The Power of Self-awareness
Self-awareness is a skill that has greatly impacted my personal growth. According to the Inner Development Goals (IDG) framework, self-awareness is defined as the ability to reflect on one's thoughts, feelings, and desires while maintaining a realistic self-image. This has allowed me to understand my strengths and weaknesses and, more importantly, recognize my emotional triggers.
For me, becoming more self-aware was not an overnight transformation. It took intentional effort and regular reflection. I started by journaling daily and paying close attention to my reactions in certain situations. By doing this, I was able to identify patterns in my behavior—especially moments when I became defensive or anxious. Over time, this helped me regulate my emotions more effectively, helping create a sense of calm and better decision-making. I found that the more self-aware I became, the better I was at aligning my actions with my values.
One thing I learned along the way is that self-awareness isn't about being critical of yourself but about accepting yourself for who you are. It opens the door to self-acceptance, which lays a solid foundation for personal growth.
Discussion Prompt:
- How has self-awareness influenced your relationships and decision-making? Do you have any specific practices that help you develop this skill?
- How can we cultivate self-awareness without becoming overly critical of ourselves?
@ChillingRain
- How has self-awareness influenced your relationships and decision-making? Do you have any specific practices that help you develop this skill?
Self=awareness has always been one of those things that I knew was important, because I know, looking back at past situations and interactions, I've been so heavily emotionally driven; but so very difficult because it's different in the moment!
It took a long time to work on the habit of reflecting on myself and my internal feelings in the moment, but it definitely ended up proving its worth as a skill.
I've always been a lover-girl. My rose tinted glasses were more like contacts (lol). I'd ignore the red flags and my personal feelings because I wouldn't take the time to feel aware of my own internal opinions! However, as I developed self-awareness skills, I started to become more logical and self-assured in those relationships. I'm able to make decisions I feel confident about because I took the time to reflect on my true emotions.
@ChillingRain
Self-awareness is critical for gaining emotional maturity as well. It’s also important for living an authentic life. Most people, if asked randomly, would say that they are self-aware, but when you really do a deep dive and do some work towards improving your individual awareness, you realize you (more than likely) are not as self-aware as you thought you were. I know this on a personal level after I was asked if I thought I was self-aware. After that, I went on a personal journey in the hopes of learning to live more authentically and self-aware. There is actually years and years of research done on this concept that shows how important it is, however, there was not much information on how to go about improving your self-awareness; that is until about a decade ago. The research all suggests that when we are more self-aware, we are more confident, more creative, make better decisions, communicate better, more productive, and we have healthier relationships. There are a lot of obstacles that can come up (or be brought back up) in this effort to attain or improve self-awareness and also a lot of confusion that can occur. These obstacles include our experiences and how we view them and grow from them, how much introspection we participate in and how effective this is for each of us, and overconfidence or our ability to question our own assumptions and beliefs. A lot of the confusion also comes from the definition of self-awareness with some researchers claiming it is a state of consciousness that is temporary, while others defined it as the difference between how we see ourselves and how others see us. The IDG framework defines it as “the capacity to engage in thoughtful introspection and maintain a deep connection with one's own thoughts, emotions, and innermost desires”. The IDG also explains that “it involves possessing an accurate and genuine understanding of oneself, along with the ability to manage and govern one's own behavior”.
I loved how the course had us go and test to see what our character strengths are! I had too much fun with that!! If going on a self-awareness journey, it is important to understand that there are essentially two kinds of self-awareness, internal and external and they are both important and must be actively worked on. In addition to the character strengths that the course had you look into, you can also find out what type of self-awareness you have, thus helping you to see what you need to work on. People can be broken down into four different archetypes in relation to self-awareness: introspectors, seekers, aware, and pleasers. For more on this there is some phenomonal research done by Dr. Tasha Eurich!
@ChillingRain
How has self-awareness influenced your relationships and decision-making? Do you have any specific practices that help you develop this skill?
Self-awareness has helped me to reflect on my thoughts, feelings and behaviours in certain situations. I discovered that I needed to take conscious control of my life and establish boundaries with others, as well as myself. It also enabled me to recognize the areas of my life which needed improvement. This was possible for me through practicing meditation and mindfulness, journaling, reading self-help books, and consuming media that was focused on self-development.
How can we cultivate self-awareness without becoming overly critical of ourselves?
This is such an important reflective question because initially, I used to criticize myself so much. It can be challenging not to when you realize how you could have approached a situation differently or made a different decision. I started having regrets over those things until I began looking at experiences through the lens of self-compassion. As human beings, we are naturally flaws in distinct ways and are prone to making mistakes. So it's okay if we do because what matters most is how we show up afterwards, for both ourselves and others. Plus, it's essential to forgive ourselves for not knowing then, what we eventually come to know or become aware of later on.