Within You: Embracing Your True Self and Attaining Personal Fulfillment

WITHIN YOU

Embracing Your True Self and Attaining Personal Fulfillment

Author: Uduakobong Ikotidem

Category: Self-Help > Motivational & Inspirational

Website: www.beinspiredtoday.org

Date: 3/07/2019

TABLE OF CONTENT

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE: THE JOURNEY INWARD

Definiteness of purpose

Purpose and fulfillment

                                      Understanding your gifts, talents and skills

CHAPTER TWO: THE POWER WITHIN

                                      Mind Power

  Will Power

                                      Inner Strength

CHAPTER THREE: IMAGINATION

  Workshop of the mind

                                      The subconscious mind

CHAPTER FOUR: SELF-DISCIPLINE

                                      Dealing with Discouragement

Persistence

CHAPTER FIVE:    PRINCIPLES OF FAITH

                                    Internal Enemy

              Overcoming Fear

                      Activate faith not fear

CHAPTER SIX:      VISION WITH PASSION

            Chase your dream

CHAPTER SEVEN: SUCCESS AND FULFILLMENT

                                      Concept of Idea

Organized planning

Analysis of failure

REFERENCES

PREFACE

What lies behind you and what lies before you are tiny matters compared to what lies within you.

While in my fourth year in the university, I was opportune to listen to an inspirational audio message titled, 20 things to do before you become 30years from World Changers International Ministries. This brought about an awakening in me. It was then I realized that life is not just about surviving and making ends meet, it is about making positive contributions to life by digging deep into yourself to discover your unique and specific purpose.

I found a lot of people doing things they naturally were not created to do; living an unfulfilled life, due to wrong choice of career, fear, uncertainty, feeling of inferiority and low self-esteem. I was driven by the passion to help other people discover their potential, and attain fulfillment through self-discovery, and the exploration of the un-tapped virtues they possess within. 

People are most productive and happiest when utilizing their talents and abilities to the fullest. Thus, this book is to help enhance your skills, credibility, competencies, personal effectiveness, and to help inspire, motivate and guide you to success, by helping you become the best you can be.

WITHIN YOU is an educational and inspirational book that reveals the true power of man as the architect of his own life. Man is a complex machine that is self-run, and the only thing that controls man; determines his action, and creates his reality is the mind, and the awareness about his true self.

This book is for everyone who wants to find their place in the world. The information’s contained are highly integrated from years of research, and they are psychological in nature. Within the pages of this book, you will find stories, mementos, quotes and excerpts from experienced researchers, psychologist, philosophers, educationist, motivators and human existentialist, that I hope will touch your heart, and help you find more meaning, purpose, and fulfillment in life, as well as inspire you to live the life of your dream.

My goal is to awaken, empower, and create future leaders who take action and build ventures that advance humanity. I am on a mission to serve as many people as possible and make a positive difference in the world. This book, certainly, would increase your intellectual prowess if you give it the required attention. It is with this modest aim, I present to you WITHIN YOU

INTRODUCTION

All of us have been brought up through a process of socialization, that is, the cultural and social conditioning that has influenced what we believe and perceive.  We are born with the innocence of children, but slowly, we are taught that we have a name, a nationality, a religion, that certain ambitions and habits are respected and admired by our parents, teachers and peers so we should strive towards attaining them.

Through socialization, we are taught a variety of social expectations, values, beliefs and thoughts, which give rise to a variety of feelings within us.  These include love, expectations, habits, sympathy, hatred, patriotism, tastes, ambitions, convictions, memories and all sorts of things that begin to form our identity.  This process contributes to us losing perspective of ‘who’ we really are, causing us to focus on all the changing, relative and ephemeral qualities in our lives.

At every stage of our lives we grow, at every level we want something more and we keep feeling like there is an aspect of ourselves we haven’t harnessed or tapped into. Exploring our depths, observing and inquiring, will slowly rid us of the many false beliefs we once held so dear. When we begin the quest of self-discovery and embrace our true self, we begin to see through our false identities, as well as the ambitions we once were ready to live and die for. 

It is very possible that a high number of people have not gotten to know them-selves very well. You’ve been running on the treadmill of life, and a great proportion of your time has been spent on working long hours, slaving away in a job and filling your days with back-to-back activities. Your mind is just too preoccupied with things to do. Unfortunately, not knowing yourself well can result in an unfulfilling existence, because discovery is what enlists you for life not necessarily birth.

When you don’t have a clear idea about your inner values, core beliefs and goals, you are likely to allow your emotions and decisions to be externally dictated. Instead of making an independent decision, you adopt the values, core beliefs and opinions of friends, colleagues or parents as your own; because a man who cannot define himself cannot be stable and consistent in his life. If you have no clear idea of who you are, you will have no clarity in what you want or seek. You send mixed signals out to the universe, and your desires and intentions keep changing from day to day, thus making it hard to attract the outcomes that you want.

