I. Being honest

There is always the question of whether honesty is the best policy when dealing with another person. Hurting another’s feelings or causing trouble are some of the factors that exist in this debate. However, when dealing with your-self, honesty must be the only policy no matter what the truth may be.
It is a natural defense mechanism to deny, distort, or alter unpleasant truths to avoid the thoughts and feelings that are provoked by them. The evolutionary process of our development has allowed humans this fail-safe mechanism of denial to help us cope with circumstances that can cause severe psychological disturbances.
When a person is faced with a reality they cannot cope with, or conflicts with strongly held beliefs of self or others, then a lie is useful in alleviating the mental and emotional tension created from those unpleasant truths. Self-deceit is a useful tool when dealing with reality becomes too difficult.
It is not easy to be completely honest with your-self. This is even truer when it concerns being honest in the face of undesirable character traits, situations, and the poor effects of bad choices. The truth is seen only in the way narcotic and alcoholic anonymous groups begin their workshops for new members. Each new member must stand in front of the group and admit that they have a problem and identify themselves with the problem. You must stand up and admit to yourself the truth about yourself no matter what that truth may be and identify with that.
Being brutally honest with yourself is the first step in this program, because it is the most important one. You will never be able to improve yourself and any bad traits, or the circumstances in your life, unless you can be absolutely and brutally honest with yourself about your-self. You should take a moment and think of your life and yourself. Are you living your life the way you want to live it? Are you really who you think you are? Are your friends who you think they are?
If what you believe yourself to be, and what you believe your life to be, is inconsistent with what it truly is and who you really are then you must ask yourself why it is that way. Ask yourself this question and be honest about it. Once you have come to a set description and definition of yourself it is best to then reflect on your past. Do not reflect on the past to ruminate upon it. Reflect on it in an introspective manner analyzing all events and circumstance you have experienced. Again, this must be done in total truth and honesty.
Remember the choices you have made. Remember how you have treated yourself and thought about yourself. Remember how you have treated others and thought about others. Look at how you dealt with situations and see if it was with a cool head or cold heart. Remember the environments you were in and the people you were around. Think of how all this influenced you.
When I say to analyze your past, it is meant in every sense of the word.
Dissect your life into bits and pieces following a linear and logical order from your earliest remembered experiences up until the most present. The purpose of this is to bring to your consciousness the reality of your present life. This reality will be based upon the true series of events that occurred from the past to the present. What you will find in this series of events are patterns. You will discover patterns of behavior that you repeatedly engage in. It doesn’t matter where you are or how old you are. These patterns of behavior are a part of you and define who you are. They also define the life you live and what you experience. These patterns are your character traits.
What you will discover is that the choices you have made are based upon the character traits you have developed over a course of time by repeatedly responding to situations in the same manner you always have. Your character traits have led you into a pattern of behavior that has either proven to be beneficial or detrimental depending on the type of decisions that have been made over a period. Your traits have led you into a pattern of decision making that automatically recur whenever similar situations arise at different points in your life. This is what must be changed. Decisions made in life must not be based upon blind emotional impulse, but upon conscious reasoning. Impulsive decision making reduces the availability of positive options in life and increases the likelihood of a bad choice being made that may have a resonating effect well into your future. This could be very difficult to remove or remedy.
Upon a close examination of this, you will see a pattern of choices that led to good in your life, and a pattern of choices that led to bad. You will also see a pattern in the type of personal and social relationships you consistently engage in that will reflect the type of people and social situations you find yourself in. From your intimate relationships, to your friends, and the type of work and associates you have around you will discover a similarity between them all despite the difference in time and place. You will find yourself in similar environments time and again, and in similar situations over a period though the faces and places may be different. These patterns of behavior, environmental circumstances, and associations are constantly created and recreated through your decisions and personal characteristics that draw you to these circumstances and realities.
Think of the choices you made in life that led you to situations that were favorable and beneficial. Continue to make those decisions and similar ones like those. Think of the choices that led you to unfavorable circumstances. Stop making those choices. It’s that simple. It just requires a modicum of awareness of your-self and behaviors as well as the requisite will to make the necessary changes. The purpose of this self-analysis and development of introspective awareness is to help you comprehend with certainty, based upon your life up until the present moment, exactly why you are at where you’re at and how you got there.
This knowledge is the first key to self-empowerment. Now you know why your life is the way it is. You know that it is not the result of bad luck or circumstances beyond your control. It is not chance or fate but upon things you had full control over. You are where you are at because it is you who put yourself there. The sum of your life is the direct result of the choices you have made up until this point. This is an incredible truth as it gives you the definite power to guide and control your fate from here on as you now know you are master and commander of your fate. The power that steers the path of your life lies within your choices. You can make your life what you want it to be. It all starts this moment. It begins right now with the choices you make. You must be conscious of this fact and not believe or have faith that it is true but know that it is true. Most importantly of all you must be honest with your-self every step of the way.