Do you truly know who you are? And no, I'm not talking about your name, where you were born, or what you look like. I mean do you know who you are - do you know your self? What are you good at or what are you not good at? What were you born to do? What's the meaning of your life? If you can't answer these types of questions automatically I'd say you don't truly know.
If I wanted to build a rocket ship, I'd first need to know about engineering and physics. If I wanted to be a lawyer, I'd need to know the law. If I wanted to master my life, then I need to know my "Self!" Don't you think it's crazy, that we don't truly know our "Self"?
Meditation is the key to truly knowing your Self
I've been meditating for over 8 years now, and the method I follow is a method of discarding the false mind (ego) to uncover who I am (my true Self). As I've cleared my mind of all the past conditioning that had me locked in the prison of my mind, not only have I discovered great liberation and freedom, I'm able to see clearly who I am.
With this awareness, I'm able to know my strengths, my weaknesses, my abilities, my talents, my capacity, and even to some degree my destiny. I can work with or against this. But in knowing my "Self" it seems much wiser to work with WHO I AM. Don't you think that makes the most sense?
So for me, the absolute first step in anything, is truly knowing who you are, at your core. Once you know that, the sky is your limit.
How to get the most out of life
There seems to be a disproportionate amount of people who want to be musicians, singers, sports stars or actors in society. I think it's because this is what society has put on a pedestal, and this has conditioned our mind into thinking this is what has the most value - money and fame.
But we can't all be singers! There was a time I also wanted to be a singer of a metal band, and I could immitate James Hetfield pretty damn well, until my voice broke and I sounded like complete shit. My singing career, the money, and groupies crumbled as quickly as it rose.
I was scared of people so acting wasn't going to be it. And I was always fat, so sports wasn't really my forte.
:'(
I stumbled around, with trial and error to find the things I liked and I have no regrets about that process at all. But I hope the education system of the future helps children to learn the art of letting go and having a clear mind, so they know their true self FIRST, and from there it's easy to harness your future!
But for us now, the best we can do is meditate, and speed up that process. Meditation will lead you to the wisdom in your mind. Just like Artificial Intelligence is the advancement of computers, finding your true Self - the Universe within - is the AI of consciousness. From there, you can know everything and get the most out of life.
Talking to people around you and learning how to listen is also a great way to reflect back to you some of your own thoughts and give you clarity. If I am the Universe, then those people are also me, and so that answer comes from within.
Ask yourself - "what is my one thing right now that's going to help me get the most out of life?"
When my life was in turmoil and completely out of sync with who I was, there's was so many things to improve! It was overwhelming.
But then I realized, it's best to just work on 1 thing at a time. Instead of trying to fix 10 things half heartedly, and fail at all of them and give up, it's worked much better to just do 1 thing at a time. It took me a long time to realize that...
After completing the 100 Day Gratitude Challenge, I realized the next step is to conquer the body and stop being a slave to it's demands. That was the source of all of my problems during the challenge and post challenge. Greed, desires, gluttony.
I also know I excel with a challenge, so I've started a new challenge - 75 Hard. Maybe once I get my body right I can be a sports star right? :D
So why don't you try just asking yourself, right now "what's the one thing I can do to get the most out of my life?"
So don't wait for tomorrow, that's a trap - take action and start!
Now is the time.