The inspirational book you are about to read have proven results. Each chapter provides secrets and strategies that will not just make you successful and fulfilled, but make you of value. It will not only guide you to self-discovery, but awaken you to the knowledge of the untapped resources and the power that lies within you. Thus, guiding you toward

situations and experiences in which you will thrive. Within this larger context, you will gain a new vantage point for understanding your role in the world and your reason for being in existence.

CHAPTER ONE

THE JOURNEY INWARD

The only true journey is the one within

The most important journey you can embark on is the journey inward. This is where one discovers the truest form of his or her self. Everyone has his own way to follow in life, but not everyone knows its way, that’s why we most at times make things complicated for ourselves, because we never find time to discover exactly WHO WE REALLY ARE.

When you’re born, you never question what it means to be you. You’re so busy learning to breathe, walk and talk, that the idea about your ‘self’ isn’t much of a focus. As you got older, you focused on how to be social, start a career, and maybe even build a family. For many years then, the idea of deliberately creating your identity may not have been even the tiniest speck on your list of things to do. Life has always been about fitting in. Trying to be who the society wants you to be.

The hardest challenge is to be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you be somebody else. It’s natural over the course of a lifetime, to reach a moment when you question everything about your identity. You suddenly become aware that you can’t give a description of who you are. To be clear, you would certainly be able to provide an answer based on a description of your name, gender, profession and familial status. But it is below that surface that your real self exists. It is about realizing what your beliefs are, and living by them.

SELF-DISCOVERY

Knowing yourself and your life purpose is the first step towards living a truly conscious life.

There was once a pregnant lion which died soon after giving birth. The newborn not knowing what to do makes its way into a nearby field and mingles with a herd of sheep. The mother sheep sees the cub and decides to raise it as its own.

The lion cub grows up along with the other sheep’s and starts thinking and acting just like a sheep. But it was never truly happy, because it always felt that there was something missing. And secondly, the other sheep’s would constantly make fun of it for being so different.

They would say, You are so ugly and your voice sounds so weird. Why can’t you bleat like the rest of us? You are a disgrace to the sheep community!

The lion would just stand there and take in all these remarks feeling extremely sad. It felt it had let down the sheep community by being so different, and that it was a waste of space.

One day, an older lion from a far off jungle sees the herd of sheep and decides to attack it. While attacking, it sees the young lion running away along with the other sheep. Curious as to what was happening; the older lion decides to stop chasing the sheep and pursues the younger lion instead. It pounces on the lion and growls asking it why it is running away with the sheep.

The younger lion shakes in fear and says, Please don’t eat me, I am just a young sheep. Please let me go!

Upon hearing this, the older lion growls, That’s nonsense! You are not a sheep; you are a lion, just like me!

The younger lion simply repeats, I am an innocent young sheep, please let me go.

At this point, the older lion gets an idea. It drags the younger lion to a river nearby and asks it to look at its reflection. Upon looking at the reflection, the lion much to its own astonishment realizes who it really was; it was not a sheep, it was a mighty lion!

The young lion feels so thrilled that it lets out a mighty roar. The roar echoes from all corners of the jungle and frightens the living daylights out of all the sheep that were hiding behind the bushes to see what was happening. They all flee away.

No longer will the sheep be able to make fun of the lion or even stand close to it for the lion had found its true nature and its true herd.

Moral of the story

The older lion in the story is a metaphor for ‘self awareness’ and looking at the reflection in the water is a metaphor for ‘self reflection’.

When the younger lion became aware of its limiting beliefs through self reflection, it then sees its true nature, and was not furthermore influenced by its surroundings, but it rather developed a bigger vision in alignment with its nature.

As an adult, it is easy to lose yourself in negative thoughts and feel like a victim by blaming the past. But that will only keep you stuck in the current reality. To change your reality and find your tribe, you need to start working on your inner self and focus all your energy towards becoming self aware.

The older lion in this story is not an external entity. It is an internal entity. It lives right inside you. The older lion is your true self and awareness. Allow your awareness to shine light onto all your limiting beliefs and find who you truly are.

Things that matter

We pay too much attention to everything around us, but not enough attention to ourselves to know who we truly are. The quality of our life is essentially determined by how we carry ourselves, the understanding of ‘who you are’, your personal characteristics, tendencies, emotions, needs, and values. Some people go through life playing a role to mask who they really are, it’s easy to feel that someone else is responsible for your fulfillment, but the reality is that it is really your charge. People who have a low self-esteem are people who have not discovered themselves.

Self-discovery simply means knowing your purpose in life, understanding your strength, weakness, passion, fears and desires. It is the realization of your true potential, character and motives. It can also be described as the establishment of your personal interests, listing your hopes and dreams for the future, and finding a career that corresponds to your personality.

Don’t let the noise of other opinions drown your own inner voice. Steve Jobs

Self Discovery is about exploring the inner world of our consciousness to discover, understand and liberate ourselves from the emotional and psychological