subject: Our Self Knowledge And Behavior [print this page] As people, we can live either not knowing or knowing ourselves better. Of course, the latter option is the better option. Now first of all, what we conceive of our "self" is not necessarily an accurate picture. It may be an idea built on how we describe our roles and the actions that characterize us again and again. Well, secondly, behaviors and roles are not only our sources of information about knowing ourselves. We need to know our preferences and values, our goals and motives, and our rules and strategies that govern or guide our actions or behaviors.
Now our values, motives, the rules and the rest just recently mentioned can be quite indicative or predictive of how we will behave. So this means what? This means that exploring our preferences, values, goals, motives, rules and strategies can be helpful in knowing how we will decide when certain situations or problems arise.
Knowing the information from which we draw our knowledge about ourselves can help us identify the aspects or domains of our lives that are very important to us. Each one of us has a "hierarchy of values". At a certain moment, something is more important to us than another. So when we are given the choice to sacrifice something for another, if we already knew our hierarchy of values, then we do not consume too much time on deciding our decisions and actions. Of course, there are many things to consider other than our own values. But our own values are primarily the things that affect the decisions we make.
Explorations of self-knowledge are important for these aspects: preferences, values, goals, motives, rules and strategies. When we say preferences, we refer to our tastes and our tastes affect choices and decisions. Goals are our targets that account for directed kinds of behavior and actions. The motives explain the underlying causes that come from within us. These move us to do certain things even actions we claim we do not ant to do. Rules and strategies are also important to govern and guide behavior. Maybe, consciously we are not aware of what we think of as "rules and strategies", but generally all people have rules and strategies for behavior. These can be based on social customs, faith and values.
So, now try to begin exploring these aspects of your "self". Determine what behaviors you tend to do and you might even do for future times and during when it becomes necessary to make life changing decisions.
