sadeewhip

“Know Thyself.”

These words are written over the gates at Delphi.

I would say they are still relevant centuries later but would add this:

Know thyself in the context of your ambition.

Too often we emphasize our strengths in a way that is more an avoidance of weakness than an expression of what we are good at.

Knowing yourself in the context of your ambition allows you to create a plan for success. What does your dream require of you? Another way to look at this is: What is required in this role to be successful and what about that am I already good at and what about that am I not good at?

Knowing our proficiencies is important. But success in anything requires that we cultivate the ability to tolerate the discomfort of developing proficiencies in the things we dislike.

Cultivating proficiencies we lack gives us more tools and skills for our natural intelligence to draw on.

You don’t have to become someone you’re not.  It’s more a matter of growing big enough, dimensional enough, to be who you really are with as much ease and joy as possible.

The pain of growing these added dimensions will become a distant memory as the gratification of real effectiveness blooms.