Today we are discussing the topic of self-awareness and how important it is for living a powerful life and growing as a human being. Self-awareness can sometimes be viewed as self-concept but it goes deeper than that. Self-awareness is being aware of yourself and your “machinery”. Your machinery could be your ways of being, how you act and what your triggers are. Having self-awareness can give you some freedom from your past and experiences that have made you the way you are today. Self-awareness can be viewed as the 1st and most important step towards evolving as a human being.
An example of self awareness is, You’re on a third date and you think you like this person, but you want to know them better in order to trust them and figure out what about them will benefit your needs and what they lack that you can give them in order to create a better relationship with them. You ask them questions and, like a scientist, inquire and gather data that helps you to build a well-rounded picture of who they really are.
In the same way, a person needs to get to know themselves by gathering data to figure out what makes them tick, what they find joy in, what emotions drive their actions, how others perceive them, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. After they figure this out, they can use their strengths to their advantage to get what they know they want, avoid what they don’t want, and realize where they can improve to become better people.
The first step to any recovery is self-awareness. Whether that’s acknowledging an addiction, disorder, psychological issues or major personality flaw, the only way to begin a happier, healthier, and more rewarding life for yourself is to see yourself and your faults clearly and see your capacity to change (or unwillingness to change). Self-awareness is the only way that the path to recovery is possible. You must see how you have changed because of your issues, in other words acknowledging you have a problem, in order to correct them and fix your life.
A self-aware person will have better relationships and better understand and dissect their interactions to create more positive experiences than negative with others. They will know how the other person perceives them and be confident enough to tell them exactly what they have to offer and be more able to articulate what they need from the other person.
In their careers, they have more confidence because they know what they are capable of and what they excel in so that they can take leadership roles and positions that allow them to use those talents, which can lead to a happier life. They can also avoid or work on what they need help with so they can improve professionally.
Knowing yourself helps you paint a better, more realistic picture of the best route to take for your future. Are you the type of person that should have kids? Will you be happy as a teacher or accountant or lawyer? Are you capable of committing to a marriage? When you know yourself well, you can create realistic and beneficial goals for yourself and feel even better after accomplishing them.
When crises arise, the self aware person is more able to handle them with dignity and strength. They are left with pieces to build their life up from the shambles and learn from their mistakes instead of sit in their ruin or drown in self-pity.
If we lack self-awareness, we risk being pulled around by anything, from our own emotions to addictions to other people, like a puppet. If we don’t recognize changes in ourselves, we will continue to be controlled by them and we can become a victim in our lives.
I have worked with addicts and one of the main things that stop them from getting sober is a lack of self-awareness. It may be what triggers them to drink or use or even how bad their problem has become. The 1st step in AA is to notice you have a problem and admit it. If you don’t have the insight to admit you have a problem then nothing will change.
Self-awareness is powerful and can be used as a tool to build the life you want. If you know who you are, then you can decide to like that person and grow in self love or change that person in order to find self love. Just like a love that forms from spending long hours and hard work on a project, when you yourself are that project, you will grow to love and be proud of yourself just the same. Like building a muscle, you can work on your habits and issues that you have come to see as roadblocks in your life, and build stronger habits to overcome them. As you can imagine, the first thing you need to have a successful career, relationships and life is self-love. So, ultimately, knowing yourself leads to loving yourself and loving your life in the long run.