PerDev Knowing and Understanding Oneself

LESSON 1: Knowing and Understanding
Oneself during Middle and Late
Adolescence

Learning Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, you will be able to:
• a. explain that knowing yourself can make you accept your
strengths and limitations and dealing with others better;
• b. share your unique characteristics, habits and experiences; and,
• c. start and maintain a journal.

Big Question:
How can understanding yourself pave the way to self-acceptance and better
relationship with others?

Activity: SELF-CONCEPT
INVENTORY
• Take a look at your own self-concept and
answer the following self-concept
inventory in your journal. Give yourself a
rating using the scale:
• 0 = very weak;
• 1 = weak;
• 2 = somewhat weak or somewhat strong;
• 3 = strong;
• 4 = very strong

1. I have strong sex appeal.
2. I am proud of my physical figure.
3. I am physically attractive and beautiful/handsome.
4. I exude with charm and poise.
5. I am easy to get along with.
6. I can adjust to different people and different situations.
7. I am approachable; other people are at ease and
comfortable with me.
8. I am lovable and easy to love.
9. I am a fast learner, can understand with one instruction.
10.I am intelligent.
11.I have special talents and abilities.
12.I can easily analyze situations and make right judgments.

13. I can be trusted in any transaction.
14. I have a clean conscience and carry no guilty feeling.
15. I have integrity and good reputation.
16. My friends and classmates can look up to me as a model
worth emulating.
17. I can express my ideas without difficulty.
18. I talk in a persuasive manner that I can easily get people
to accept what I say.
19. I can express my ideas in writing without difficulty.
20. I am a good listener.
21. I am emotionally stable and not easily rattled when faced
with trouble.
22. I am logical and rational in my outlook and decisions.
23. I feel and act with confidence.
24. I am a mature person.

Scoring: Write your score opposite each
number and get the subtotal.

How do you perceive yourself?
1. In what areas do you consider yourself strong (with score 14-16 or somewhat
weak (score of 10-13) and very weak (below 10).
2. Are there qualities you consider as your weakness but other people consider as
your strength? What are these? Check with a partner.
• Example: A lady can say “I`m ugly” yet other consider her very charming. Or
conversely, one can have the illusion of saying “I am very intelligent or
competent” when most of his ideas sound unreasonable or illogical to most of
the people. There is indeed a big difference between what you see in yourself
(real self-image) and what is projected in the eyes of the others (your social
image).
3. How realistic is your self- image?
4. To what extent does it reflect your real self?

Imagine yourself looking
into a mirror. What do you
see? Do you see your ideal
self or your actual self?

• The actual self and the ideal self are two broad
categories of self-concept. Self-concept refers to
your awareness of yourself. It is the construct that
negotiates these two selves. In other words, it
connotes first the identification of the ideal self as
separate from others, and second, it encompasses
all the behaviors evaluated in the actual self that
you engage in to reach the ideal self.

• The actual self is built on self-knowledge. Self-
knowledge is derived from social interactions
that provide insight into how others react to you.
The actual self is who we actually are. It is how
we think, how we feel, look, and act. The actual
self can be seen by others, but because we have
no way of truly knowing how others view us, the
actual self is our self-image.

• The ideal self, on the other hand, is how we want
to be. It is an idealized image that we have
developed over time, based on what we have
learned and experienced. The ideal self could
include components of what our parents have
taught us, what we admire in others, what our
society promotes, and what we think is in our best
interest.

• Personal effectiveness means making use of all the personal
resources – talents, skills, energy and time, to enable you to
achieve life goals. Your knowledge of yourself and how you
manage yourself impacts directly on your personal effectiveness.
Being self-aware, making the most of your strengths, learning new
skills and techniques and behavioral flexibility are all keys to
improving your personal performance. Our personal effectiveness
depends on our innate characteristics – talent and experience
accumulated in the process of personal development. Talents first
are needed to be identified and then developed to be used in a
particular subject area (science, literature, sports, politics, etc.).
• Experience includes knowledge and skills that we acquire in the
process of cognitive and practical activities.

