Self Awareness
Self Awareness is the ability to learn to fully understand why you do the things you do and why you behave (act and react) the way you do.
It is about being able to focus on yourself and how your actions, thoughts, or emotions align with your internal standards.
It is a fundamental tool for self-control.
Once you can begin to understand yourself better you can change things that you want to which gives you the freedom to flourish.
Internal self awareness is how clearly you see your value, passions, and aspirations and how well your standards fit with your environment and your reactions.
External self awareness is the ability to clearly see how other people view you.
Self Awareness is a skill. Like any new skill, when you first begin, you can feel discomfort or fear which is perfectly normal.
By becoming more conscious of what is driving your behaviour you can better understand your thoughts, emotions, and feelings, and reconnect with your body and mind.
By doing this you will be able to understand how you cope with and manage stress and anxiety.
With Self awareness, you can grow, develop, and live a more peaceful, purposeful, and enriched life.
It is important as it gives a better understanding of who you are and empowers you to make changes and improvements whilst building on your areas of strength.
Without it, you can be stuck in an ever-evolving circle of self-doubt, low confidence, and limited purpose in life.
Ask yourself:
- What behaviours do I believe are limiting me from moving forward?
- Do I have self-respect and know my true value and worth?
- What are my strengths and weaknesses and how do I use them to my advantage?
- Do I listen to my self-talk too much?
There are many ways to increase your self awareness including:
- Spending quality time with yourself
- Practicing mindfulness
- Building on your listening skills and ask for feedback
- Tuning into your feelings to give you information about your surroundings.
Benefits of Self-Awareness:
- Get to know more about yourself
- Helps to develop good self-esteem and confidence
- Gives insight into how other people see you and their reactions to you
- You will get to know your strengths and weaknesses
- Increase your critical thinking skills
- Listening skills will improve
- Able to self-regulate more successfully
- Be more empathetic
- Proactively manage your thoughts, emotions, feelings, and actions
- Deal with external factors that you aren’t in control of
- Learn about your emotional triggers and how to handle them
- Understand better the emotions of those around you
Self awareness gives you a renewed view on your life.
