Look Within Yourself – 10 Benefits For Your Life
Look within yourself more. Your joy, your peace, and fulfillment don’t always have to be found in other people and things.
It’s a thought that’s circled in my mind often, that we spend so much time looking for answers outside of us.
Looking for validation from the world. It suggests we see our perceptions and conclusions as not having much value on their own.
A part of what minimalism is all about is deciding what matters to you apart from what society has told you.
It’s becoming more present to your own desires. Coming to your own conclusion about the best way to live and the best things to have.
There’s nothing wrong with looking around you for guidance from time to time.
But it’s important to decide for yourself what direction in life you should take.
What does it mean to look within?
The meaning of “looking within yourself” is basically to ask what you think and what you feel about things. To think deeply on these questions.
Putting aside all the voices in your ear, be it from the media or those closest to you. Appropriate words that fit with this understanding include:
- Introspection
- Self-awareness
- Contemplation
- Soul-searching
It’s this kind of intentional pondering that can help you when you feel lost in life.
You can get closer to the kind of reality that you want to be a regular part of your existence.
Here are 10 benefits you can gain from looking within more.
1. Knowing who you are
People today frequently want to attach themselves to labels. It gets to a point where people can’t speak for themselves.
They only know to speak for the label they represent. But you’re something greater than some of the labels you attach yourself to.
You are a unique compilation of character traits that the world needs. Ask yourself what defines who you are.
- Do you have a kind nature that few think to ever exhibit?
- Are you a thoughtful person that thinks beyond what most people perceive?
- Do you have a persistence that doesn’t allow you to give up so easily?
These are things you can discover about yourself when you sit quietly and ponder the person that you are, or that you want to be.
2. Recognizing your weaknesses
In knowing more of who you are, you discover your weaknesses that you need to improve on.
Everyone has their own opinion about our flaws. And it’s okay to reflect on if the criticisms people give you have some truth to them.
But you know where you work your hardest at being a good person, and where you need to work even harder.
Taking an introspective look at how you’ve failed as a person can help begin your greater success.
3. Knowing what you want
We’re fed so many ideas of what we should have for a good life.
Our families and friends influence us on what to value, commercials tell us what to buy, and society overall shapes our perception of what happiness means.
Sometimes it takes being alone for awhile to get an idea of what you really want. Asking yourself, what ultimately matters for my inner-peace?
As you sit and think on that, ideas can start coming to you. You’ll have some understanding of what direction you believe you need to go in. to get inner-peace.
4. Making better decisions
Self-reflection and introspection require you to do reasoning. Some would say when you’re focused more inwardly in looking for answers, you tap more into your intuition.
The combination of reasoning and intuition can potentially lead you to making better and wiser decisions.
You can start making less choices off of impulse which result in bad decisions.
5. Improving your mental well-being
One form of looking inward is through journaling. Writing out your thoughts and contemplating everything about your life.
The University of Rochester Medical Center notes that journaling improves our mental well-being through reducing stress, coping with depression, and managing anxiety.
The reason they say it helps in these ways is because it allows us to do three things:
- Prioritize our concerns
- Track our symptoms to recognize triggers and better control them
- Provide an opportunity to identify negative thoughts and give ourselves positive self-talk
So, you may find taking time to pause and ponder inwardly through journaling can help you feel mentally better.
6. Recognizing your strengths
The world can do so well at putting us down, it makes us forget how amazing we are. Unfortunately, not many people will be focused on building us up.
We have to build ourselves up by focusing inside and seeing how much good there is in who we are.
7. Building your confidence
When you recognize those strengths about who you are, you feel more confident in yourself.
You can go out in the world and be more able to say exactly the way you feel, and act in exactly the manner you want.
That’s a quality we all often admire in some of our favorite people in life. That ability to be real in however way someone feels is real to them.
Going inside of yourself, realizing the good of who you are, can help lead you to being as confident as you’ve ever been.
8. Being a better person to others
The changes that happen outwardly will of course affect the way you treat people around you.
When we’re unsure in life or down on ourselves, we don’t always end up being as kind or thoughtful to others.
How we feel affects how we treat people. The better you feel, the better you’ll likely treat others.
As you take this necessary journey of self-reflection and improve yourself, you can potentially transform into a better partner, friend, family member, and person in general.
9. Feeling more energized
It can get draining constantly looking for someone that can tell us how to feel happier or how to be better in life.
Looking to yourself allows you to slow down and relax. You don’t have to rush to know everything now.
You can give yourself all the time you need to figure things out for yourself. That can be a much more peaceful way to discovering the contentment you deeply desire.
10. Feeling happier
When you come out of your time going deep within yourself, and discover some of the answers you’ve be looking for, you can have a greater sense of joy.
Being able to have some kind of understanding about your own desires and the meaning of the world around you can be deeply fulfilling.
Final thoughts
The world will always have some kind of new idea or movement to get you to buy into.
But the world doesn’t know you like you do. It just knows how to convince you that it does.
As you can see, there are great benefits to seeking within. It can completely change your life and bring you renewed joy.
Have the confidence and courage to reflect and discover the answers you desire.
I like this Eric, and right out of the gate when you say “People frequently want to attach themselves to Labels” makes me think of the word “Branding”. I first heard that word back in the 90’s when I was in the Hotel Industry. In a different but maybe same way of sorts it speaks of conformity, of fitting in, although in the Industry it was more about uniformity, that no matter where you stayed, within the Hotel Chain you received the same good service, the way you talked to the Guest was the same, etc. But I think they went a little overboard at least with Front of the House Staff. I was always the non conformist working in my own little office handling cash, a Free Spirit more or less within the cogs of the machine.
I think also we can get caught up in the trap of needing validation for everything we do rather than like you say looking inward for it. If a person always needs someone else’s approval they sadly don’t think very much of themselves or their ability to shine from within regardless of another person’s opinion of them.
For Self Introspection we cannot be afraid of more quiet time to try & let our thoughts catch up to us & slow down the thought process, the constant internal chatter. Speaking of Intuition I wish I had used it more at certain times of my life when the emotions clouded my vision. It is like I knew something bad was going to happen but then one side of my brain was in disbelief.
This is a great conversation & I hope more people pipe in on it. Much Food for Thought.
Thanks Maria. Indeed, non-conformity, self-validation, and introspection are definitely valuable traits a part of look within ourselves. It seems as we get older it gets easier to trust our inner-voice. I hope for that to continue to be the case as I reach my later years in life.
So strange that I love journaling. Reading all 10 reasons why we should go within….towards the end just realizing I have and been going within myself. I am a change person for better and more happy and I don’t just let anyone distrub my inner peace. Thank you for the confirmation not knowing I was getting one. Love and light.❤️❤️