Know Yourself
Author: S.R. Mohan

When you are looking into your future, it's important to know which questions to ask. You don't need to ask, "Do I have what it takes to be successful?" The answer to that is a resounding "YES!" The key question is, "Am I willing to pay the price for the success I desire?”
- Kathy R. Caulton

This is the most challenging task for most of us. Many of us, want others to judge us and guide us and tell us what we are good at. The key to success in life is to understanding of self. The true education systems should enable an individual to understand him or herself. It is important for us to stay motivated and keep re-visiting our basics. Motivation we all know is never permanent, “ People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing-that's why we recommend it daily. Zig Ziglar, American Sales Trainer, Author, Motivational Speaker”

The process of knowing yourself and setting the right standard is never easy. We talk so much about customization in our business, but first and foremost we need to customize our own skills to suit our goal. As well said by my favorite guru, Anthonoy Robbins:

“Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards. When people ask me what really changed my life eight years ago, I tell them that absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded of myself. I wrote down all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things that I aspired to becoming. - Anthony Robbins, 1960-, American Author, Speaker, Peak Performance Expert / Consultant”

Success either in business or career does not depend on single factor. One has to look at success from multiple point of view and work around that. I have defined some important component for success in one’s career, and also attempted to give some % values. You may or may not agree or may have your own pattern. My philosophy is:

Formal Education: 33%

Understanding of your own skill 33%

Presentation of your skill 33%

Luck 1%

Total 100%



Let us look at each of the component in more detail:

1. Formal Education: Formal education or book knowledge as it is often called is never static. Most of us assume that what they studied in there College and MBA days are end of their formal education. In fact this is only the beginning. My definition of formal education is: “ To learn in a structured manner, the facts and the figures and understand the basics.” In the early stages of life, one needs certification that he is formally educated and qualified. However at a later stage of life you need to be motivated enough to carry on this formal education without being certified. A good formal education is very important as a stepping-stone to life journey. A good formal education gives self-confidence to an individual. It is important to understand one’s interest area and acquire formal education in that field. If your interest area matches your formal education then you are off to flying start. But if you are focused and believe that the Book or theoretical knowledge is key to success, please do not ignore it, go and get it. I believe that to succeed you need mix of both Theoretical and real life knowledge. In case you have not undergone formal education in life, ( I mean to the extend you would have wanted, or say you wanted to do your MBA), do not worry. Pick up all the books that they teach in MBA, read it, understand it, and start practicing it, I can assure you, sooner then later people will start believing that your are an MBA. But nevertheless it only accounts for 33% of your success in life. Unfortunately this is the only part which is visible to the external world hence a good score in this is essential. Hence do not ignore the formal education.

2. Understanding of yourself: This part is the heart and soul of success. If you do not understand yourself, then you would end picking up that branch of Formal Education that your parents recommend. . For example your patents may push you to be a Engineer, and your interest could lay some where else. And once others drive your thought process then you will find it very hard to understand yourself. Do not lose your individuality. This can lead to lose of self-esteem and can be highly de-motivating.

Emotional dependence, what is it? According to some self help books I have read, emotional dependence is needing others to help us survive, depending on others to give us our self image, to create our happiness, make decisions for us and take care of us financially and emotionally.
However, what causes some of us to require this emotional dependence? What causes some of us to fulfill the needs of others before our own are met? How often do you feel threatened by others, or get frazzled easily by difficult people? Have you become more your own worst enemy than your friend? Are you limited in your future because of your fears? Do you often think that you cannot accomplish something because you feel you are not good enough?


How do you begin to understand yourself?

a. Spend time with yourself:
b. Be honest to yourself
c. Do not under estimate yourself.
d. Believe that your are God’s greatest creation

The first step towards understanding oneself is to spend time with oneself. You need to make yourself as your best companion. My experience says, that most people are very uncomfortable being alone, and they are the ones who suffer lack of self-understanding in the long run. If you do not understand yourself then you would find it hard to understand others. One is never too late to begin this process of self-realization. This process is un-ending. The day you believe that you have understood yourself, you will start discovering to some unique problems. A self realized person is never poor. A person, who spends time to understand himself, is normally calm and quite person. He is not afraid to speak the truth. This process could be most exciting and enduring.

