How Knowing Yourself Will Make You Happy

When I started to write my book/blog, I always intended to keep information relevant to the subject of Happiness as to provide the fastest way from point A to B, with A being a current happiness point and B being the personal happiest potential point (aka 95% Happy). What I wanted to avoid was teaching people the whole of subject Psychology. We need to know ourselves. It is not a painless death. We need to know our strengths, weaknesses, psychological predispositions, motivations, goals, values, traumas, and even our addiction; I know it can be a lot of work, mostly if we have never honestly thought about it before. 

Still, the upside of knowing ourselves is tremendous as it will allow us to play to our strength, work on our weaknesses, and grow in the fastest way possible. It will give us the quickest way to success, life satisfaction, and Happiness.

Getting To Know Ourselves: Strength and Weaknesses

“Tell me 3 of your biggest strength and 3 biggest weakness”: This question is one of the most popular questions asked during an interview. Recruiters are not interested in knowing what exactly are our strengths and weaknesses. Still, they are more interested in seeing how people will react to the questions and maybe profile candidates a little better. Yet, even if we are not planning to do any interviews in the upcoming future, we should know our strengths and weaknesses because this knowledge will make us happy. 

Specifically, it is said that in jobs, we should focus on our strengths and in relationships on our weaknesses, but this is not what we are always seeing. I still was good with numbers, logic, and mathematics, but I chose to study Marketing, which is preferably a creative field, meaning that mathematics is instead a small part of it. I got into a lot of trouble with different classes during this study. My logic and mathematics were not as important as creative expression, which is the psychological opposite of logical thinking. In the end, I made it quite well in this field. I continuously meet people suffering, struggling, and never really achieve anything of substance in life because they chose to work where they are not good at.

Similarly, many couples are always getting into fights because they are psychologically incompatible. My favorite example is couples who are both partners are extroverts or introverts. Extroverts prefer to be surrounded by large amounts of people, such as to be in the center of a party, while Introverts prefer to be alone or with a smaller group of people, such as they like to avoid crowds. Of course, we can be introverts or extroverts in different situations and times of our lives, but generally speaking, we prefer one of the extremes. If we put two extroverts together, they can become too destructive as they push each other towards progressively more extreme social situations. In contrast, introverts will gradually push each other into isolation and hide away from the rest world. Thus, a perfect couple would be composed of one extrovert and one introvert, where both partners would balance each other out in their extrovert and introvert way.

What Exactly We Need To Know About Ourselves

To this day, I did every possible “getting to know yourself” test. I could get my hands on, such as Miller and Briggs 16 Personalities (I am ENTP), Gallup Strengths Finderand Narcissism Test The Values TestSpiral Dynamics Test, and many others. Still, human beings are too complex and too dynamic in their personalities. We behave differently in different situations and different moments, almost as if we had other characters for different situations. 

Still, I want to share what elements of personal self-analysis I come to value the most, as I always go back to these elements, probably because they are the most relevant topics for the Happiness:

  1. Strength / Weaknesses – I know myself to be naturally good in sports, aim, dancing, massage, languages (I speak 8 languages), pro-activity, logic, and organization—most of these things without really trying. I am bad at reading (I’m a dyslexic – surprise! But I still write this blog and I wrote a book), I am not creative, especially with things like drawing, music, and arts, and I am incredibly individualistic, which can be a good thing. Still, it is also bad in many other aspects.
  2. Extroversion / Introversion – As discussed above. I am an Extrovert.
  3. Thinker / Doer – Some people prefer to think before acting (Thinkers) while others to act first and think later (Doers). I am a Doer. 
  4. Emotional (Creative) / Logical – Emotional (Creative) people who prefer languages, reading, and writing. They operate in more chaotic and disorganized environments, which often surprise and worry logical people, but they make it work! Rational people are not as good in the about mentioned characteristics, but they are great with mathematics, organization, graphs, charts, directions, chess, strategy, and logical thinking. I am an analytical thinker.
  5. Addictions – I know myself to be addicted to TV series, movies, and sweets. I know these things are bad for me, but after several attempts to stop these habits, I still come back to them repeatedly, which is why I call them addictions.

If you don’t know your addictions, you can ask yourself what the things you do which are 

1) You know are not suitable for you;

2) You are doing in excess; and

3) You cannot stop because you tried to do so in the past, but you are still doing them today.

You don’t even need to have hard addictions, such as drugs, smoking, gambling, and alcohol. You can be addicted to all sorts of things, like I am addicted to series and movies (as I watch one or more of them almost every day), or like many people who are drinking 5+ cups of coffee per day, which is truly excessive, despite their claims that they can stop any point of time if only they chose to (which they never do).

Test Yourself

How well you know yourself? Make this test right now. Answer all of the above five points. Please leave your answer in the comments and let us know how well you know yourself! Please share this article with five people who you think will benefit the most from reading it. Mayans believe that it will improve your sex life if you believe in this kind of thing. 

 

Roman Russo

Roman Russo

Roman Russo is the visionary founder, senior happiness coach, and Chief Happiness Officer of Optimal Happiness. He has written the revolutionary Optimal Happiness: The Fastest and Surest Way to Reach Your Happiest Potential, a must-read book about achieving our happiest potential. After researching this field for over eight years, Roman is confident that anyone can become happy and invites us to undertake this transformation. Are you ready to start living the life you always meant to live?

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“The problem is that of optimization,” states Roman Russo, author of Optimal Happiness: The Fastest & Surest Way To Reach Your Happiest Potential. Most people will tell you how to be less unhappy or more happy, but no one is speaking about how to be the happiest we can be. And this is the difference that makes all the difference. By not looking at our happiest potential, we fall short of achieving it. After all, we all have hundreds of ideas on how to be happier or less sad, but most people still feel like they are not living their best lives. As such, Optimal Happiness explores the question of how to be the happiest we can be, regardless of who we are, where we are from, and what our life circumstances are. It proposes a complete formula for happiness and explains how to optimize the formula so we can be happy today and forever, breaking down what it really takes to become one of the happiest people alive (spoiler: it isn’t what most people think it is).

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