• Knowledge is required for setting goals, defining an action plan to
achieve them and risk assessment.
• Skills also determine whether real actions are performed in
accordance with the plan. If the same ability is used many times in
the same situation, then it becomes a habit that runs
automatically, subconsciously.

Here are some skills that will greatly increase
the efficiency of any person who owns them:
1. Determination. It allows you to focus only on achieving a specific goal
without being distracted by less important things or spontaneous desires.
It may be developed with the help of self-discipline exercise.
2. Self-confidence. It appears in the process of personal development, as a
result of getting aware of yourself, your actions and their consequences.
Self-confidence is manifested in speech, appearance, dressing, gait, and
physical condition. To develop it, you need to learn yourself and your
capabilities, gain positive attitude and believe that by performing right
actions and achieving right goals you will certainly reach success.
3. Persistence. It makes you keep moving forward regardless of emerging
obstacles – problems, laziness, bad emotional state, etc. It reduces the
costs of overcoming obstacles. It can also be developed with the help of
self-discipline exercise.

4. Managing stress. It helps combat stress that arises in daily life
from the environment and other people. Stress arises from the
uncertainty in an unknown situation when a lack of information
creates the risk of negative consequences of your actions. It
increases efficiency in the actively changing environment.
5. Problem-solving skills. They help cope with the problems
encountered with a lack of experience. It increases efficiency by
adopting new ways of achieving goals when obtaining a new
experience.
6. Creativity. It allows you to find extraordinary ways to carry out a
specific action that no one has tried to use. It can lead to a decrease
or an increase of costs, but usually the speed of action is greatly
increased when using creative tools.

7. Generating ideas. It helps you achieve goals using new, original,
unconventional ideas. Idea is a mental image of an object formed by
the human mind, which can be changed before being implemented
in the real world. For generating ideas, you can use a method of
mental maps, which allows you to materialize, visualize and
scrutinize all your ideas, which in turn contributes to the emergence
of new ideas. These are just some, but the most important personal
effectiveness skills which make the achievement of any goal easier
and less costly.

There are three kinds of people in this world:
The first is the Moviegoer. This person watches the
movie of their lives, admires some parts and criticizes
others. Aside from that, they do nothing else. All she
says the whole day is, “I like this thing and but I don’t
like that thing.” The Moviegoer feels she has absolutely
no control of their lives --- except to comment about
it. Moviegoers are the most pathetic, miserable people
in the world.

The second is the Actor. This person does not only
watch the movie of her life. She actually realizes she’s
the Actor – and can control a big part of her life. She
can actually make or break the movie – by how well she
delivers her lines and how she portrays her character.
Actors are a happy bunch, realizing they’re the start of
the show and enjoy some level of control. But many
times, they wish the movie would end in another way –
but realize that they have no say in such things.

The third is the Scriptwriter. This person does not only
watch, and she doesn’t only act, but she actually
creates the entire movie from her mind. She
determines what she will say, what she will do, and
how the movie will end. She realizes she has enormous
control over her life, and sees to it that the movie of
her life will turn out beautiful.

Activity: MY BANNER – THE
TREASURE WITHIN ME
In the spaces indicated by numbers, write down
the following
1 and 2 two things I do very well
3 and 4 my two greatest achievements in life
5 what in myself am I proudest of
6 my happiest moment
7 positive words that my friends use to describe
me
8 a personal goal that I have already achieved
9 three blessings for which I am most thankful to
God
10 three of my positive qualities
11 difficulties, challenges and problems that I was
able to solve and overcome

Reflection from My Banner
Write about your banner.
1. What do you consider as your weaknesses, abilities
and talents?
2. What are the remedies you will take to improve or
compensate for your weakness?
3. How can you further enrich your assets and
strengths?
4. Where and how do you use it to your best advantage?

PerDev Knowing and Understanding Oneself

PerDev Knowing and Understanding Oneself

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