“Gnothi Seauton” – Know Thyself. These words were inscribed above the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, the site of the sacred oracle in ancient Greece. The people who visited the Oracle sought to know what their destiny was or what course of action they should take in a particular matter. Ironically though, those who went in for guidance failed to truly comprehend the true meaning of the message right over their own heads. The message “Know yourself” did not mean knowing yourself by asking someone else. It meant knowing about yourself as in “the answer is within”. The best answers as to your destiny, or how to proceed, lie within you and the only way to get those answers is to know yourself by developing your own level of self-awareness. Your destiny is written by your own hand. While you may have been created with certain talents, what you do with those talents, your fate, is up to you.
Aristotle said in the first line of the Metaphysics, “Man, by nature, wants to know.” Few would dispute this, but the key to success has a lot to do with that we know. The conventional belief in being successful centers on having as much technical and factual knowledge as possible. A good lawyer must know the law and a good scientist must know the science of it. While it is true that one must possess a significant amount of knowledge for their job or job specifications, the Genius Project highlighted self-knowledge as another type of knowledge that is even more important for success. Self-knowledge involves a deep understanding and awareness of oneself (for example, talents, limitations, motivations, etc.). When Descarte said, “I think, therefore I am,” he may have been correct, but knowing “I am” is quite a different story than knowing, and being honest with, that Am. To become self-aware, you must transcend the simple awareness of “I am” to understand “what I am”. There is a lot that goes into who you are. You are a wonderfully unique and singular blend of physical, emotional, and spiritual content. You are your emotions, your experiences, your genetics and your dreams.
In fact, you are so much that a definitive understanding of exactly what you are is simply impossible. The only aspect of who you are, however, that concerns us can be defined and known. That aspect is your normal mental habits for thinking and making decisions. Self-awareness is the combination of these desires to know and recognize what you are. Yes, we need to know, and yes, we need to know what we are, because this is the first evolution on your journey to becoming more authentic and removing The Problem from your life. Unlike the natural talent that seeks to understand, self-awareness itself is actually an acquired skill. You can develop it, and it increases the more you practice it. This is great news because self-awareness is one of the keys to reaching the highest levels of performance. As self-awareness increases, people’s satisfaction levels also increase. People with higher levels of self-awareness take time to first learn and then understand their natural talents. They recognize the situations that will make them successful, and this makes it easier for them to find ways to achieve goals that match their talents. They also understand their limitations and where they are not effective and this helps them understand where not to go or how not to go. Those who understand their natural talents are much more likely to pursue the right opportunities, the right way, and get the results they want.
