The importance of knowing yourself is crucial. It is what is required for us to grow as individuals. I find meditation as an effective way to get in touch with your consciousness and inner soul. We get caught up daily re-evaluating the events and circumstances that have happened around us that we forget to analyze our response to them; which is what we should be focusing on. Get in touch with yourself and find out what drives you, your strengths, your weaknesses, your interests, your standards, value system and beliefs. Life is all about choices, how we choose to react to something is a choice that we make. These choices are driven by our decision making capabilities. In order to make wise decisions we need to blur out the distractions and focus on the matter at hand. Having a clear picture of what you would want your future to look like will guide you on the choices to take. Take up all the choices that are in conformity with your vision and goals.
The journey of self-discovery is not an easy one. You are forced to delve into your deepest fears, weaknesses and bad habits. Progress comes with breaking these innate barriers and taking up habits that are constructive and inspired. At times self-discovery enables you to realize that some weaknesses are uncontrollable and you should just let them be, instead of beating yourself up trying to understand why something is the way it is. Knowing yourself will inevitably result in you appreciating the incredible being that is YOU. Focus shifts from concentrating on the happenings of the external world to you focusing on your well being. The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.