Self-Knolwedge

"You need to learn all about what you're all about."

-- Mike Michalowicz. www.ToiletPaperEntrepreneur.com

What makes you tick? What are you wildly passionate about? What are you really, really good at? What do you love doing so much that you'd do it even if you weren't getting paid?

These questions may sound trite or sophomoric, but if you don't know the answers to them immediately, you don't know yourself.

Why is knowing yourself so important? Because if you don't know yourself, you may end up being just a clone of somebody else. A little Katie Couric Jr. or Tony Robbins the Second, or, heaven forbid, a later, but no greater, version of your mom or dad. Knowing yourself is the heart of all knowledge, and the first step towards living an authentic and joyous life.

I'm not talking about self-absorption here. I'm not talking about boring everyone to tears with stories of every minor inconvenience and petty slight that you experience. No, I'm talking about knowing you for you. I'm talking about knowing what your passion truly is and how you can best use that passion to serve the world.

Here's the Acid Test (with apologies to Ken Kesey): Do you wake up each morning excited to be alive, jazzed by what you plan to do that day? If not, you're not living your passion, you're not being the real you. Go back to square one. Find out what makes your heart sing, what makes you truly come alive. And then do it. Even if only for a few minutes everyday.

And then find or, more likely, create, ways to do more of it. Knowing all about you, should lead to being more of who you really are. And that, my friend, is why you're here. No other reason. Not to fulfill any sort of external destiny. Not to live up to anyone else's expectations. Just to be you.

What could be simpler? What could be harder? What could be more joyous?