Life is all about enhancing our knowledge and wisdom and creating learning experiences that help us grow and make our life worth living.
While it has become second nature to us to constantly observe, analyze and examine information for an explanation or deeper meaning, we oftentimes forget to apply this concept to ourselves. However, introspection is a detrimental part of our growth process and shouldn’t be neglected.
Taking a look within can help to make positive changes in our lives and shape us into the person we want to become. Introspection means that we take the time to examine our own emotions, feelings, thoughts and sensations in order to gain greater insights.
Unfortunately, in our fast-paced world with a constant ‘go, go, go’ mentality, it is hard to slow down, take a breather and reflect. But setting aside some time for self examination even on the busiest of days is an incredibly positive tool to improve our life in unexpected ways.
Here are our TOP 10 reasons why you should go within and make self-reflection a daily practice.
#1 Introspection Helps You Understand Yourself
We experience the world through our perceptions and we can’t understand the world, without understanding ourselves. Just imagine what kind of chaos we are able to create if we have no clear idea about who we are, our personality, our values, our wishes and desires. That’s the reason why it is absolutely essential to take the time for ourselves to understand first and foremost who we are and what we want.
#2 Introspection Builds Character
Looking within forces us to really confront the person that we are, the positive and the negative, the strengths and the weaknesses. Being completely honest with ourselves and understanding what is reality and what is fictional fantasy. This honest look at ourselves brings us the self-knowledge that builds self-esteem and character. Because if you accurately know who you are on the inside, nobody can break you down or rob you of your truth. Yes, introspection can be painful sometimes, but it enables us to make the necessary changes in certain areas of our lives that will improve our character, our health and our happiness.
#3 Introspection Helps to Confront Your Fears
It’s easy to pretend to be fearless, but the truth is that every single one of us has at least one fear. Do you know what your fear is? The best way to determine your fear is through introspection and once you’ve identified your fear and own it, you can move forward towards managing it, confronting it and ultimately overcoming it. It is detrimental to living a fulfilled life to know your fear and conquer it, because you want to be the one in control of your life and not let your fear control you.
#4 Introspection Defines Happiness
Most people believe that happiness comes through external things, whether that’s a certain relationship or a house or car or your dream vacation. However, true happiness comes from within and when you take a look inside and know what you’re made up of, you can actually define your own happiness. What do you enjoy doing? What sets your soul on fire? Where do your passions lie? Once you know who you are and determine what your passions, desires and goals are, you can define true happiness and go after it with everything you’ve got.
#5 Introspection Keeps You Focused on the Bigger Picture
When we don’t have a clear goal and bigger picture in mind, our daily tasks, can become increasingly frustrating and meaningless. However, if you have a clear picture of who you want to be and where you want to go in the future, you will have a much more positive attitude towards your current projects and obligations and this will make it much easier to get through things that you don’t necessarily enjoy, because you know they are part of getting you to your ultimate goal. Go within, figure out what you want to achieve and stay focused on what you want to ultimately accomplish.
#6 Introspection Allows You to Notice Negative Patters
We all have negative habits, but most of the time we aren’t even aware of what we are doing. We may continually pick up jobs that make us miserable, we keep toxic relationships because we believe things will change, we keep cleaning up the mess our friends create. Whatever the case may be for you, going within allows you to recognize these negative patterns and how they negatively affect your emotions, feelings, thoughts and ultimately your life. Once you’ve identified those negative patterns you have a chance to make changes and take alternate approaches to these kinds of situations and eventually eliminate them altogether to move away from stressors and towards a happier, more fulfilling life.
#7 Introspection Allows You to Make Better Decisions
When it comes to making important life decisions, everybody in your life will have an opinion and will most likely let you know what they think you should or shouldn’t be doing. However, if you go within and know who you are and what your values, beliefs and desires are, you have the best foundation to know what’s right or wrong for you and can make the best decision for yourself. While it is always good to get the advice from a trusted person, ultimately trusting yourself and your gut won’t ever fail you and you’ll feel a lot better about the choice you make.
#8 Introspection Liberates You
Once we are in tune with ourselves, we will realize that there are things that are out of our control and there simply is no point in worrying about something that we can not change. This gives you a tremendous amount of freedom. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have to take responsibility for your actions, but having the freedom to be accountable and own your actions and decisions, will liberate you in unimaginable ways and your life becomes automatically a lot less stressful.
#9 Introspection Makes You More Empathetic
The very foundation of introspection is to be able to understand ourselves better and once we understand who we are and how we work, we are able to better understand others as well, which increases our level of empathy towards other people and we are much more willing to help a person in need. When you are aligned with your own emotions and feelings, you know exactly what another person wants or needs in a certain situation and you are willing to assist them in any way possible.
#10 Introspection Broadens Your Horizon
We all can get a little confused about what we actually want out of life and which direction we want to go. But if you start to go within and think about yourself for a while, you will be able to figure things out and know exactly the direction you want to go. You open up a whole new world of possibilities rather than restricting yourself by doing what other people are doing. Going within and taking a detailed inquiry into the wealth of opportunities that are available to you, broadens your horizon in ways you haven’t thought possible before.
As human beings, our biggest responsibility is towards ourselves and spending some ‘me’ time where we close our eyes and reflect is crucial to our health and happiness. Looking within can help us to take positive steps in our life. It is a necessary part of self-awareness and self-improvement that will make life more meaningful and so worth living.
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT IS ONLY POSSIBLE THROUGH INTROSPECTION
Joschi & Monika
#BoldNaked