is a less tentative feeling of happiness. 

However, a thin line separates lack of ambition and contentment. Contentment does not mean that you lack dreams, mission or purpose. Contentment is a place to stand and view the future with appreciation for what is and all that is to come in the future. We can be content and trust that the Universe will answer the desires we have for the future.

Reliability

Successfully fulfilling whatever has been entrusted to you is an amazing character trait. Being considered as someone reliable and dependable even when it requires some sacrifice to deliver is a positive character trait worth developing. Reliable individuals choose their commitments with care and take responsibility for the promises they have made.

Determination

This is the positive emotional feeling that entails persisting in pursuing a challenging goal despite the presence of obstacles. Determination serves as motivation to achieve a goal, and it usually precedes the achievement of said goals. Everyone loves a determined person who works steadily to achieve their goals; because it demonstrates that you care about something so much that even when it is hard, you still keep going.

Patience

This character trait is amongst the most neglected trait in today’s fast-paced world. This involves waiting for the right things to happen at the right time. It is the capacity to delay satisfaction and having self control. You cannot control the way someone else is acting or when your goals aren’t met on the time schedule you had hoped for. Patience is amongst the top character traits worth developing.

Honesty

Truthfulness and honesty to others and yourself is a good indicator of a responsible individual. Apart from being respected by others, an honest individual has better odds of being genuinely happy and living long as compared to not being true to yourself. Amongst the leading reasons for being dishonest is the fear of consequences. This can be overcome by having the courage to face the consequences of our actions, however dreadful they might be.

Courage

This is the willingness and ability to confront uncertainty, danger, intimidation, pain, or agony despite fear and doing what needs to be done even if it is hard or scary. This is a good character trait worth developing as it helps us to face the truth and mistakes we make with a readiness to try again. Once you are courageous, you’ll face the unknown and explore the world around you rather than being held back by fear.

Compassion

According to research, this is a desirable and admirable character trait, especially when placed side by side with the alternative of being judgmental, critical, or indifferent to the plight of others. Having compassion for ourselves is as important as showing we care for others. Compassion is especially important in a world that can be hard and lonely, 

Flexibility

This virtue is about being capable of adjusting to new situations and conditions. While there are times where standing your ground and being rigid has its benefits, it more often than not gets in the way of progress. This trait entails being resilient enough to adjust and adapt to new information and situations rather than being rigid.

Self-Discipline

While the above character traits are important and worth developing, self-discipline helps ensure you do not allow emotions to control decisions or responses to challenges. Self-discipline helps us to create structure in our life, using routines and rituals so you have time to fill personal needs and those of our family. You have the ability to think, learn, absorb, and know when to act on strong impulses.

There you have 10 virtues that are worth developing personally and in your children, so your family lives united, happy, and successful lives. Living life to its full potential is the reason we developed the framework for the Four C’s of Successful Families. I desire to see every family safe, healthy, successful and happy. Therefore, each stage of the Four C’s, Clarity, Communication, Consistency, and Community brings out the best in ourselves, in our families, and our life.

Where to begin

The Four C’s of Successful Families begins with Clarity. Clarity begins with each of us as individuals and then is united with those we love. We cannot lead a family or any group without first being clear about who we are, what we stand for, and what we want to accomplish in the roles that we play. 

To gain clarity begin by identifying the roles that you play in life, both personal and professional. To get you started here is a brief list that you can choose from and add to as you think of the roles you are filling:

  • father/mother
  • husband/wife/partner/Significant other
  • sibling
  • friend
  • employee
  • boss
  • volunteer
  • Member of a civic org.
  • Member of a faith organization 
  • son/daughter
  • aunt, uncle, cousin etc.
  • NAME YOUR OTHER ROLES

As you look at these roles choose four of the most important to you at this moment.

Then consider the following questions.

Write a description of your best self in each of those roles.

  • Describe how do you want to be in each of those roles? 
  • How do the virtues listed above look in the roles you have listed?
  • What behaviors or practices would demonstrate those virtues in the roles you chose to examine? 
  • Are there other character traits or virtues that are more important to you in those roles so that you can be the best version of yourself? (See a list of 100 virtues here)

Personal development gives parents more authority to guide and correct children, while  helping yourself and them develop the virtues inside of them.

As you fill in the grid by answering these questions you will begin to notice that some of the same characteristics or virtues keep showing up in all of your roles. Those virtues are certainly ones that are important to you to practice on a regular basis as they demonstrate what you value in life.

The virtues that keep coming up on your grid no doubt, are important to you to develop in your children. Consider for a few minutes how you can help your child or children to develop those virtues in themselves.

While doing all of this, be careful that you are not influenced by what others insist is important or what society demands from you. Each of us is unique, your family is unique and how you want to present yourself and your family is up to you individually.

When a parent is working on themselves, children are taking notice. Personal development gives parents more authority to guide and correct children, while helping yourself and them develop the virtues inside of them.

See a full list of 100 Virtues with descriptions and practices at:

https://josephmichael.coach/100-virtues/

Is there something you are struggling with in family life? Are you looking for ways to bring out the best in yourself and your children? Want to learn how the Four C’s of Successful Families can work for your family?  

Contact me for a free discovery session. 

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Introduction to Four C’s of Successful Families

Introduction to Four C’s of Successful Families

by | Aug 17, 2021 | Parenting, Relationships

You have heard me speak of the Four C’s of Successful Families in the Virtues Pick we do each day. I do not know if there are truly any new ideas in this framework, however I am hopeful that the way this is presented will be helpful to families and individuals as they live their best lives and raise their children to be safe, healthy, successful, and happy. 

