How To Discover Yourself In 7 Simple Steps

Imagine being born into this world and you already knew exactly who are you and what you want to accomplish in life. You knew about your passion, you knew where your strengths are and you knew exactly what you want out of life, how do you think your life is going to turn out?

Everyone wants to know their inner calling, and that includes me.

We know that if we are crystal clear with what we want and where we can shine, we will do so much better in life.

Albert Einstein once said this:

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Albert Einstein

Not everyone can be like Bill Gates, and not everyone is the next Michael Jordan.

Sometimes, you try hard and you work extremely hard, but if your destiny is not there, no matter how hard you try, it seems impossible to achieve the result you want.

You have to understand yourself and know your strengths.

If you are a fish and you enter into a competition to climb a tree, there is no way you can win.

And this is exactly what is happening to most people out there.

They get into the wrong career and they thought that it is what they want because they see other people are very successful there.

So they follow the footsteps of other people instead of following their own path. They try hard in the beginning, but eventually, they find it too difficult to produce the amazing result they desire.

In the end, they will throw in the towel and they quit. They give up on their dreams and they give all kinds of excuses.

The irony is that most people spent most of their time and life working on something that is NOT what they truly want.

And they ended up living a stressful life, complaining every day, blaming, pointing fingers, yet, they continue to live so every day.

Time To Unleash The Greatness Within You

Have ever have this kind of feeling? Feeling inferior and powerless?

And this guide is to help you to discover yourself.

But why do you want to discover yourself in the first place?

The answer is simple; if you want to be successful and accomplish remarkable results in life, you need to know yourself.

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

Lao Tzu

Abraham Lincoln once said that if you give him 6 hours to cut down a tree, he will spend the first 4 hours sharpening the ax.

This simply shows the important of knowing yourself and knowing your skills.

You want to know where you can shine. You want to discover your strengths so that you can excel faster and achieve greater heights in life.

You see, we all know that it is important to plan our lives, to discover ourselves, and to do work that truly matters to us.

Sadly, most people never spend even a minute thinking about their future. They never really put in serious thoughts to think about what they really want out of their lives.

Most people spend more time on Netflix and YouTube than planning their future.

No wonder most people are living in mediocrity and are going nowhere.

And I want to share with you the 7 simple steps that can help you discover yourself.

Go through the steps mentioned below. Take action and do as recommended. And you will become clearer with what you want out of your life.

Most importantly, you will discover yourself and get to understand yourself better…

1. Disconnect and Get Into Solitude

The first thing you need to do to discover yourself is to get away from the noisy world. You want to disconnect yourself from the world and get into solitude and stay in your inner world.

Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity while he immersed himself in his own world. He was in complete solitude. It is said that he was standing by a train track watching the train traveling past him.

It was at that moment that he realized although the train was moving, to the people on the train, he was the one that seemed to move.

The same goes for Isaac Newton who discovered the Law of Gravity. Well, according to studies, Sir Isaac Newton was sitting in his garden doing nothing and day dreaming. And suddenly he saw an apple fall to the ground.

And that made him think about the apple and the forces of nature. That was how he discovered gravity.

Therefore, if you want to discover yourself, you must spend time in solitude and allow yourself to get lost in your inner world.

Switch off your phone, take a walk in the park, sit in the garden like Isaac Newton, take a long thoughtful journey, or practice meditation.

Whatever you do, you must stay calm and get away from all the distractions around you. You want to be in a calm and peaceful state and not in a fearful or lonely state.

Studies have also shown that being in solitude is a great way to spark your creativity. Hence, you should schedule a time to be in solitude and do nothing from time to time.

This is why meditation works, and research has proved that meditation can calm your mind, boost your creativity and relieve your pressure.

Action Steps:

Schedule a free time to be in complete solitude. You can time-block 15 or 30 minutes to do this. Get yourself completely off the distraction and get away from your work.

Just let your mind do the thinking and see where your thoughts will lead you. You can practice meditation if you want to.

I prefer to do this either in the early morning or late at night, when the world is quiet and less hectic. And I will turn on some soft background music and then just sit there thinking about my goals and my future. And sometimes, I will just sit quietly and let my mind wanders.

2. Ask Self-Discovery Questions

Anthony Robbins says:

“Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.”

Tony Robbins

Everything you do in life and every thought you have in your head is a result of the question you are asking yourself.

Every day when you wake up, you will start asking a ton of questions to yourself…

• “Should I wake up now”,
• “Can I sleep for another 5 minutes”,
• “What should I take for breakfast later”,
• “Is traffic doing alright today”,
• “What should I do later”,
• etc.

Our minds work like Google did. When you search something on Google, you will get the results you searched for.

Your mind works the same. When you ask a question, your mind will proceed to search for the answers within your ‘mind’s library’.

Thus, if you ask the right question, your mind will search for the right answer.

What you need to do to discover yourself is to ask some self-discovery questions. Take out a piece of paper or your notebook and get ready for some writing.

You may want to spend 30 minutes to an hour here for this exercise. If you do not have the time now, you can come back to this later, but I can assure you that you will never come back and do this anymore.

