Self-Awareness Is A Skill You Should Start Working on Today
The true power of being self-aware
Here is the cold, hard truth. You are the only person that you are guaranteed to live with from the beginning of your life, until the end
So, would it not be in your best interest to get to know yourself as much as possible?
Few people actually know themselves. That’s because few people can spend more than 5 minutes alone, and when they do, they are doing the wrong things.
Instead of spending time with their thoughts, they seek distractions and quick dopamine hits by jumping on their cell phones, playing video games, or watching Netflix.
Does this sound familiar to you?
It’s okay if you fall into this bucket, but unfortunately, you are likely missing out on the greatest skill of all - self-awareness.
A quick story
I used to think I knew myself, but really, my mind was clouded with alcohol and surface-level thoughts.
This negatively affected my relationships, business, personal life, and physical and mental health.
January 1st, 2020, I set the goal of becoming more spiritual. This started with daily meditation. From there, I became much more self-aware.
This increased self-awareness not only positively affected my relationships, but it led to me wanting to improve myself on several levels.
I quit drinking alcohol, started reading daily, learning new skills, working out more effectively, and as a result, I am happier than I have ever been.
What I’m getting at is that I am extremely happy today, because I worked on myself. And I worked on myself because I became more self-aware.
“Okay, but what exactly is self-awareness ?”
Self-awareness is the conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires.
Okay, that’s the definition, but what does that even mean?
When you are self-aware you are completely “in the know” about what is going on in your mind. You know that when you think of “x” that usually leads to you thinking of “y”.
That means you not only know what’s going on in your mind, but you also know what will go on in your mind based on your current thoughts, feelings and actions.
Now, I know that sounds like I’m saying you can predict the future when you are self-aware, and in a way, you can.
When you are self-aware, you know yourself so well that you know how you will react in the future to most situations.
Think of how powerful that could be.
Let’s go over how self-awareness can help you.
It doesn’t matter what area of life you want to focus on, self-awareness will help you.
Let’s focus on business, romantic relationships, and personal life because, for the majority of people, these are the areas that matter most.
Business
To be completely self-aware means that you will be able to navigate your mind easily. That can have great benefits in business or as an entrepreneur.
When you are self-aware you not only know what your true strengths and weaknesses are, but what you actually enjoy doing. That can have a lot of power when it comes to planning, goal setting, delegation, time management and all other aspects of business.
The best leaders are extremely self-aware.
Romantic relationships
Someone who is self-aware knows what they want, where they went wrong in the past, and what they can do differently in future relationships.
This means that you will be far more pleasant to be around, and much more purpose-driven. You won’t put up with people who waste your time or drain your energy, and you will know exactly which people bring you up.
Self-awareness will result in you being far more effective in your romantic relationships.
Many say that confidence is one of the most attractive features of a romantic partner. When you are self-aware, you will be confident. That’s because you naturally become much more comfortable with yourself.
One of the best parts is you will no longer rely on someone else for your happiness.
You will be so comfortable with yourself that you won’t seek approval from others and often prefer time alone.
This is a weakness of many people in romantic relationships.
They end up hopping from relationship to relationship because they do not want to be alone.
Self-awareness will result in much more meaningful, lasting relationships and less time wasted.
Personal Life
Being self-aware leads to you being so content and comfortable with yourself that you can spend hours or days alone. In fact, there is a good chance that you will often crave to spend time alone because you start to crave this time by yourself.
You will be able to tell what you need, and when you need it. This means again, less time wasted, more productivity, and overall, more happiness.
Self-awareness will allow you to operate with a clear head.
All of this means that you can make better decisions. In fact, self-awareness might be the greatest tool to increase your decision-making ability.
Better decisions = better life.
Your life is a compilation of decisions. Each percent that you can increase your decision-making ability, means you are also making your life better, and in turn, increasing your happiness.
So how can we improve our self-awareness?
It’s all about reflection. The more you reflect on yourself, dive into your mind, and figure out what upsets you or makes you happy… the more self-aware you will become.
There are numerous ways to work on your self-awareness, but today, I want to talk about 3 of them.
Journaling
Therapy
Before continuing, do yourself a favour a release your mind from any stigmas previously attached to any of these methods. Pre-conceived feelings on what practicing any of these means will act as a barrier preventing you from increasing your self-awareness.
Meditation is not religious.
Therapy doesn’t mean you’re crazy.
Journaling is not only for pre-teen girls.
Meditation
I recently wrote a whole blog post on why you should meditate. While I recommend you read that as well, I will still go over a quick explanation as to why it helps your self-awareness.
During meditation, you are spending time with only your thoughts, and your mind.
The more you meditate, the longer you will be able to meditate, and the deeper you will be able to dive into your mind.
Eventually, you will dive so deep, that you will be able to quiet your mind, and “think of nothing”.
However, on the journey there, you will be spending a lot of time with yourself.
Now, that may seem bad to a lot of people, but one of the best ways to get better at meditation is just to let your mind wander. Analyze everything that is going on inside of your head. Have conversations with yourself, answer your questions, and learn about yourself.
That time alone in your head is when you will improve your self-awareness the most.
That time will be hard at first but will be very advantageous to you in the long run.
Journaling
You would be surprised how often journaling will show things about yourself that you didn’t know until you put it on paper.
It creates many “ah-ha” moments.
When you journal, just write freely. You don’t need to put any barriers on what you should write, or how long you should write for. Just do what is comfortable.
Get an empty notebook, grab a pen or pencil, and just let your mind speak.
As you write, you will start to realize that a lot of the questions, or confusions in your head start to make more sense.
Journaling is an incredible form of self-reflection that is practiced by many great people, especially stoics. Not only does it have self-awareness benefits, but it’s also a great way to practice gratitude.
I highly recommend making a habit of this. It will be one of the greatest habits you build.
Therapy
Sometimes you just need another opinion, to contrast your own.
To be clear, when I say therapy, I don’t mean talking to your friend.
Your friend is biased. They will typically tell you what they think based on what they think of you.
Also, they’re not a professional, they may think they know you, but chances are, they don’t know you all that well.
Go see a professional therapist. They will help you learn about yourself in ways that journaling and meditation may not be able to.
When I was going through hard times during the covid lockdowns, I started talking to a clinic psychologist. He was incredibly helpful.
I only talked to him a few times, but those few times not only helped me learn more about myself but also helped reinforce (and break down) some of the things I was unsure about.
My clinical psychologist was also able to help me establish a different mindset that has brought me more happiness ever since.
I couldn’t recommend going to see a professional therapist, or psychologist more.
Closing Remarks
It doesn’t matter what your goals in life are… by improving your self-awareness, you have a better chance of achieving them.
Even more importantly, by increasing your self-awareness, you will get to know yourself better, increasing your overall happiness.
And at the end of the day, happiness is what we all want.
That’s why self-awareness is the greatest skill anyone can have.
Thanks for reading
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