Self-Awareness and Personal Development

 

The Wikipedia definition of Self- awareness is “conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires” The process is painful, but it leads to greater self- awareness and personal development.  

Self-awareness is the first step to personal development. Without self-awareness you will always feel your way is the right way.  You will always feel what you think is always correct.  Self-awareness helps you to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and be empathetic.  It helps you to make changes in your lifestyle, changes in how you speak, changes in how you walk, changes in how you dress, personal hygiene changes, changes in how you behave, changes in the way you think and perceive things, changes in the way how you feel. It helps you face reality.  It gives a meaning to your life and helps you grow within.  Only when you grow within you will start to grow outward.    It is very easy to point fingers at others and correct them and critic them in an offending way.  But have you ever investigated your own self and observed what changes you need to do?  This will only happen with Self-awareness.  Once you are self- aware then you will work on building your personality and developing yourself, i.e., Personal Development. When you start realizing things about yourself and develop yourself.  You will also notice that people will want to be like you, they will want to follow your ways when they look at you, they look up to you and they want to take your advice.  Let us look at a few Self Awareness examples.

Self- Awareness

Education - there is no harm is being aware that you need to educate yourself in so many things.  It could be, you want to reach a certain level in life and for that you need to go back to a school or institute to educate yourself. You may want to start your own business – learn about it.  Be conscious what exactly you need to do. There maybe things you do not know how to fix, and you need to educate yourself to learn how to fix it, when working in an office you may need to do certain projects that you may want to learn how to go about it and do it smarter and quicker and take advise from someone who has already done it. You may be not knowing how to maneuvers over the smart phones or computer software applications.  It is not a bad idea to be conscious about it and learn the basics from someone who is an expert.

Hygiene – it is always good to know if the clothes you are wearing, or your body are stinking. By bathing yourself with a perfume you cannot cover the odor for a longer time.  Be conscious that your breath is not smelling and drive people away from you.  Very seldom, people will let you know about it, but you need to be aware of it yourself to make the change.  It does not mean you are dirty if your breath smells, it could be a medical condition that needs to be attended to immediately.  Wearing the same pair of socks without washing could end up with a stinking smell to others but you may not realize it unless you are consciously keeping a check. 

Feelings – How do you feel when your friend, sibling or even a competitor is succeeding, do you feel jealous, saddened, or angry or do you genuinely feel happy and proud of them for reaching that success level.  Instead of getting the negative feelings, do you make a conscious effort to make some changes in you to reach that success level or do you coverup by self-pity and making excuses for you not being as successful or for them being successful. Consciously monitor your feelings and be true to yourself and see how you can change and develop yourself.

Speaking – When you speak kind words to others are you genuinely and truthfully being kind or are you wearing a mask of being a nice person in front of others and thinking otherwise of that person.  When you compliment others are you truly being genuine or are you just saying things to please the other person, so you are in good books with them, or you do not want to hurt them.  You can speak in a way that you do not hurt the person but still tell them nicely of what you think. This will be much appreciated by the other person, and they will build their trust in you because it helped them to do some changes and in turn it does not make you feel you are artificial and not true to yourself. And when you are not true to yourself you have a blind spot in self-awareness. You do not have to be rude the way you tell someone the truth.  Yes, even the facts can be spoken in the kindest way. Develop your way in speaking with others.  Give them importance genuinely and use live examples either of yourself or others to help them understand the truth.

Dress – dress appropriately in every situation.  Whether in a party, office, funeral, or park choose a proper attire.  By dressing appropriately, you not only respect others but you respect yourself too. Your self-image is raised when you dress appropriate.  Dressing up appropriately does not mean dressing up rich and showing off i.e., over dressing or under-dressing.  Be consciously aware the way you dress and the way you carry yourself.  Dress smart, simple, decent, and appropriate.     

Impulse buying decisions – most of us have this issue of impulse buying.  But if we are consciously aware of what we really need verses what we want we can work on our impulse buying and refrain from buying things and stocking up in our houses or buying things for our kids that they really do not need.  When we prioritize things to buy what we want rather than what we need, we tend not to value the things that we buy.  The pleasure lasts only for a while and then it dies off, but when we buy the things, we need we tend to value it for a lifetime because we know how useful it is to us. Self-awareness in impulse buying also helps us to save our cash for a better use and we learn how to value our money. 

Our Habits (eating, drinking, sleeping, being lazy) – being self-aware of our habits will help us realize the change we need to make if we need to be at a place where we want to see us.  If you want to see yourself healthy make healthy choices in choosing the right food to eat and understanding its benefits and exercising.  It is said you can change your habits in 21 days – if you do something continuous for 21 days you will do it for life.  If you eat healthy for 21 days you will enjoy eating it for life, and if you eat unhealthy for 21 days you will enjoy eating unhealthy for life.  The repercussion of your choices will be seen soon either way.

Attitude – what kind of attitude we have when we face failure, depression, or success and pride.  Do we take our failure as a steppingstone to success, or do we go backward, blame the whole world for it and not keep trying?  Do we take our success and pride and try to help others and lift them up or do we sit on a pedestal and look down upon others?  How do we take constructive criticism?  Do we keep a grudge against the person? Even if someone does not behave well with us, what is our attitude toward them.  Do we forgive them or retaliate rudely just like how they behaved, or do we keep our calm and talk with them nicely?  Do we put ourselves in their shoes and think why they are behaving that way and give them a chance? When someone is talking negatively about another person, do we join them or do we just back out and not encourage them.

Here is an exercise for each one of us to begin with.  In your book, draw a vertical line to divide your page into two halves.  On one side write down how you would describe yourself.  Describe yourself in every way possible, for example, beautiful, tall, handsome, friendly, outgoing, clean, organized, shy, angry, sad, happy, jealous, successful, failure, slim, fat, healthy, unhealthy, rude, kind, helpful etc.  On the other half of the page write down what are the changes you would like to see in yourself. For example, be more organized, eat healthy, exercise daily, try to be more polite, control your negative emotions, be more realistic in your compliments etc. You do not have to share it with anyone what you write about yourself – it is totally up to you if you would like to share it or keep it private.  

Work on your Personal Development by taking the first step of Self- Awareness.

Let me know how you feel about this exercise.

Have a great day.

Joy