Self-awareness headlines as the ability to see ourselves clearly, to understand who we are, others’ perception of us, and how we harmonise with the world around us. Of this notion, when we know ourselves and how others see us, we tend to be happier, make smarter decisions, and have better personal and professional relationships. Other benefits of practicing the ideas at the core of how to develop self-awareness are also noteworthy. They show as being more creative and confident, being better communicators, performers at work, and leaders with enthusiastic people.
Internal Self-awareness
Cultivating internal self-awareness means seeing ourselves clearly, to understand our values, aspirations, passions, ideal environment, patterns, reactions, and impacts on others. A high level of internal self-awareness, stimulates us to make choices consistent with who we we are. In consequence, we lead happier and more satisfying lives.
External Self-awareness
Along with, restrengthening external self-awareness is to know how others see us. As we see ourselves from others’ perspectives, we build stronger and more trusting relationships. True self-awareness requires us to understand ourselves and how others see us. It is a continuous process of looking inwards, questioning, and discovering the things abiding within. Awareness offers us a good opportunity to improve.
Hereabouts Features How To Develop Self-awareness
1. Are Our Values And Principles Of Our Own Choosing Or Did We Mindlessly Accept Them From Family And Culture
Developing a core set of principles guiding how we want to live our lives, is a first and crucial step in becoming self-aware. This is so, since values define who we want to be and provide a standard for evaluating our actions. For instance, the notable American statesman, Benjamin Franklin listed his own as temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. Diligently, he assessed himself to each virtue, at the end of each day. Further with, deciding on the principles to guide our lives, may require us listing as many things we enjoy doing as we could think of. Then, arranging and rearranging them to find patterns. Honouring our values helps to ask in ideas of how to develop self-awareness.
2. What Do We Want To Experience In Life Or On The Path To Our Goals
To continue with, orienting ourselves to insight and lasting fulfillment, means first asking the question “what do I really want out of life? before “what do I want to achieve? This helps us to match our aspirations or values to our goals. The first question reveals aspirations that motivate and energise us, over and over, without ending. The process of getting to a fitting goal, provides us with a context to practice our values. Living out our values, on the way to our goals, often energises us more than attaining the goal itself. Understanding what we want to experience or accomplish, helps us to live better lives. What we want to experience may show as freedom to express unbounded curiosity and creativity, joy of giving and supporting, and leaving an inspiring legacy.
3. Are We going Deep Into Our Passions Or What We Love To Do
Understanding our passions stimulates us to make choices and decisions that line up with what we love to do, in our careers and personal life. Oftentimes, they are so insistent that we cannot avoid them. These questions help us into insights about our passions. What kind of day makes you leap out of bed in the morning? Projects and activities you never seem to get sick or tired of, and those you find least enjoyable, what are they? What would you miss most about your work if you retired? What do you like about your hobbies? Pursuing our passions often helps to guarantee our Happiness. Also, it awakens us to other notions of how to develop self-awareness
4. What Environment Gets Us Happy And Engaged
Along with, determining the type of environment we require to be happy and engaged, helps us to get more done with less effort. As a result, we feel like our time was well spent at the end of the day. Knowing what we value, what we are passionate about, and what we want to experience in life, stimulates us to create a picture of our ideal environment. The environment where we fit, enlivens us, not rob us of our energy.
In this line, our ideal environment often stands to simple truths; the fact that we are happier when we are travelling, a need to go for a run during lunch hour, a desire to form deep and lasting relationships with colleagues and clients. Also, identifying the kind of partner who will fulfill you, the kind of company where you will thrive, helps you build up your fitting environment. Our home and work life, and the kind of people we choose to surround ourselves with, form our environment. As we make our our environments fitting to our values and what we love, it energises us in return. Harmoniously fitting up our environments helps to boil down concepts to how to develop self-awareness.
5. Are We Searching Out Our Patterns Or Consistent Ways Of Thinking, Feeling, And Behaving Across Situations
It is constructive to examine our patterns in specific kinds to situations. To recognise our patterns, especially our self-defeating ones, helps us take charge and manage them. Illustrating with, an introvert drained after back-to-back meetings, can take a few minutes of alone time, to recharge at the end of the day. As well, you with a tendency to shoot off angry emails, when you have worked too many hours, can save your late night responses in a draft folder for review next morning.
More, about an inescapable urge to call your ex, after a few glasses of wine, you can give your phone to your friend, before you start boozing. Clear with, as we detect our patterns, and identify it when it is happening, we prime ourselves to make better choices.
6. What Ways Are We Using To Become More Aware Of Our Real-time Reactions
Our reactions feature as the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that reveal our strengths and weaknesses. Putting a construction on, if we finally realise that our reactions to our coworkers, especially under stress, reveals a weakness, our inability to control our emotions, we can work to manage this weakness. To manage it is to better monitor our reactions; paying careful attention, ensuring that we are not cutting others off, becoming abrupt or making our tone short. When we are agitated, we can make it a point to pause, think, and soften our tone.
Moreover, if the stress becomes too intense, we can excuse ourselves, take a breather, and return to the conversation. As we adapt our communication style to others, instead of expecting them to be adapt to ours, we begin to build more rewarding relationships.
Besides, our reactions can also reflect our strengths; what we picked up easily without a lot of training, what we seem to do faster and better than others, work we are most proud of, that makes us feel most productive, an accomplishment that surprised us. We become more productive as we build on our strengths.
7. How Does Our Behaviour Affect Others
Insights from self-awareness reveal what we value, what we are passionate about, what we aspire to, what environment we desire, how we behave, how we respond to the world. Notwithstanding, to complete the picture of self-awareness, to be truly self-aware, we must build on these, to understand our impact, how our behaviours affect others. This is crucial for leaders and everyone. Building trust first, not issuing austere orders, lifts the morale and the productivity of your team.
Perspective-taking
Bordering upon, perspective-taking, the ability to imagine what others are thinking and feeling, helps us to increase our awareness of our impacts on them. As we rise above our own perspectives, and start seeing our problems or conflicts, through the other’s eyes, we become more level-headed and less defensive. In consequence, we bail out of self-delusion into notions of how to develop self-awareness. Also, we start understanding better how our actions impact those around us. Next, we start treating them better.
In the environs of, these questions tune up perspective-taking. What impact are you aiming to have on the people in your personal and work life? Your behaviours in the past week, would you, as a neutral person, see them as having the desired impact? What reactions, facial expressions, body language or tone did you observe from each person or group? Do these match up with your intentions? If not, what changes can you make? What could you experiment with starting tomorrow, to achieve the impact you desire?
Further with, to successfully take account of others’ perspectives, it is constructive to first zoom in on our perspective, to better understand it. From there, we then zoom out to others’ perspectives. Zooming out calms us down to remember that the world does not revolve around us. Again, taking the other’s perspective helps us to understand the impact of our behaviour. This stimulates us to control it.
Conclusion
Being truly self-aware and escaping self-delusion, means understanding ourselves, and also knowing how others perceive us. Following from, how to develop self-awareness, balances this internal and external perspectives, to release a tremendous force for good
Further Reading
Tasha Eurich, “Insight: Why We Are Not As Self-aware As We Think, And How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed In Work And In Life” (Crown Business).
