Who Are You?

You have extraodinary potential

You have extraordinary potential. You could not use all of your talents and abilities if you had 100 lifetimes. Whatever you have accomplished in your life so far is only a shadow of what is truly possible for you in the months and years ahead.

One of the indispensible requirements for great success is for you to “know who you are.” On a regular basis, you must sit down and think about yourself and the qualities, characteristics, abilities and experiences that have brought you to where you are today. It is only in this way that you can move ahead with greater confidence and clarity.

Here are 10 questions that you can ask yourself on a regular basis to keep yourself on track:

1. What are your three most important values in life right now?

2. What are the three things in life that are most important to you?

3. What are your three best qualities as a person?

4. What three personal accomplishments are you the most proud of?

5. What three skills or abilities are you the best at?

6. What have been your three biggest successes in your career so far?

7. What are the three best jobs you have ever had?

8. What three activities give you the greatest joy, peace and satisfaction?

9. What are the three most important lessons that you have learned in life so far?

10. Who are the three (or more) people you care about the most?

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living?”

There is no one in the world that has the special combination of knowledge, education, experiences, insights, wisdom, goals, desires, and aspirations that you have. In the poem Ulysses, he says, “I am a part of all that I have met.”

You are an amazingly complex individual. You have within you, right now, the ability to accomplish more than you ever dreamed possible. But all this experience and wisdom is of no value to you if you do not sit down and think about what you have learned, and how you can apply it to your future.

In a multi-year study of successful people, the researchers found that there was one characteristic that enabled certain people to rise far higher than their peers in almost any field. This was the quality of “thoughtfulness.”

Top people take the time to sit quietly by themselves and think about who they are, what they want, and what they are currently doing.

Peter Drucker suggests that you ask the following questions regularly: 1) What am I trying to do? 2) How am I trying to do it? 3) What are my assumptions? 4) If my assumptions were wrong, what effect would that have on my decision making? 5) Could there be a better way?

In asking and answering these questions on a regular basis, especially when you are experiencing road blocks, obstacles or frustration in your current activities, you calm you mind, clarify your thinking and enable yourself to make better decisions for the future.

It is said that the average person uses only 10% of their potential. The actual number is closer to 2%. This is because people get into comfort zones, automatic routines which they repeat day after day, seldom challenging their own thinking or behaviors.

But this is not for you. Your goal is to “Be all you can be.” Your goal is to use more and more of your potential moving forward. They way you do this is by asking yourself focused questions that help you to develop absolute clarity about who you are and where you are going.

Good luck!

Brian Tracy