"There are three extremely hard things: steel, diamonds, and knowing yourself." - Benjamin Franklin

Knowing yourself goes beyond knowing what clothes you prefer, what food you like to eat on Mondays, and it goes far beyond what others think of us; it is a very personal task. Self-analysis and introspection can open doors to life paths that are much more interesting than you can imagine. It is a task that requires patience, love and compassion, because sometimes the strongest, most arrogant, and cynical critic is in front of our eyes when we look in the mirror; but in front of the mirror is also the greatest ally.

Living with broken mirrors

I want you to picture this situation, you are driving on a very long, extremely dangerous road. You see how the cars go by at full speed by your side, and this happens like this for several minutes and hours, but you are calmly changing from one lane to another when you see it convenient, then from one moment to another, a motorcycle passes close to you and with a very strong blow, PAM, unexpectedly breaking your right rear-view mirror.

The motorized vehicle passed very fast, it is already quite far, and now you find yourself trying to change lanes, and you realize that now it is more difficult because you cannot use the mirror to see which car is passing, or how far. And then when you are ready to change lanes, Pamm !, another motorized one breaks your left mirror, and it turns out that a few weeks ago your front mirror had broken, and you never changed it. Now you are driving blind, not knowing where to move, and so you continue the rest of the trip, fearful and annoyed.

In this short story, the mirror represents how much we know ourselves, and the car ride represents our lives. Walking through life without knowing yourself is the equivalent of traveling in a car without mirrors. What I would like my friends who are reading this, is to look into your life, around you, inside you, and wonder if your life is going the way you want it to. And if it is not like that, perhaps it is time to see a little inside ourselves, know our personal beliefs, our limits, our fears, and see them head-on once and for all.

Personal Beliefs

A belief is in definition a state of mind where we accept some type of knowledge or experience as true. In other words, it is the knowledge that we accept as true and with which we base our decisions, whether consciously or unconsciously. Beliefs are mainly formed throughout our childhood and continue to develop throughout our lives. There are many types of beliefs, including religious beliefs, social beliefs, beliefs about our own identity, beliefs about the environment, and so on.

Beliefs are like the operating system with which our mind is governed. Just like today's mobile devices, run on iOS or Android, our mind works through our beliefs. The problem is that we are not aware of many of these beliefs, so sometimes we act in a certain way and we do not know why.

Identifying my limiting beliefs and dealing with shyness

Knowing yourself is closely linked to knowing deeply what your motivations, your limits and your purposes are. Our motivations, fears, and purposes are part of what our personal beliefs are as well.

FAQ4: What motivates you to take action at a certain moment?

I want to explain to you how to deal with shyness as a young person. By that time, maybe late 2009, I realized that I really wanted to socialize, I wanted to chat with other people, feel comfortable going to a party and just talking to people, but it turned out that it was very very difficult for me. Personal interactions weren't the same at the time, or so I thought.

Every time I was in a place where I did not feel comfortable, and I tried to have a good time, I became extremely self-conscious, and that generated insecurity, I wondered what they will think of me, and if I fall and everyone laughs, and so on. on things like that, if any of you were ever shy or are, maybe you can understand what I mean. One day I realized that if I continued down the same path, I would never achieve any of the dreams that I had. I wanted to become a lecturer, writer and businessman, and to achieve this I had to learn to converse with people.

When you are in a situation, it is sometimes very difficult to see the way out until you ask the right questions. And around that time I asked myself: Why am I so shy? Why am I nervous when talking to other people, and not when I speak in public? I really liked giving talks and presentations and I did it very well, but it was more difficult for me to talk on a personal level face to face.

As I asked myself, and reflected for a long time, I realized that I was not really a shy person, what I really had was a deep fear of rejection that manifested itself as shyness. My limiting belief prevented me from interacting with people properly because within me there was always the feeling that they were going to make fun of me, that something was going to do wrong, that I was a boring person, and that they were going to reject me in some way because of it at some point.

When I realized this, I began to cultivate a new belief about myself, something that totally replaced my fears. And my shyness turned into that today I can talk to anyone.

"I am a shy person vs.

I can talk to anyone whenever I want "

Limiting beliefs in a certain way do not totally disappear until another, stronger personal belief develops that can replace it.

Cause and Effect thinking model

Knowing oneself well, has to do largely with knowing our limits, our fears, our motivations, our desires, and all of these are part of a series of personal beliefs that determine the path of our existence.

In those moments of reflection I developed the following thought model to guide my actions, it is called the Cause and Effect Thought Model, where he highlighted how human beings respond to any situation through their personal beliefs. These responses can take the form of thoughts, actions, emotions and will have an effect on our lives that will manifest itself in the results of it.

For example, a person in vehicular traffic, if he is a person who believes that he is first and everyone else comes after, will act on this belief and will not give way to other people when asked, and will always try to go first. Perhaps this man's actions could bring unfavorable results later, such as a vehicular collision due to failure to yield when required. And so there are many examples of how the results of our life are conditioned to our beliefs.

The greatest men and women in the world know themselves very well, and that allows them to act and make the wisest decisions. The greatest men in the world are people who keep their word, because when they say something they have the certainty that they will keep it. And you...

FAQ5: How often do you keep your word?

Hello!

My name is Gabriel Solano Lazaro, editor of this blog on entrepreneurship and personal growth. Remember, "Everything Starts From Inside". This means that within you, you have the power to transform your life.

If you want to be a writer for our blog or have any questions, write to me at hola@gabrielsolanola.com

Follow me on my Twitter account @gabrielsolanola, I will continue to share growth information and more.

I wish you a successful day.