It may sound like a silly question, after all you have spent every waking (and sleeping!) moment with yourself since you were born (well, conceived!) so you should know yourself pretty well by now, right?

But how much do we really know ourselves? We never see ourselves through anyone else’s eyes so is, who we think we are, the same person as others see in us? It is probably fair to say that as human beings we all know what we like and dislike in regards to food, drink, fashion etc, but with life speeding by so quickly, how many of us take the time to really get to know our inner selves?

How many of us convince ourselves that we’re happy just because the alternative would be too much to think about or too hard to deal with? Change can be daunting so we plod on hoping our lives will just improve. But surely living a lie comes out sooner or later? It is a big shame that some of us may never really get to know ourselves at all.

So how do we really get to know ourselves? Here’s 5 steps to help find out:

1. Focus on Your Personality – what are your likes and dislikes, what makes you smile, laugh and cry? Who are you in your private moments, and alternatively, in your public thoughts? Gain an insight into how your friends view you. Find out what makes you tick, grabs your interest or creates boredom for you. How do certain things make you feel and how do you convey your feelings to the outside world? How do you react in situations and to others around you? Do you welcome constructive criticism or do you push it away? How do you deal with a challenge or difficult situation - do you embrace it or try to dismiss it. hoping it will go away? All of these questions can help you to outline your personality and start to form the true picture of yourself.

2. Look At Your Core Values – we all have certain moral codes and principles that we live by regarding all aspects of our lives, family, friends, work or business. Ask yourself which values you hold that you would never be willing to sacrifice. Whether it be honesty, loyalty, flexibility, maintaining high standards - these core values define the very basis of your being.

3. Define Your Dreams – understand what truly makes you tick and what you want for the future. Be proud of these things about yourself and build your dreams around them. Decide how big a part of your life you want them to be and what you are willing to do to get them. Get to know the details and specifics, i.e. can they be broken down into smaller parts in order to be easier to reach? Would it be beneficial to focus on a specific topic within the same area in order to provide more clarity? Are your dreams achievable and do you have the support around you to reach them?

4. Know What You Don’t Want – the above steps have allowed you to define what you want, but more importantly it is a great thing to know what you don’t want. Taking time to think of this will often help in making important and sometimes tricky decisions. If you rule out what you don’t want, then the options become easier to focus on.

5. Know Your Body – you’ve had it all of your life, nurtured it, grown with it and probably put it through its paces on a few occasions, but how well do you really know your body and what it is capable of? How healthy is it and how far are you willing to challenge it? It quite often makes it’s own decisions without any input from yourself so how can we try to control it more? Get to know what your body does for you and embrace it, after all it is amazing!

Answering these questions to yourself is a very good start to revealing the real you, but really getting to know yourself also comes with evolvement through time and age. By the time you have reached a certain age it is far easier to accept yourself (good and not so good!). Learn from all of your experiences, care less about what people think of you, realise what is acceptable and unacceptable to you and that is when the real you will surface. We are all different and unique in some way and everybody should take the opportunity to evaluate themselves from time to time. Just take a moment to think how well you really know yourself.