The pursuit of (self) awareness
Self-awareness is Conscious knowledge of one’s own character and feelings.
It’s 2018. Most people are working hard on their new year resolutions. I have a couple of goals set for 2018. But there’s a LIFE-LONG goal I’ve set this year. To become more self-aware. I want to get comfortable with myself. Real comfortable. I want to know myself like the back of my hand..
I want to be in-tune with my emotions and listen to my inner voice more – that inner voice that knows what’s good for me. I want to follow my heart a lot more this year. I want to challenge myself. I want to grow. But most importantly, I want to find myself. I want to stop hiding from myself, and all the things that make me uncomfortable and embrace my flaws.
So how well do we really know our self?
Here are 4 tools that I will be using to become more self-aware:
- Tune in to your self-talk – Listen to your internal talk. Is it positive or negative? What thoughts are consuming your mind daily? Thoughts become things and the dominating thoughts in your head will begin to play out as experiences in your life. Does your internal talk align with who you want to be?
- Practice emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence refers to the “capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions and handle interpersonal relationships”. You can practice emotional intelligence by paying attention to your feelings. How do you react to certain situations? Become in tune with your feelings. The more in tune you are to your emotions the better you will be able to understand who you are and why you do the things that you do.
- Consistency- The only way I am going to see massive progress is if I work at it every day. Looking back at my previous attempts towards becoming more self-aware I remember not being consistent. It wasn’t something I was practicing every day. Things like reprogramming my belief systems through affirmations and journaling to understand my thought patterns became something I did when I needed to release stress. The only way this is going to work is if I make a decision to work on it every day. I can already see the benefits, which pushes me to continue.
- Patience- “Rome wasn’t built in a day” – neither is self-awareness. It takes a lot of patience. I will remind myself to take my time. It isn’t a competition. It’s about the relationship with have with our self. Being kind to yourself. Forgiving yourself and others.
- Self-awareness is a life-long journey because life is changing constantly. How do we stay true to who we are? I think the first step for me is to find who that person is and to start loving that person more each day.
