How Much Does Self-Awareness Really Matter?
With everything that’s been going on in the world today and the rapid pace of our lives have pushed us to be robotic, monotonous creatures, self-awareness is really a huge concept to discuss.
Self-awareness is a topic that has really elicited a lot of controversial ideas, questions, comments, and insights from the masses.
And this particular behavior pillar is quite important to apply in our daily lives or in every given situation. Self-awareness forces us to take a look at ourselves in the mirror and confront the deepest issues within us.
Self-awareness is defined as having a clear perception of your personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions.
Understanding self-awareness and living it out is crucial for a person to be well-balanced and completely actualized. It is highly important to develop self-awareness because it’s the initial phase in creating what you want and grasping or taking control of your life.
Where you go or what level you get to in life is greatly determined by
where you focus your attention, behavior, emotions, and personality. Being self-aware allows you to see where your thoughts and emotions are taking you, so it enables you to control them.
You will have difficulty making changes in the direction of your life unless or until you are aware in the moment of your thoughts, emotions, words, and behavior.
We rarely evaluate or assess ourselves because we are often fixated on what and who’s around us. But a moment of self-assessment and self-clarification is really beneficial for a person. That is why we have to make a conscious effort to be self-aware because it doesn’t come naturally for most of us.
Becoming self-aware is the key to a person’s professional success. As you go up the corporate ladder or expand your business, a higher EQ is favored and more sought after than a high IQ. And developing your self-awareness is the first step towards also developing your EQ.
Self-awareness is developed through practices in focusing your attention on the details of your personality and behavior. It isn’t learned from reading a book. When you read a book you are focusing your attention on the conceptual ideas in the book.
You can develop an intellectual understanding of the ideas of self-awareness from a book, but this is not the same. Here are the first two of the four steps to gaining self-awareness that you can apply practically:
#1 — Accept the story of your life and write down your key plans and priorities.
An old adage — if you don’t know where you came from, it’s difficult to know where you’re headed. It’s important to know and understand your narrative identity or the story of your life. Research shows that writing about difficult life experiences improves our physical and mental health.
How much you confront your life’s challenges define your level of self-awareness. Once you are fully aware and accepting of your past, one of the best ways to increase self-awareness is to write down what you want to do and track your progress. This is now planning for your future and seeing what improvements have already occurred.
#2 — Create a daily habit of meditation for self-reflection.
Meditation is really such an important part of success because it’s all about improving your moment-by-moment awareness. Develop a daily practice of setting aside at least twenty minutes to reflect on your life. This practice enables you to focus on the important things in your life, not just the immediate. Reflection takes many forms.
Most forms of meditation begin with focusing on and appreciating the simplicity of, inhaling and exhaling. Some keep a journal, some pray, and others take a long walk or jog. But these don’t need to be formal or ritualistic — greater clarity can also come from regular moments of pause and reflection.
Be sure to check out Part 2 of this two-part series and get a full appreciation of why self-awareness truly matters, most especially at this day and age.
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