Develop An Understanding Of Yourself By Becoming Self-Aware.
Self-awareness is the capacity to centre in on yourself and to read whether your emotions, actions, and thoughts follow your standards or not. Being deeply self-aware, you’re able to justly measure yourself, control your feelings, adjust your actions with your core values, and learn accurately how other people view you.
By taking a self-awareness test, you will be able to see how you will mark up when being self-aware. The test is quick, free and online.
The test is built on fourteen multiple-choice questions, which will then present a score of the level, of self-awareness you currently are and also show which areas you may consider improving on.
The outcome may differ to how you see or view yourself, inspiring you to make some changes to your strengths or weaknesses according to how you evaluate yourself.
There are different ways to mark your self-awareness, one could be to introduce a feedback review to your own personal life whenever you come up to making an important decision.
For example, writing down the reasons why you are considering changing your area of work, including your thoughts and motives during the process, and what you expect as the end result.
Then a month or two down the line stop by and review your records to see what’s worked, and if you have stayed aligned to your plan, what did you misjudge and what did you stay true to?
By doing this you give yourself a wider perception of how and why you make your choices, also enhancing your awareness while acting upon what drives you.
Another way could be, to write down all that you believe to be your strengths, and all what you believe to be your weaknesses.
When done, ask someone you trust to be honest in the feedback you ask of them. Check to see if anything is missing from your list, strengths or weaknesses or do people see you differently to how you see yourself?
As time goes by there will be many different ways to slowly grow a more profound knowledge of yourself, what it is you desire and being able to see what helps and what conflicts with how you act and feel.
How to become more self-aware.
Once you have an understanding of how self-aware you are, the question that naturally comes next is, how can I grow and develop this awareness?
Ask The Question “What?” Instead Of “Why?”
People often evaluate their present situation, their environment and emotions by asking the question why, for example, “Why me?” and “Why am I so sad? “Why is my job so hard” and the like.
By asking “Why?” means we are being ineffective, studies show that we do not have a great deal of access to our unconscious thoughts, feelings and motivations. The chances are, we are wrong about why we do certain things, think a certain way and act the way we do.
For example, we may get a tough to take feedback from maybe a friend, or family member and think unjustly, this is because we may not be up to the task or not realising our vulnerabilities. It can be very difficult for us to fairly measure our weaknesses and strengths and get a true reading.
Also, we do not regularly take into account physiological factors when we are trying to observe thoughts and feelings.
An example of this could be that, you suddenly felt enraged because someone cut across lanes without signalling, your response to this could very well mean you are acting on the lack of sleep and low blood sugar, not because the other driver, cut across lanes.
Research has also seen, that thoughtful people will measure their self-awareness by thinking on negative thoughts, produced by the question “Why” which more than likely leaves you feeling unproductive, discouraged and troubled.
Instead of asking the question “Why?” deeply self-aware people ask “What?” this question encourages productivity, concentrates on intentions and future dreams, rather than past failures.
For example, say you are having a bad day at your job. Asking “Why do I feel terrible?” will only make you feel more of the same, feeling down, leaving you to dwell on those negative energies.
So by asking, “What situations at work are making me feel terrible?” is the question you should be asking, this will help you understand the circumstances outside of your power, and see the things that don’t follow with your feelings and intentions and helps you along to plan and to fix the things that don’t align.
Spend Time With Yourself.
Many people, including myself, have difficulty trying to observe themselves, we are constantly distracted by our phones pinging, everyday life and society busier than ever it’s hard. By allowing to give yourself half an hour of quietness will help re-connect with yourself. Use this time to read, meditate, journaling and practice other exercises that will help you to become aware of yourself
Practice Mindfulness
Being mindful enables you to enter the now and observe yourself, feelings and thoughts in a way that is non-judgemental way.
Mindfulness requires us to centre in on ourselves purposely. Make a mental reminder to yourself next time you feel angry, irritable or even upset, observe your thoughts and feelings and acknowledge them. By being in the present moment you are helping to become more self-aware and more likely to see your true feelings and thoughts.
Here are some useful Mindfulness apps for getting started.
Become a Better Listener, and Ask for Feedback.
Learning how to listen, to the people around you, colleagues, your boss, family and friends without assessing them or being judgemental will help you become more understanding of people. I must say there is a difference between hearing and listening, hearing is to reply listening is to understand.
So allowing yourself to listen, to the most significant people around you, will give you a genuine view of how people see you.
You can change these listening skills to yourself, use it to become more understanding of your feelings and thoughts.
Having the discipline of being able to listen to yourself and the important people around you is vitally important to becoming self-aware. Ask for feedback of the people you spend a lot of time with, it’s highly unlikely to get an accurate measure of self-awareness if you only go to you for feedback. Obtaining a wider perspective on who you are as a person will push you to view you as a more complete part of the puzzle.
Originally published at https://acoursewithin.com on June 16, 2020.
