274. Why You Know Yourself Best

[Before I get into the actual topic, I want to talk about the photo above. Our dog, Tuukka, passed away in January. He would have been eleven next month. We loved having him in our lives. I selected the photo above because I have been thinking about him and wanted to share a photo that is both pretty and gets at his nobility. This week's post has nothing else to do with Tuukka.]

Last week, I wrote about how you don't yet know what you can do and will never know what you can't do (because each time you try to do something and fail, you've learned one more way you can't do it; you have not learned that you can't ever do it). So overall, my message last week was that saying, "I know myself, and I can't/won't be able to do X" is like a garbage excuse not to try, not to work hard.

At the same time, saying "I know myself, so I'm going to do Y to get this done" seems like a great plan. The fact is that of all the people who know you, you know yourself best. You can use that self-awareness to make yourself enact the changes you want. You can harness your strengths and weaknesses, and your desires and aversions to force yourself to face in the direction you want to go and take the first/hardest/most steps.

Gretchen Rubin (whose podcasts you should listen to) calls this approach "pairing." For example, if you know that you want to binge a show but aren't motivated to work out, you can set the rule that you get to watch Netflix only when walking on the treadmill. If you know that you would be happier if you had more meaningful social interactions (which is, not coincidentally, true about everyone), but you are prone to being alone, you can set a rule that you get to have at-home nights only after a certain number of going-out nights. On the flip side, if you've been spending too much money going out, you can set the rule the other way around, no going out until a certain number of nights in (or better yet, work to find things to do that don't cost much money). You're the only one who knows what rules you can make because you're the one who knows you best.

Some of you will follow these self-designed and self-administered rules without any fanfare, but most people need accountability buddies. (Gretchen Rubin offers a Four Tendencies quiz that will help you figure out what type of person you are and teach you how you can use that awareness to motivate yourself towards your own goals.) If you're someone who will adhere to your goals better if someone else checks on you, you can pair your pairing with another person. A pair-pair is a win-win. You know yourself best, so figure out what's going to make you stick to your guns, and do that.

What do you think? Can you come up with ways that knowing yourself best has/will allow you to make the changes you hope for? Please share any ideas/encouragement in the comments.