I am pretty sure that we all read or even heard the famous Ancient Greek aphorism, “know thyself.” However, we all want to know, why knowing yourself is important?
Not so long ago, I decided to start my journey of learning and understanding my true self to rediscover my passion and create my dream life.
As I go on this journey, I learned that there are so many benefits when you know who you are.
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While starting to know yourself is hard to come by, accepting that we don’t know who we are, and learning the importance of self-knowledge can be hard, too.
That’s why in this article we are going to talk about the thirteen reasons why knowing yourself is important.
Before we continue, I would like to share with you a tool that will help you get to know yourself better! The Exploration Digital Guided Journal is designed to help you find and understand yourself, figure out what you truly want out of life, and find a way to get where you want to be. With 365 journal prompts for self-discovery, you’ll learn to create a deeper connection with yourself step by step each day. Click here to learn more.
What does Self-knowledge mean?
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Psychology, self-knowledge refers to knowledge of one’s own sensations, thoughts, beliefs, and other mental states.
Self-knowledge requires ongoing self-awareness and self-consciousness (which is not to be confused with consciousness).
In other words, deeply knowing who you are is not just learning your favorite color or food. Though, that could take part and, hey, it’s also interesting to know!
There are parts of us that are worth knowing more than those things. These might include your past experiences, your values, how you make your decisions, and so much more.
Why Knowing Yourself is Important
Your journey to self-knowledge could start by just learning the importance of it to you as a person. Although the advantages are pretty obvious, there are also subtle benefits of knowing yourself. Here some of them:
1. If you know yourself, you will learn to accept who you are.
Self-acceptance is truly embracing who you are. This means everything in you is included. Even your quirks, flaws, and weaknesses.
After all, how can we accept everything about ourselves unconditionally if we don’t know who we are?
The truth is self-acceptance is difficult to practice. Especially if you get used to just accepting the good things about yourself and beat yourself up for your mistakes and weaknesses.
When you first tackle knowing yourself, acceptance will get easier.
2. Knowing yourself helps you release self-doubt.
The worst thing that could ever happen is when you yourself become your own enemy and critic!
Self-doubt holds us back from doing amazing things and being your most authentic self. However, by knowing strengths and weaknesses, we’ll also acquire the skill of ditching self-doubt.
Learning not to buy into our self-doubt thoughts will also lead us to the third reason why knowing yourself is important…
3. Self-knowledge boosts our confidence.
Knowing yourself is also learning what you stand for and embracing your potential and abilities.
Your stories and abilities are unique to you. These things are what make you so important that even money can’t buy it, ever!
Knowing your true self will make you realize that you are incomparable, which will help you boost your confidence and release any self-doubts.
4. When you know yourself, making the right choices will be easier.
Sometimes, making decisions is hard because our heart and mind have different stands. If you truly know who you are, it will be easier for you to follow your true north and distinguish what is right and wrong decision for you.
5. Self-knowledge is learning to express yourself freely.
As humans, we all want to acquire freedom.
Freedom is living life on your own terms without being too affected by negative judgements or controlled by others.
Expressing yourself freely will be possible if you know and understand your inner self.
6. Knowing yourself is a way to fall in love with who you are.
Self-love is a huge topic nowadays. I understand how hard it is to completely love yourself. Even I struggled too after facing traumas and negative experiences in the past.
Starting to get to know yourself is a life-changing way to trust and believe in yourself which eventually helps you to love who you are, unconditionally.
7. Self-knowledge will teach you to understand others, too.
When you get to meet and accept your weaknesses, it is like opening yourself to see other’s imperfections and to be okay with that, as well.
Knowing yourself will help you to develop sympathy and expand your awareness of the feelings and emotions of other people.
8. When you know yourself, self-compassion is simpler to practice.
Since self-knowledge requires deeply examining your true self— the good, the bad, the ugly, this will help you not just to accept it but to also practice compassion.
All of these will also lead you to forgive yourself and stop punishing yourself for your imperfections.
The best thing is you’ll also learn to expand your compassion outside of yourself.
9. Acknowledging your true self is the first step to know your worth.
Self-worth is valuing yourself without seeking other people’s validations or even without your accomplishments.
Sometimes, we sell ourselves too short because we don’t know how worthy we are.
To truly know your worth, you have to know who you are.
Your worth is entirely up to you and it is not determined by anything, even your money or appearance. Once you see your worth by knowing yourself, you’ll also master the number 10 reason…
10. When you know yourself, you will have the courage to be disliked.
The tenth reason why knowing yourself is important is because it will help you to stop seeking other people’s approvals and pleasing them.
News flash, it is not your job to make everyone happy.
You don’t have to make everyone like you, and you have to be okay with that. Life is too short to please every person on this planet.
Start by knowing yourself and you will realize that there is so much more in life than making yourself responsible for other people’s happiness.
11. Knowing yourself will help you overcome your fear.
In the process of getting to know yourself, you will get clued up about the origin of your fears. Identifying and understanding where your deep-rooted fear came from will help you release it.
12. Self-awareness is vital to improve your relationships.
I know some of you might have already heard about this before, but you have to have a better relationship with yourself first before you can have a better relationship with anyone else.
To have a better relationship with yourself, the key is to get to know who you are. It is hitting two birds with one stone because in that way, you’ll also help to improve your relationships.
13. Knowing yourself will help you figure out what you want to do in life.
Figuring out your passion and purpose is also a life-long journey and it is started by knowing who you truly are.
When you know yourself it is a lot easier to identify your sweet spot. I know this because this is the reason why I started my self-discovery journey.
So if you feel lost or feeling like nothing seems to work for you, start by getting to know who you are and you will be surprised by all the things you will uncover.
Thankfully, I created a FREE digital workbook to help you get to know yourself better. This workbook is packed with self-discovery exercises to reflect thoroughly about yourself. Click here to download the workbook now!
Conclusion
There you have it! I think I’ve given you a good amount of reasons why knowing yourself is important. Hopefully, by now, you are determined to acquire self-knowledge and achieve these benefits.
Knowing yourself is a journey and it will take a process. Start by deeply reflecting within yourself and accept that you have a lot of things to know about yourself.
The most important thing is to enjoy the journey within you! If you need a tool to get to know yourself better, don’t forget to checkout the Exploration Digital Guided Journal!
Why knowing yourself is important for you? Comment down your answer below!
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Jocelyn is a coffee lover who believes that a bad day with coffee is better than a good day without it. You can find her obsessing over stationery, hanging out with her cat, or singing her favorite Taylor Swift songs.