Clarity

The Four C’s start with Clarity. Clarity is all about knowing ourselves, what is important to us as individuals and for our family. Clarity identifies the values we desire to live up to, the virtues we have developed well and those that we are working to attain, to balance in our life. 

In the family, Clarity is also being proactive in naming what the virtues look like or what behaviors demonstrate those virtues for you and your family. Staying in a positive mode we are not creating a long list of rules, but Clarity does require that we know what our non-negotiable boundaries are and how we wish for the virtues to be demonstrated by ourselves and family members, and what the consequences are for not doing so. One of the ways that Clarity is maintained is by creating a vision and mission statement for your family. This becomes your family Constitution that you live by, make decisions and choices with and govern your life.

Communication

The second C is for Communication. As an individual I may know how I want to be treated, what virtues are critical to the success of my family, however if I do not share it with others effectively and get agreement on family values, we are going to come off as a dictator in our home. (No one likes a dictator)

Therefore, communication is about how to use language so we can appreciate, acknowledge, guide, and correct family members in an effective manner. Communicating on a regular basis about the important things for our family that leads to successful and happy members requires using family meeting times, both formal and informal. Doing so will help us to resolve conflicts, plan fun events, keep everyone on the same calendar, and discuss anything that comes up in typical family life with respect for everyone’s input.

Knowing how to talk to our children, especially when they are struggling with living the virtues they have inside themselves is critical to them learning to make decisions and motivate themselves intrinsically. In the discussions about communication there are many suggestions to help your family keep the lines of communication open throughout your family life for years to come.

Consistency

The third C is Consistency. With any practice we have, consistency is important to long-term success. Consistency in a family including how to discipline, boundaries, beliefs, routines, rituals, and family meetings. There are simple steps we can take when we are determined to be consistent in these areas. Schedules and calendars of course help in the day-to-day activities along with discussions about schedules at your family meeting. 

Consistency with discipline and boundaries are one of the big areas that many struggle with –  but can be overcome with the activities that are suggested in the first and second C, Clarity and Communication. When we are sure about what is important to us, what our personal goals are, what we want for our children and are communicating them well, often, and with love and respect, consistency will be much easier.

Community

The Fourth C is Community. Everything and everyone that we surround ourselves and our family with make up our community. Our community can be an asset to our family or if we do not pay attention to our community it can end up being harmful to the family. It is critical to examine our community for what it is contributing to our family.

Conclusion

We have spent time focusing on the Four C’s in Successful Families, but honestly these same Four C’s are helpful in every part of life. They can be applied to children, young adults for laying out their life , businesses, employers and employees, married, single – no matter who you are or what you want to do, if you practice Exploring and finding Clarity, Communicating Clearly, Being Consistent in your chosen actions and surrounding yourself with a Community of support and upbuilding, you will find success. 

Is there one of the Four C’s that is a struggle? I am available for private coaching to help you become effective in any or all of these areas so that your family can be Safe, Healthy, Successful, & Happy!

Contact me for a free discovery session. 

Zeal

Zeal

by | Jul 4, 2021 | Virtues

Description

Zeal is passion for a purpose we deeply value. We follow a vision of what is possible with enthusiasm and ardor. When we are zealous, we give our all. Zeal is fueled by our belief and faith. We do all that we can to serve a cause we believe to be real and true. We need tolerance as the ballast for our zeal when others’ beliefs differ from our own. Zeal is the fire in our belly. It illumines even the smallest task with joy.

Quote

“Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal. The winner is he who gives himself to his work body and soul.”

— Charles Buxton

 The Practice of Zeal

  • I have a deep sense of purpose.
  • I am passionate about what I value.
  • I give all I have.
  • I persevere in my enthusiasm.
  • I am considerate of the perspective of others.
  • I work with joyous energy.
Definitions and practices of virtue are used with permission from the Virtues Project™.

In Family Life

The virtue of zeal in a family is a radiant flame that fuels the collective spirit and drives members to pursue their family vision and individual aspirations with unwavering enthusiasm. Zeal is the driving force that propels family members to invest time and effort into strengthening their bonds, fostering open communication, and creating cherished memories. It thrives in an environment where everyone is committed to the family’s harmony, resilience, and continued evolution. It is an essential virtue that ignites the spirit of unity and shared purpose within the family circle.

Balancing Zeal

Zeal is a powerful virtue when harnessed correctly, but it must be balanced to avoid both overdevelopment and underdevelopment. To strike a balance with Zeal, several virtues can serve as guiding lights:

      • Tolerance: As mentioned in your description, tolerance is essential when our zeal clashes with differing beliefs. It helps us remain open to diverse perspectives and fosters harmonious interactions.
      • Wisdom: Wisdom guides us to temper our zeal with discernment. It reminds us to consider the consequences of our actions and whether they align with our deeply held values.
      • Patience: Patience is crucial in maintaining a balanced zeal. It reminds us that achieving our goals might take time, allowing us to pace ourselves to avoid burnout.
      • Humility: Humility helps us keep our zeal in check by recognizing that we don’t have all the answers. It encourages us to learn from others and adapt when necessary.
      • Gratitude: Practicing gratitude can help us appreciate even the smallest tasks joyfully. It reminds us of the importance of recognizing and cherishing the present moment.

By balancing zeal, we can keep the fire of zeal burning brightly while avoiding the pitfalls of extremism and apathy. Striving for this balance can lead to a more fulfilling and purposeful life.