In order to get an objective view of yourself it often requires an outside perspective. To follow through on the challenges you aspire to, it helps to have a partner in crime — someone to give you the added motivation to carry out the projects you set out to do. How well would we know ourselves if people were not mirroring back their impressions to us? To that end, I encourage you to enlist a personal investigator to help you learn more about yourself and undertake your own life experiments. Have this person help you document and facilitate your personal path of self-discovery. Some might say a therapist could fill this purpose, but I’m talking about a role that is greater and more complex. I am thinking of the ultimate personal investigative role. Think of Dustin Hoffman in “I Heart Huckabees” or a life coach who has an athletic responsibility to keep pace with you in your soul-searching quest and engages you in your life like no one else. 

The Personal Investigator could be a friend or professional. Or someone else you feel a great deal of trust to employ as your personal witness. Their job is to help you gain insight into the person you are, challenge you to follow through on your personal experiments and to reveal a robust understanding of yourself. If you dare try this, you can employ this person on a mission to follow you discreetly throughout your week, take photos, videos, put together an album of images, notes and analysis. Think of this person as a traveling analyst, a sherpa, a spiritual detective, or guide. Think of them as your daily conscience early to rise to propel you to higher and more varied personal heights. To have the most success employing this person as your aide you undoubtedly need to build the right rapport and trust. A person who is employed to treat your life as a subject of study will undoubtedly get to know you intimately and be permitted a view into your world that has a knowledge and depth potentially even superior to your own. For the deepest level of insight, uncomfortable though it may be, let this person see you unguarded, exposed, and with imperfections unwithheld.

This challenge is not easy but it can be a truly insightful experiment and result in a relationship like no other. There are many degrees to which you can take this. You can decide how long you would like this person to investigate you. They could be a person you revisit every year or every five years, or a lifelong mentor in your process of self-fulfillment. Making this commitment would open up many possibilities and present an exciting discovery process rarely experienced in everyday life.