How To Increase Self-Awareness And Make It Work For You
Get to know yourself better
What is self-awareness, and what is its importance
Self-awareness is the process of knowing yourself, understanding, and interpreting your thoughts, feelings, ideas, and actions.
There are two types of self-awareness, one private: when you are aware of your actions and behavior, which others don’t know, and two, public: how others perceive you and think of you.
Self-aware people can objectively look at themselves and are better able to anticipate their behavior, evaluate their actions and manage their emotions.
Examples of self-awareness
- Recognizing your strengths and weaknesses
- Knowing what gives you happiness
- Being mindful of your priorities and life goals
- Defining your values and ideals
- Understanding your emotional triggers and how to deal with them
“Self-awareness is the ability to take an honest look at your life without any attachment to it being right or wrong, good or bad.”
— Debbie Ford
What can you do to improve your self-awareness
Here are six ways of getting better at self-awareness.
1. Examine your beliefs
You live life guided mainly by your belief system. Also, you view the world and people therein through the lens of your beliefs.
Your beliefs act as a reference point, and you evaluate and approve yourself and other people’s behavior based on your beliefs.
If there’s a conflict between what you feel deep within and how you act, your life will be out of alignment with your inner self resulting in stress.
It is, therefore, essential to know your long-held beliefs and why they are significant for you. Question the relevance and importance of them in your life and how far you are ready to go for protecting and standing by your beliefs.
2. Monitor your behavior
To know yourself thoroughly, be conscious of your behavior, and watch how you conduct yourself when you are alone and how your demeanor changes in the presence of others.
Also, keep an eye on yourself, what triggers you, what evokes different emotions in you, and how you react and respond to different situations.
When you observe yourself keenly, you’ll understand how you interact with the people and world outside, express yourself — your feelings, needs, and desires — to others and adapt to life’s changing situations.
Self-awareness, therefore, helps you in knowing yourself inside out. It builds your confidence and allows you to act and communicate with others effectively.
“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
— C.G. Jung
3. Track your emotions
Keeping an account of your mood and emotions in the form of a journal will give you an insight into how your feelings and thoughts change in a day. This will also provide you with an overview of what annoys you and makes you happy.
When you know yourself, you can understand your authentic self better and recognize how you perceive and interpret things, where your thoughts and beliefs originate from, and where they are directing you.
With proper knowledge about yourself, you can figure if you yourself are coming in the way of achieving success and what changes you need to make in your behavior and actions.
A healthy sense of self-awareness will thus enable you to master control over yourself and help you create the life you want to live.
“It is when you lose sight of yourself that you lose your way. To keep your truth in sight, you must keep yourself insight, and the world to you should be a mirror to reflect your image; the world should be a mirror that you reflect upon.”
— C. JoyBell
4. Document your self-talk
Your inner narrative — how you converse with yourself — is your private dialogue that runs in the background of your mind. Many times you are unaware of how you talk with yourself.
It’s essential to be aware of your inner conversation since self-talk plays a significant role in your life.
If it is predominantly negative and if you regularly criticize yourself and beat yourself up for minor mistakes, the critical inner voice will have a negative effect on your self-confidence.
On the other hand, if you’re understanding and supportive and your inner conversation is primarily positive, it’ll empower you to take bold steps and go for calculated risks. You’ll be able to pursue your goals with energy and enthusiasm without the fear of making mistakes.
Once you realize you’re too harsh with yourself, you can work to improve the self-talk and turn it from negative to positive.
“As you become more clear about who you are, you’ll be better able to decide what is best for you the first time around.”
— Oprah Winfrey
5. Know your priorities
One good way of being self-aware is to be clear about your life priorities and know where you are headed.
Your priorities — things that are important to you — guide your choices and help you make the right decisions. So knowing what matters to you and what takes precedence over other things will let you know if you’re living your life in alignment with what you think is your priority.
When you have your priorities in the front and center of your mind, you can draw your boundaries, say no to things that distract you from your path, and leave for later what isn’t urgent at the moment. Knowing your priorities, therefore, gives you a lot of clarity and makes you self-aware.
6. Ask for feedback
Many times when you’re not sure about your behavior and what impact it has on others, you can solicit honest feedback from those whom you trust and who can freely share their opinion and experience with you.
Knowing how you come across to other people and how much is the gap between what you are and how others perceive you can help you build yourself up on the image that you consider to be your truer version.
Self-awareness will also enable you to know why you feel others cannot understand you or interpret your behavior differently than what it is intended to be.
In Conclusion
Most people believe they know themselves well, but when you become mindful and try to figure yourself out, you realize there’s so much more to you than you assumed.
Understanding yourself puts you in an empowered position as you can align your inner world with the outer world.
Self-awareness makes you feel more in control of yourself and therefore gives a boost to your confidence.
“Self-awareness gives you the capacity to learn from your mistakes and successes. It enables you to keep growing.”
— Lawrence Bossidy
Dr. Roopleen is the author of ‘And So Can You’ and From Average to Awesome
