Self Analysis: from No to Yes in 7 Words

The work we are engaging with has to begin with ourselves. It is hardly reasonable to suppose that we can offer any meaningful service to help deal with humanity's mental imperfections unless and until we have acknowledged a personal need to rebalance our own distortions of thinking. This requires self-examination and the soul-searching that goes with it. It's also important to get some honest feedback from another impartial, observer lest we fall into Nasrudin's self-delusion and look at ourselves in the mirror of our own conceit. Each of us has been pulled and pushed by the influential forces that shaped our lives. Each of us, as a result, has grown to be less than perfectly clear in our behaviour and other communications. Can we now reverse this process? 

Perhaps such questions are secondary to a more important one: ‘Are we willing to try?' The self-examination questionnaire will give some insights into contours of personality. It requires a degree of intuition and self-reflection based on an honest appraisal of ourselves in answer to the questions. From this, we can learn something about who we are by bringing awareness to our strengths and we can become more conscious of the way in which we may be able to use them to help in situations where another person has lack. Also, by developing a truer sense of our weaker areas, we can train ourselves to make more of an effort to work with issues and develop a more rounded character. For example, if we find we are not strong on Thank You, we can introduce into our lives the conscious intention to express appreciation of others. We can perhaps begin with those we love, by offering a little gesture of affection—a touch, a word, or a postcard from the seaside—because the thought will be appreciated.

One of the primary benefits in developing self-awareness is to become able to shape our lives according to our own values instead of repeatedly attempting to live out someone else's ideas about what life is for, and how it should be lived. If we continually feel ‘not quite right', ‘not totally fulfilled', okay I suppose', then perhaps we can find out what can be done to change this instead of just carrying on assuming that we have to put up with something that goes against the grain of our deepest being. Also if we want to get more deeply below the surface of the questionnaire's answers—rather blank numerical statements—we can pick out the lowest scoring questions and ask ourselves more about them. One way to do this is in meditation and later there are a few tips to help with this.

The words are these: No, Hello, Thanks, Goodbye, Please, Sorry, and Yes.

Free Questionnaires are available on the