I’ve had this idea for a blog post in my head since I started it. It’s a piece about self-awareness. Self-awareness, for me, has been a vital component for my improvement journey. Self-awareness was always kind of a thing I heard about and would say to sound mature in interviews and such, but I never really truly knew what it meant until this one person came into my life. After that moment when they dropped it in conversation I became more self-aware. I looked around me during major events, before and after, and with my naturally analytic mind, I developed an image of who I really am. What makes me tic, what makes me angry, what I want out of life, why I act the way I do etc.
Self-awareness has become the biggest, most often used tool in my shed. It’s so powerful, (insert power tool analogy here). Because when you know more about yourself, you then are able to communicate better with others, and begin to address more of your needs.
Self-awareness is about knowing yourself to the deepest depths. Knowing what you like, dislike, what your emotions are, how you handle certain situations, your values, and your goals. And then taking that knowledge and living day to day with it at the front of your mind. So when you’re in the moment having a heated debate about someone – you recognize your perspectives, you recognize your limits and signs of certain emotions you may be going through that are unique to you! In the moment you are aware of when you want to end the conversation and how you want to handle the end – do you gracefully say I would like to end this conversation or are you the type to walk away. Self-awareness is about knowing all of these things about yourself and keeping it as a skin to the world.
The downfall to self-awareness, is once you have it and really understand it, see all that it can do for you, you begin to become annoyed, irritated and flustered that very little of other people have it. Which then can break down all the communication you’re working towards, the goals etc. this is where I am now. I struggle with having this tool and no one else understands the usefulness of it. It’s like self-awareness needs a $2 million super bowl commercial to up its desirability.
Stay tuned for a list of questions to ask yourself about yourself to begin building and strengthening your self-awareness senses.