Most people are good at procrastinating, hence, don’t skip this if possible. Do this right at this instant.

So I suggest you to do this right now if you are serious about discovering yourself.

Action Steps:

Do this exercise right now and write down your answer.

• If you are rich and have all the money in the world, how would you spend your time and your life?
• Describe how your perfect day looks like.
• What do you love to do, what are your hobbies and what makes you feel passionate in life?
• What makes you feel joyful in life?
• What are the things that make you lost the sense of time and completely get in the flow?
• If you can live your life once more, what would you do differently?
• What are the things that you regret that you did not do? Would you do it if you can turn back time?
• What do you like about yourself and what would you like to change?
• Do you see yourself as successful? Why and why not?
• Write down 101 goals that you want to accomplish before you die.

It may take you longer to complete this exercise. This is important because you want to learn to understand yourself more.

If you skip this exercise, it only means one thing – that you don’t really care about your life and the future you want.

And if you do this exercise and write down the answers on paper, it also shows something – that you’re committed and you are serious about discovering yourself.

Review and read through what you have written down. And you may want to take a picture of what you have written down so that you can review it again a few months later.

3. Seek Inspiration

Another way to discover yourself is to constantly seek inspiration. The easiest way to do this is to read a book.

I have written an article about why reading is important. You should check it out. And if you want to know what books to read, go here.

When you read, you are training your mind to think in pictures. This is totally different than watching TV. When you watch TV, the sound and the image are already there.

So your mind will do nothing much but just follow through with the movie and enjoy the show. However, when it comes to reading, your mind has to put the words into sentences and visualize the picture in your head.

This will make you more creative and inspire you to think.

Furthermore, when you read, you are reading the author’s thoughts. You are reading someone’s life and the experience he went through.

Imagine reading books from remarkable people like Einstein, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, etc.

You will get inspiration and great insights to reflect in your life.

Another way to seek inspiration is to question everything you encounter in life. Ask yourself any question you want and be curious.

When you are drinking coffee, ask yourself why you are doing that, ask yourself why coffee and not tea, ask yourself why the location, why now, or whatever question you can think of.

Seeking inspiration usually comes when you are in a total relaxed state and the ‘aha’ moment will suddenly hit you.

Action Steps:

Make it a habit to read books. Humans are creatures that can learn and evolve. Hence, you must be hungry for knowledge and be curious about life.

You can start by reading articles from the internet like this one. Or you can grab a book to read whenever you want.

It does not mean that you will fully understand yourself by just spending 30 minutes reading. It is a continuous process where you should do it consistently every day.

4. Discover New Things

Do you know that you can learn more about yourself by discovering new things?

Traveling to a country that you have never been to before or doing something that you have never done before will give you fresh insights and ideas that will spark your life.

This is why studies have shown that people who travel more are more decisive. They know what they want, they can handle unexpected situations properly, more daring, and have a better experience in life.

When you see and experience new things, you widen your perspective, and you put in something new into your mind.

Imagine if you work in the same company, at the same position, living in the same place, and doing the same thing for 50 years, how do you feel?

This is why you need to discover new things from time to time. Visit a place you have never been before. Do something new like getting yourself a dog, visit the museum, go hitch-hiking, attend a business seminar, etc.

You want to inject yourself with freshness and possibilities constantly.

When you feel lost and have no idea what you want to do with your life, do something different and new. Try out new things and be open.

Adopt the ‘shotgun’ mindset and scatter around until you find what you want to do with your life. If you have never tasted Japanese food before, how can you tell if you like it?

The answer is simple, just try it and you will know.

How can you know if a career is suitable for you? Apply the same concept, just try it.

Of course, you do not have to immerse yourself fully into it, sometimes by talking to someone who works in the industry or read about it, you will get a glimpse of how you will feel.

If you want to start a business selling pies, and you are not sure if this is what you want, just get a job in a similar restaurant and work there for a few weeks or a few months.

You do not have to spend all your hard-earned money on the business to test the water. You can experience it by taking a job there.

This is what Harv Eker, the author of Secrets of The Millionaire Mind, did when he wanted to know if the business is right for him. It is a great book that I strongly recommend you read.

Action Steps:

Try out new things at least once a week. For instance, you can use a different route to work, you can dine in a new restaurant you never been to, you can read a book on a different topic, visit a new place, talk to someone from a different industry, etc.

The key is to try out and learn as much as possible. You want to discover yourself and find out your passion and destiny. Thus, be open and get ready to experience as many things as possible. Life’s supposed to be fun, right?

5. Serve and Help Others

In my blog post, Successful VS Unsuccessful People, I shared that if you want to have unlimited motivation, you must be driven by a vision that is bigger than yourself.

When you have a vision so big that it will influence and change people’s lives, you will live a purposeful life.

This is why people like Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, and Mahatma Gandhi are able to go against all the odds and strive for a bigger cause.

When you serve and help others, you will discover something different that will change not just your life, but also the people that you help.

Jack Ma once said that when you help others, the change does not only happens to the person that you helped, but it happens to you too.

