Know Yourself: Increasing Your Self-Awareness

If you want to be really good at something and live an enriched life, it’s important to have self-awareness.

Self-awareness, in essence, means you know your own self. Being self-aware includes knowing what you like and dislike, recognizing what motivates you and being familiar with your strengths and weaknesses.

In addition, being aware of what “rules” you live by, following those guidelines and recognizing your own habits all contribute to your level of self-awareness. When you live life being self-aware, there’s little confusion. You know who you are and what you believe.

Being self-aware means you’re self-assured. You understand yourself thoroughly. A person who knows himself well is open to and accepting of critical feedback. After all, critical feedback informs you about yourself. When someone tells us honestly and without malice what we’re doing and how we could improve, we’ve just received some valuable information that helps us be more self-aware.

All of these characteristics are helpful and contribute to a happy life. But what if you haven’t thought much about these issues, for example, your strengths and weaknesses or what motivates you? In that case, you might want to get to know yourself better!

Review these suggestions to enhance your self-awareness:

1. What are your likes and dislikes? Knowing what you do and do not prefer in life will start you on the road to self-awareness. After all, if you dislike going to the theater, it may not be a great fit for you to go. On the other hand, if you love going to the ballet or the symphony, why not spend more of your time there?

Food for thought: Maybe you dislike boating, but your friend, Sam always wants you to go out on his boat with him. You probably receive some good feelings about yourself for making Sam happy, but you’ll probably be even happier if you encourage Sam to participate with you from time to time in a hobby that you’re passionate about as well.

2. What motivates you? Are you motivated by love, personal interest or money? Do you have to love your job to perform it to the best of your ability? Most people have knowledge of a student who loves math but, because he didn’t like his math teacher, he earned an “F” in the class.

Maybe you don’t have to love something, but you’ve just got to have high interest in it in order to perform it.

Money is an incredible motivator for many. Perhaps money motivates you, too. Some of the hardest workers you’ll find are people who were paid to mow lawns when they were 12 years old. They learned the value of a dollar and how to get it and have been motivated ever since.

3. Write down your strengths. Then, write down your weaknesses. It’s important to recognize what you do well and what you can work on to improve.

4. Which rules do you live by? Some folks live by the rules of their religion. Others live by the rules their parents taught them. Knowing what you use as a standard, or ideal, in life will increase your self-knowledge.

5. Review your habits. Everyone has habits – those things you do repeatedly throughout your day. Simply knowing your habits reveals more to you about yourself. Do you have a habit of twisting your hair? Or snapping your fingers?

When you know your habits, you know yourself. Not to mention that if you like, you can change them. But awareness is required in order to adjust your habits in any way.

6. Openly accept feedback from others. When you’re lucky enough to have those around you willing to honestly give you input and feedback on your actions and behaviors, you’ll get another perspective on yourself, which enhances your self-awareness.

The more self-knowledge you have, the more consciously you’ll live your life. And living consciously is the healthier, happier way to go.

When you’re in touch with who you are, your day-to-day life gains great clarity. Increase your self-awareness to enjoy a more rewarding life experience.

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