The most constant portion of my life is me. I am a highly constant part of my life. I am always a party to what I am doing and a variable in what I do, what I do not do, and where I go. I am always there. I cannot separate me from myself. My flaws, my skills, abilities, hurts, habits, hang ups, and intelligence are all a part of who I am. To constantly be getting to know myself better means, I know how to better operate within the constraints of who I am.

An excellent metaphor is staying in tune on an upright bass. If I am playing along and I start to notice the open strings are sounding flat, then I want to compensate and slide my positions a little sharper as to compensate for the flat strings. Doing so keeps me in tune with the rest of the band and means we all sound good together.

Likewise, if I know I have a hard time staying off my phone or twitter during dinner; then, I need to preemptively put my phone away before I ever sit down for dinner. Knowing myself well enough and my self control to the point where I know what I am and am not capable of doing, I am able to preemptively work towards my own success. I start to learn how to trick myself to do the right thing even though I know my psyche does not want to do it out of fear or anger or simply a bad habit.

Ultimately, I learn how to adjust for my own shortcomings and strengths for the good of those around me. I am also more successful in what I do. I know where my loopholes are. I know how to get around myself and work with me as a teammate not an adversary.

Knowing my own natural actions and reactions allows me to know how I am going to react and I can get ahead of myself to be successful despite my shortcomings.

Where do you act or react poorly? How can you preemptively compensate for yourself from making poor decisions?

Preemptive,

–JT