Do you know that after you have helped someone, you will feel extremely fulfilled and satisfied? You become happier because you have done something good because you touched someone’s life.

You don’t have to save people’s lives or donate all your money in your bank to feel it. A small, simple act of kindness can help you go through your day and discover yourself better.

• For instance, you can greet and smile at strangers, and I’m sure they will return the favor and smile back at you.
• You can donate just $10 a month if you don’t have the budget.
• Visit the orphanage and help out with charity work.
• Or simply just pick up rubbish by the road can make you feel good.

If you have never done any of these before, you should try it. When you do good deeds, you will discover something deeper about yourself that you might not know.

One of the keys to becoming successful in life is to help and serve others. In business, it is often called creating values.

You create a better product to solve people’s problems. And when you do that, you are creating value to someone’s life.

This guide you are reading right now is creating some form of value for you. You may feel lost, and you don’t know what to do, but somehow you come across this guide, and you read it. And I’m creating value for you.

Action Steps:

Commit yourself to serve and help people each day. You can start small by holding the life’s door for your neighbor. You can pick up trash on the floor and throw it into the rubbish bin.

Smile more at people and let them return the favor. Help whenever you can.

You can discover your inner calling through helping others. You will never know who you’re going to help. And you’ll never know what kind of help you may need in the future.

6. Communicate with Positive Minds

Here’s a very powerful way to discover yourself – connect yourself with other successful people.

I believe you have heard the saying, “Birds of the same feather flock together.”

So when you network and communicate with people who have a clear vision and know exactly what they want in life, their thinking will influence you, and they can show you the way to finding yourself.

If you want to be a swan, don’t swim with the ducks. You will become who you mix with most of the time.

Therefore, if you want to be successful and chase your dreams, network with those who have dreams and who are successful. Let their positive energy charge and guide you.

Furthermore, when you mix with people who are doing much better than you, you will be introduced to the greater possibility of what you can accomplish.

It is like what I have mentioned above; you need to discover new things to widen your perspective.

And when you mingle with other successful people, their remarkable results will inspire you and give you directions of what you need to do to reach higher in life.

Action Steps:

Get yourself a mentor, a coach, and network with other successful and positive people.

Try to mix with other people that you always wanted to become. Network with new people from other industries and learn their thinking.

You can attend seminars and workshops to get to know other people who have similar thoughts as you.

Apart from that, you can join groups and forums on the internet to get to know more people. There are many sources available to you online. Join Facebook groups that empower you.

7. Follow Your Intuition

Finally, to discover yourself, you must follow your intuition and your heart.

Most of the time, it is difficult to hear your inner voice, and this is especially true for people who think more logically.

The more you listen to your intuition and the more you follow it, the more powerful it can be. It is like a muscle; you can practice and train your intuition and make it stronger.

Your instinct is God-given, and everyone has it. Without instinct, we will be just like a computer, acting and doing everything base on dead facts.

You have to listen to your gut feelings at times.

And I believe that you had come across a situation when a problem occurred, and you listen to your intuition, you do the right thing, and solve the problem.

Do you know that Steve Jobs was someone who trusted his intuition quite often? He listened to his gut feeling and made decisions in his business. He even went to India to discover himself and search for his purpose in life.

Sometimes ideas and solutions will just pop up in your head; those are your instinct at work. In the old days, we called it “Eureka”, and today, we simply called it your “aha” moment.

For example, imagine your friend approaches you and invites you to invest in a business. You did your research and found nothing wrong with the business; in fact, it seems like a good investment opportunity.

But somehow, your gut feeling tells you to hold on because you just ‘feel’ that something is not right.

After a couple of days, it turns out that the business is a scam, and you feel lucky that you listened to your heart and did not jump into the business.

Learn to listen to your heart and use your intuition to discover yourself.

Action Steps:

Meditate and spend time thinking. Studies have shown that meditation can boost your instinctive ability and make you more creative. When you spend time alone thinking, you will get closer to yourself. If you want to learn the right way to meditate, go here.

Practice journaling. Write down your thoughts and record down whatever you came across in your life. Put down your challenges, emotions and whatever thoughts into writing, you will find that this is a great self-discovery activity.

Get away from the situation. When you feel lost and not sure what to do, just step away from the problem and let your subconscious mind performs its magic. When you step away and do something totally unrelated, it calms you down, relieves your stress and makes you more creative.

Conclusion

I don’t have the answer to what you can accomplish and what you want to do with your life, only you can answer that.

Everyone’s life and destiny are different, but somehow, we intersect here at this blog post because I published my writing and you are here to read it. And I appreciate your time for doing this.

There is no perfect or right way on how to discover yourself. All you can do is follow the steps above and start listening to your heart.

How do you know what you are doing is right, and it is your calling? Well, I will use one of my favorite quotes from the movie, Finding Nemo to answer this.

“You never really know, but when you know, you’ll know. You know?”

Finding Nemo quotes

If you like this guide, do share it to enlighten others.

Do you think this article is helpful? Have you discovered yourself? Share your thoughts with me in the comment section below.