To know ourselves better, we can solicit feedback from those around us. By admitting that we have a bias when it comes to considering many aspects of our personality, we can open ourselves up to constructive criticism -- and maybe even a few compliments -- by talking to family and friends. While you may be nervous about what you'll find out, it's important to understand how others see you. It's possible you could lose out on promotions at work or relationships with friends because you don't understand the image you present to the world.

In addition to asking others about who and how we are, and how we seem to them, an equally helpful strategy might be for us to examine what we think of others. The answer could be quite revealing. After all, "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves," renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung once said [source: quotationspage]. We could start with our closest friends, making an inventory of things about them that bother us. Do you find them to be self-absorbed? Do they steer conversations toward themselves? Are they unreasonably cheap? Are they always late for lunches, dinners or other social gatherings? Those are just a couple of examples of things you might think about your friends. The trick, then, is to ask if you might not be transferring to them things you know to be true about yourself.

Another tactic we might take to get to know ourselves better is to push ourselves. We tend to learn a lot about ourselves when we're confronted with challenges that take us out of our comfort zone. How can we push ourselves? There are lots of ways -- big and small. We could take a class, for example, that launches a new hobby in our lives. Or perhaps we could push ourselves physically, with that exercise regimen we've long put off beginning or even something more extreme like taking up climbing or skydiving. The point is to find out what we're made of when tested, which can often help us see who we really are.