Akanna Okeke: 6 Interesting Things You Should Know About Yourself

I have recently stepped up my work habit on getting to know more about myself; the things that drive me, the things within my control, and the things that I have in common with everyone else.  I believe it is important to do this because it will make you more strategic in life especially about your choices, decisions on how to lead yourself, and how to associate with others.

In my quest so far, I have come across these 6 interesting things that are common denominators of all human beings, in terms of our characteristics and general psychology.  I thought to share them with the hope that they will help you to become more strategic in life too!

You Have 3 Main Types of Hunger/Appetite
These are: Food, Sex and Money.  With food, the less you have, the more you want; the more you want, the less you need.  With sex, the more you have it, the more you want it; and the less you have it, the less you want it.  With money, the less you have, the more you want; and the more you have, the more you want also.

Those who eat way too much ultimately get obese and largely unhealthy.  Those who do not have sex, like some monks, don’t have a huge craving for it the way we all think they do.  And those who actively chase after money never have enough of it.

You Have 3 Main Drives/Motivations
These are: Bodily Appetites, Emotions and Intellect.  Bodily Appetites are as mentioned above –food, sex and money.  Emotions and bodily appetites are “feelings”, and they are temporary.  It is never a good idea to make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions such as fear, doubt and anger.  We should all gravitate towards leading ourselves with our minds –being intellectually motivated or driven. And I have given tips on how to do just that in a previous article (here).

You have one or more) of 5 Love Languages
Mina Martins wrote a wonderful article about this on BellaNaija, using the book by Gary Chapman to explain.

The love languages are: Physical Touch, Receiving Gifts, Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, and Quality Time.  In my opinion, your best shot at a relationship would be to find a partner who speaks (some of) the same love languages as you do.  It will be easiest to do for them exactly what you would have them do for you –just like the golden rule!

You Cannot Think Two Thoughts At the Same Time
If we totally understand this about ourselves, we will overcome the “fear versus belief” struggle.  Whenever we set out to do something we know will be worthwhile but uncomfortable, our bodies and heart often scream out in emotional opposition.  This makes us become fearful and want to back out.  What we are to do in situations like that is to think positive.  Think about the benefits, the end goal, the big picture!  This way, our thinking shifts from fear to belief and then we should back that up by action –immediately!

You Can Actually Fake it Until You Make it
Action changes emotion.  When we identify what we are fearful of doing and force ourselves to do it, we don’t feel fearful anymore.

Are you having a bad day? Why not ‘decide’ to smile and even uplift others around you. You may realize that it wasn’t a bad day you were having, but merely a bad five minutes that you were trying to milk all day.

Disclaimer: This doesn’t apply to faking to be rich in order to attract a girl and all those other things. I’m sure you know what I mean.

You Cannot Always Trust Your Eyes
It is interesting that the balance mechanism –which makes sure we know when we are standing upright and not falling over –of the human body is located in our ears.  That’s interesting. Why not in our legs, hips or shoulders? Those are all logical places after all.  Another interesting fact is that, with our eyes, the images cast by our lenses onto the retina are always upside-down.

This sure gives us a hint as from which organ to reliably obtain a ‘balanced’ perspective on things.  It probably explains why we sometimes buy things we don’t need or use, simply because they ‘looked’ good.  Or why a guy would get into a bad relationship with a girl because she was physically attractive and he did not take the time to talk with her and ‘listen’ for her values and beliefs.

Our eyes often mislead us.  Our ears are far more reliable as sources of information.  And, by the way, it is the ear-part of your brain that is used when you read. And it activates your imagination too, helping you to gather information and more accurately put it into perspective.  That’s why reading trumps watching TV anytime!  We have an emotional link between our eyes and our hearts, but an intellectual link between our ears and our hearts.

So there you go!  It would be nice to know your thoughts; if you have more interesting things we should know about ourselves that you want to share, or if you don’t agree with these ones.

All the same, I hope you strive to understand yourself better; how you work and how the world around you works. So that you can lead a more strategic life!

Photo Credit: Juliengrondin | Dreamstime.com