Self-awareness for personal growth

Self-awareness is an important skill that enables us to grow continuously by consistently being reflective of our own thoughts, feelings, and desires.  It involves being aware and thinking about our internal thought processes, recognizing our strength and weaknesses, and identifying situations that trigger certain emotions.  When we are more self-aware, we can manage and regulate our reactions and responses to various situations allowing us to be non-reactive.

I've been told by others that I'm pretty self-aware of my own actions and thoughts, which has served me quite well in a lot of my relationships throughout life.  Even when I was young, whenever I got upset, I often reflected on what events led up to that moment and how my personality impacted the situation and how my actions came off to the other person involved in the situation. 

This allows me to create a deeper understanding of not only what my strengths and weaknesses are but also the events that lead up to my reactions.  By identifying these, I'm able to recognize situations before it occurs and I can approach these situations with an open mind and non-reactiveness. 

For example, one of my weaknesses is quick temper. However, over the years I've learned the signs of anger approaching such as a little flicker in my heart.  Once I notice this now,  I take steps to remove myself from the situation to calm down as anger doesn't help resolve conflicts for me.  With this, I am able to now handle situations that would typically anger me but in a calm fashion.