Jorge Bukay: 20 steps on the way to yourself

Step 1. Know thyself

Take off the veils that prevent you from seeing what you really are. Accept the knowledge of who you really are. Throw off all the “masks” that you wear for others. Take full responsibility for your life, including all your words and actions.

Step 2. Be free

Do not conquer, but give yourself freedom, inner independence. Freedom is the art of choosing within the limits of the possible, not permissiveness. To declare oneself free is to take a step towards one’s independence. Understand that from now on, you alone are responsible for all the decisions that you make.

Step 3. Open to love

Love, which you need to open your heart to, is an everyday, real and simple feeling. This is genuine concern for the well-being of others. Awaken in yourself a genuine interest in the lives of other people, whether it be your child, your mother, spouse, partner, neighbor or complete stranger.

Step 4. Laugh heartily

Learn to wake up joyfully every morning, in spite of television and other negative information. Every day, linger in front of the mirror for at least a minute and smile at yourself. Smile until you infect everyone around you with your mood. Laughter and irony are necessary for a person so that he can act more reasonably, without denying the existing problems and without running away from them.

Step 5. Learn to listen to others

Well-known wisdom says: we have two ears and only one mouth. This is a reminder that we should listen twice as much as we talk. Practice active and engaged listening when you analyze, agree or disagree with the other person’s opinion. Another person can help you understand yourself better, see the facets of your personality that are not available to you.

Step 6. Learn to learn, forgetting about pride

Life is a constant acquisition of new knowledge necessary for self-improvement. There is no worse punishment than the inability to go beyond the boundaries of already acquired knowledge. A person who is not ready to descend from the pedestal of omniscience will not be able to learn anything from others, because he despises those around him in advance, assuming that no one will be able to tell him anything new.

Step 7. Always Be Friendly

It’s pretty easy to be nice to someone who treats you with warmth and respect. But it’s not so easy to follow the rules of courtesy when you are not answered the same. However, I am convinced that everyone should consciously renounce the mistreatment to which we subject each other on a daily basis. It is difficult to walk the path of cultivation all alone, without companions, and it is impossible to succeed if you are not loved.

Step 8. Tidy up inside and out

Learn to reach your goal without losing your way. To do this, you need to prioritize, to separate the main from the secondary. Remember two important points: 1) no order can be considered final and unchanging; 2) your own order should not coincide with the order of another person at all.

Step 9: Become a Good Salesperson

The ninth step on the difficult path of self-development, of course, few people do openly – the ability to competently present themselves. To sell in this case does not mean “to sell out”, it is just the ability to convey to others information about yourself and what good you can do.

Step 10. Choose a good company for yourself

You need to choose people not with the mind, but with the heart. It may seem naive, but not so long ago, overcoming difficulties, I became convinced of how important it is to have people who love you and your loved ones nearby: friends, relatives, readers, neighbors, colleagues, teachers … I call them life partners. Without such people or forgetting about them, you will not achieve anything in life.

Step 11. Don’t be afraid to overestimate your knowledge

Often, in the pursuit of new knowledge, you can forget that all the information that you already have needs to be constantly maintained. Review your knowledge, discard something, discover something new, replenish and improve what you have always considered reliable. Personally, I am in a conscious and constant search for new solutions to old problems, new answers to old questions.

Step 12: Be Creative

There are two ways of knowing: one is based on the experience and knowledge of an adult, the second is based on the discoveries and experiences of a child that is in each of us. It is the second method that allows you to bring out the creative force, to discover that in any situation there is some new, unknown facet. Try building your life path in the following sequence: emotion, explorer’s curiosity, creative behavior, creative mistakes, learning, joy, growth.

Step 13: Use Every Second

The present is the only possible moment for an active life. Neither the past nor the future should distract you from being here and now. The present is always open to change, unpredictable and can bring any surprise – this is its main advantage. Make the most of it.

Step 14 Avoid Addictions and Attachments

This step involves getting rid of all sorts of addictions: things, people, actions, positions, ideologies. It is about getting rid of everything that is somehow not originally yours. And this list of “unnecessary things” should begin with our conceited and narcissistic “I”.

Step 15: Don’t take risks

In one old poem it is said that every thing, thought, opinion, deed carries a certain amount of risk. It is dangerous to laugh, to cry, to do something new, to love, to meet people, to fly by plane… But this same poem teaches us one more thing: the biggest danger is the desire to live your whole life without exposing yourself to any dangers. I suggest that you take risks in life, but take risks deliberately.

Step 16. Bargain only in the most extreme cases.

Learn to bargain only in the field of commercial or legal relations, in litigation, war, conflict situations. For other cases (and especially for love!) it is better to use the word “consent”. In friendship, family, and love relationships, I like the phrase “voluntary refusal” more than “sacrifice.”

Step 17. Improve Without Competition

I learned from my own experience that there is no “healthy” rivalry. Of course, in every person there is a desire to compare oneself with others, but only in sports does such rivalry turn into a game. Therefore, sport allows you to sublimate this fatal desire to surpass others, and then return to everyday life. Only competition at the level of competence and skill can be considered healthy.

Step 18 Don’t be afraid to fail

Our fear of failure is usually the result of our childhood upbringing. Every person is afraid of failure, and we all forget: any collapse of plans is an impetus for self-improvement. Spiritual growth is possible only through daily experience of trial and error. If you succeed the first time, it may amuse your vanity, but it will not teach you anything. You can only learn from mistakes and from making sense of the past.

Step 19 Start Over

On the path of life, you have repeatedly come to a dead end, found yourself in a hopeless situation, where you have been led by serious, sometimes irreparable mistakes. At such moments, it is worth remembering this step. And decide to start over. The meaning of this step is to return back to the place where you lost your way or where the road ended. And when you return, you will understand: now everything will be different – the situation itself, and the place in which it happened, and you yourself. Remember, there is always the opportunity to start over.

Step 20. Have no doubts about the final result

I believe that anyone can achieve anything they dream of if they take their time and persevere in achieving what they want. The main thing is that it should really be his own desire, and not the needs of other people that have germinated in his heart. It is said that we face failure because of our impatience, not because of a lack of real opportunities. That’s probably how it is.