Achieving success in life is primarily psychological. Even when we talk about physical activities like elite sport competitions, our minds play a big part. The key to success is our mental ability and the strength of our character.
Developing self-awareness helps us understand who we are. And with this insight, we can fine-tune our actions for personal development.
In this post we’ll discuss self-awareness, its benefits and how to practice it.
What Is Self-Awareness?
Self-awareness is how we experience our own personality and individuality. It’s conscious knowledge of our own character, feelings, motives and desires.
Rather than keep our minds on autopilot, we become aware of the questions we ask ourselves in our internal monologues.
We develop most of our automatic thought processes in childhood. Practices like meditation, self-reflection and journaling help us get to the root of how we think and feel. These mindfulness techniques are great practices to develop self-awareness.
Looking inward helps us understand who we are and identify our personal beliefs, values, and feelings. We can then use these insights to make behavioural changes in daily life.
Developing self-awareness is oftentimes a painful process. But the beauty is that it allows us to understand ourselves better. We reach a new level of enlightenment when we accept ourselves completely, including our flaws, without judgment.
Simply being aware of who we are has its own range of benefits.
Emotions & Self-Awareness
Emotional self-awareness is an understanding of how our emotions affect our performance. It’s a key aspect of emotional intelligence that helps us understand how we work best with others.
We make better decisions when we know who we are and what we like about ourselves.
Personal Development & Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is key to our holistic development, because it forces us to take responsibility for our actions. By focusing on who we are and what we want, it becomes easier to figure out what we need to do to get there.
Take a step toward your personal development right now and ask yourself:
What small step can I take today to grow and create a better life for myself?
Why is Self-Awareness Important?
Self-awareness is important for many reasons. Firstly, it’s a chance to reflect on how we’re reflecting. It also helps us understand who we are, how others see us and how we fit into the world.
Self-aware people are more fulfilled and have stronger relationships. They’re more creative, more confident and less likely to cheat and steal. They also perform better at work and are more promotable.
Seeing ourselves as unique individuals with our own goals and preferences guides us towards our ideal lives. This clear sense of who we are builds confidence.
The key here is that self-awareness forces us to understand how thoughts and emotions drive our behaviour. Positive thoughts create positive emotions and behaviours, while negative thoughts create negative emotions and behaviours.
Ultimately, self-awareness helps us become mindful and live a more positive life.
Self-Awareness & Leadership
Successful leadership relies on self-awareness to have an accurate appraisal of our personality and how we work with others.
Experience and power tend to hinder self-awareness, because they make us over-confident in our abilities. For example, an experienced senior manager will usually assess their leadership effectiveness more inaccurately than a less-experienced junior manager.
Self-awareness helps us understand what motivates us. It even allows us to identify our strengths and weaknesses.
With self-awareness, we’re in a better position to adapt our leadership style as needed.
How to Improve Self-Awareness
We don’t tend to think about the way we think. And that’s where self-awareness can add value to our lives. Our internal monologue often takes over our minds, and we enter autopilot mode.
Actively talking to ourselves is a useful tool for building self-awareness. Because our internal voice tells us what we believe, we are what we think.
In stressful situations, with failure looming, we’re more likely to think negatively. We need to be able to challenge this inner critical voice and turn self-delusion into self-awareness
What makes you self-critical and what makes you believe in yourself?
Self-awareness can help us develop mental toughness and gain confidence over time. It allows us to adjust our behaviour to something more productive.
How Not to Practice Self-Awareness
Before we discuss how to become more self-aware, it’s worth noting how many people believe they’re becoming more self-aware.
Introspection does not necessarily result in self-awareness. Thinking about ourselves doesn’t correlate with knowing ourselves. That’s why 95% of people believe they’re self-aware. But only 10-15% are.
The root of self-awareness comes down to asking ourselves Why vs What questions. Why questions pulls us away from the truth. People who are truly self-aware ask significantly fewer Why questions and more What questions.
What can I do to show my boss I’m the best person for this new job? What’s most important to me? What situations make me feel terrible and what do they have in common?
Why questions trap us in the rear-view mirror. What questions, on the other hand, move us toward the future. This method relates to the Stoic To Do list. We should focus on what we can control and accept anything outside our control.
How to Practice Self-Awareness?
We need practice to build self-awareness over time. We can do so by reflecting on our thoughts, emotions & behaviour.
Ask yourself the following questions.
- What drives you and what thought processes affect your behaviour?
- How do you react in stressful situations?
- Why do you typically succeed or fail when pursuing your goals?
These types of questions give us a deeper understanding of ourselves.
There are a few ways self-awareness can improve our mental well-being. Here’s a list of ways to use self-awareness.
- Pay attention to how often we belittle ourselves
- Notice how often we praise ourselves and point out our achievements?
- Change how we feel about ourselves and our behaviour to get what we want in life.
- Take a long hard look at ourselves without judgment and start making changes that will have an impact.
This last point helps us improve our lives by building better habits.
How to Measure Self-awareness
Once you’ve started practicing self-awareness, you can measure your self-awareness over time with a few indicators.
Here are five pillars to keep in mind when assessing our self-awareness.
- Wisdom. People with self-awareness focus on knowing themselves. Being aware of their strengths and weaknesses helps them adjust to whatever life serves them.
- Honesty. They know their truth, set clear boundaries and make these clear to others.
- Humility. Self-aware people talk about themselves accurately without overestimating themselves. They are humble and do not only think about themselves.
- Confidence. Confident people embrace their intuition to make decisions. They want to know the truth and don’t need it sugar-coated.
- Discipline. Practicing self-discipline gives us the focus we need to be truly self-aware. Similarly to mindfulness, we should try to be aware at each moment to reap the benefits.
Self-Awareness in a Nutshell
Self-awareness involves knowing our character, feelings, motives and desires. While it can be painful, the process is incredibly useful.
Self-awareness helps us understand who we are, how others see us and how we fit into the world. Its benefits range from improved leadership and emotional intelligence to personal development and success.
Take control of your life with self-awareness and Mind & Practice today.