If you go by other people's opinions or predictions,
you'll just end up talking yourself out of something. If you're running down the track of life thinking that it's impossible to break life's records, those thoughts have a funny way of sinking into your feet.
- Carl Lewis
3. Presentation of your own skill: A good formal education and self realization is like a good movie made and laying in the cane to be realized. Your ability to present your skill is most vital in the final analyses. It is like the final journey. The first two processes were more inside out, meaning you control both input and output. However, in this you need to involve the outside world. This is more like outside in approach. I have seen most people with all their skills in the first two area, fail to present them self to the outside world. Most of us in from our childhood are used to being led, we are told what’s right and wrong all the time. We have been told what to do, and we get used to looking at others to take decision on our behalf.
But in the real world, you are all alone. You need to carve a niche for yourself and present to the world what you can do. As it is often said, “ Others judge you by what you have done and you alone can judge yourself by what you can do”. I can assure you people have short memory both for the right and wrong things. You do not have to worry too much about what people will think if you decide to change yourself. If you need to be successful and go up in your career path, you must learn to present your skill to the world. No body can present yourself better then what you can present. Even in Organization, where they appoint consultant, to prepare Corporate Presentation, it is the CEO who makes the final presentation to his customers or investors. Hence take charge of yourself and present your skills to the world.

To position yourself, you must make a solid commitment to make the right people aware of who you are and what you can do for them. There are many important parts of this statement. Examine the words carefully. Are you making the right people aware of who you are and what you can do for them? If you’ve established that, you are then able to position yourself in the marketplace.

I think that sometimes the scariest and hardest person to love and understand is our self. If you cannot find validity within yourself, then how can you expect others to do that for you?

In the process of understanding your skill and presenting to others you might do some mistakes. It is not an easy process; otherwise most people would have achieved success. But the challenge is do not be afraid of mistakes. I am reminded of a famous note from Mr William Cottringer, a popular Management Consultant: This was what he has written:
“ I was once wrongly convinced that a worthy goal of personal and professional excellence was to avoid making mistakes. Mistake making was a seal of doom, so I would go out of my way to avoid doing anything risky enough to result in a mistake. Like everyone else, I would rationalize the mistakes I made or deny the ones I couldn’t dodge. Fortunately a close friend kindly reminded me that a person who doesn’t make any mistakes doesn’t make much of anything. I usually don’t learn much from my successes, but I learn a lot from my mistakes. You are bound to make mistakes, but you don’t have to be bound to those mistakes you make. The pursuit of personal and professional excellence invariably involves making mistakes. We need to learn how to make mistakes and recover gracefully. Mistakes allow us to learn valuable lessons and make improvements. Mistakes also remind us of the importance of humility, and mistakes bring out our humanness.”

Finally, to conclude,

Give yourself a good formal education.

Understand your USP.

Present them to the World.

And finally, even if the 1% luck let you down, you have succeeded 99% out of 100. Do you still believe in LUCK?


Most of you would be wondering after reading this article, “ Am I too late in the day to change”. I wish I had read these kinds of articles earlier. Have I come too far in my life to change? I have personally gone thru similar thought process, when I started reading the self-help management books. But the answer to this entire question is simple: “ The day you realize that you must take charge of your life, you begin a new journey and end an unpleasant one”.
We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be, and our attitudes and behaviors grow out of those assumptions.
- Steve Covey (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People)






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S.R.Mohan is a Director of OSS Technology a IT services compnay based in India. He has over 23 years of expereince in the area of Sales and General Management. He has passion for reading and writing, in the area of Management and Self development.

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