To grow yourself, you must know yourself.
It's a saying I've heard before, and it's the saying I chose from the Growth Mindset Cats blog, and it's even a saying I agree with.
To an extent.
Because the thing is, knowing yourself is key to growing yourself—it's kind of the key to everything. I'm pretty big on the idea that if you want to make anything of yourself or be your best at anything, you've got to know yourself better than you know anyone else. Better than you know anything else.
But this is one of those swords with two edges—because that way of thinking is essential, but it's also a trap.
Constantly growing means constantly relearning who you are. Not in the sense that you should sell yourself out or anything, but that it's important to keep in mind that the you you are today isn't the you you're going to be for the rest of your life. Just like going back and reading a journal entry or school essay written by your fifth-grade self is in some ways reading something written by a totally different person, a list of things you're good at or capable of is going to change as you do.
The trap, I think, is when you fall into the trap of the idea that you know yourself, and you know your strengths. It's an issue I've been trying to work on since I first learned about the Growth Mindset concept in Mythology & Folklore last semester: Instead of just doubling down on my strengths, things that seem like more efficient time investments, I need to work on other areas, too. I need to invest in myself.
Sometimes, yes, that means honing skills that're already there, practicing stuff that's important to me and that informs the way I view and know myself.
But sometimes it means relearning who I am, too, and not just thinking I already know who I am, which means not thinking I already know what I'm good at, capable of. That's how I kick down the walls of the fixed-mindset box I've traditionally lounged around in, and it's how I learn to flex muscles I've never realized I have.
Image Credit: "To Grow Yourself, You Must Know Yourself" by Laura Gibbs. Source: Growth Mindset Cats.
I definitely agree with what you have to say. It is difficult to both live in the mindset of knowing yourself while continuing to grow as a person, which is where I think the disconnect lies. But, I think it's interesting to see parallels of yourself in different people and understanding the way they work. At the end of the day, each person is different but I think we all also grow from learning from others.
ReplyDeleteI really like what you have to say Jenna. I have never thought of it like this. I think that your insight on growing is great. It shows that you have really thought about it and have strong feelings pertaining to it. I also think that it is important to grow and realize that you are an ever-changing project. If people were to always stay the same, then life would be much more boring!
ReplyDeleteIn several of my classes there has been a reverberating theme and lesson, that apply's to us in many aspects. "We are the masters of our bodies."/"You are the master of your own body. You are the expert."
ReplyDeleteThis can be taken as what works best for an individual for education and studying, but in my case, it usually refers to how you view the world and how you work and achieve goals you have Set.
I think in a way our views on that is similar. We know what it takes to achieve something, because we are ourselves. But like you said, we must constantly adjust and learn about ourselves to be able to maintain the title as experts. We change, we grow, and as humans, our images and mindsets change and adjust. So like you mentioned we cannot allow ourselves to stop growing because we fall into the trap of thinking we are experts, but not following up on that by expanding and continue learning and adjusting how we understand ourselves.
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