Self- awareness

What is self-awareness?
❑ Self-awareness is one’s ability to identify
and understand one’s feelings, thoughts,
and behaviours.
❑ As a result, an individual can monitor
oneself better and create a more
purposeful life.
❑ is the ability to focus on yourself and how
your actions, thoughts, or emotions do or
don't align with your internal standards. If
you're highly self-aware, you can
objectively evaluate yourself, manage your
emotions, align your behaviour with your
values, and understand correctly how
others perceive you.
 Most of Us Lack Self-Awareness
•Our human nature makes it incredibly
challenging to be self-aware. We’re dealing
with outdated brain functions and survival
instincts that are rooted in ancient times. As
a result, we often become caught up in
defensive emotions and biases that prevent
us from being self-aware.
• The best part is that these defenses make
us think we’re self-aware when in reality,
only about 10-15% of people are truly
self-aware.
6 Signs that You Lack
Self-Awareness
1. Your emotional reaction
doesn’t match the situation
2. You get defensive when
receiving feedback
3. You repeat negative emotional
patterns
4. The things you do to “make yourself feel
better” don’t actually make you feel better
5. You haven’t found a way to be
consistently successful
6. You regularly regret decisions
in your everyday life
 Why is self-awareness
important?

• There are many benefits of self-awareness

that you will experience both in your
everyday life and overall.
HOW TO BOOST YOUR
SELF-AWARENESS
 Listen to your inner voice
We all have an inner voice that chats away
in the background most of the time – just try
to empty your mind and think of nothing, and
you’ll soon realise how active that inner
voice is. Try to take more notice of what your
inner voice is saying, because it could tell
you something about yourself that you may
not have realised previously.
Take a couple of minutes every day to sit
quietly and observe your thoughts. Try
writing them down and then assess them
once a week.
 Keep a journal
As well as writing down your inner thoughts,
it’s a good idea to keep a daily journal in
which you record your experiences and
feelings. These things can help you
understand more about yourself, especially
if you review what you’ve written at a later
date.
 Put your personality to the test
Many psychologists believe that knowing
and understanding your personality can
boost your self-awareness significantly. So,
even if you think you know your personality
pretty well, try taking a personality test – it
may well surprise you.
 Ask for feedback
• How friends, colleagues and family
members see you may not be the way you
see yourself. So ask them to tell you about
their perceptions of you.
Ask lots of basic questions about your
personality and attitude, do they think you’re
a happy person, for example, or how well do
they think you interact with other people?
Ask them to be honest. But take care:
asking for feedback could mean you may
hear something you won’t like.
 Try something new
If, like many people, you tend to do the
same things in your daily life, trying new
experiences may help you to discover new
things about yourself. That’s because your
reaction to new people and environments
can reveal hidden strengths or weaknesses
that you may not otherwise have come
across.
So, instead of going on the same type of
holiday this year, go somewhere completely
different. Try a restaurant you’ve never been
to before. Or learn something new and
take-up a new hobby. It can all help you to
become more self-aware.