Know Yourself
By: Ichechi Olatunbosun PhD
Many individuals go through life without knowing who they are, what should constitute their goals or how to go about achieving their goals. Sometimes they become so negatively fused to their community, family, friends or spouse that they lose their individuality. Many live frustrated lives. Some do not understand what is happening to them. Others do not understand the people around them and there is conflict and communication breakdown. Some other people find it hard to make headway in life. Yet others spend years in vocations that they do not have any business being in. All because they failed to achieve self-awareness.
Self-awareness means that you have adequate realization of your personality including your strengths, your weaknesses, your thoughts, your beliefs, your motivations, and your emotions. It is the capacity to learn about oneself and the ability to recognize oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. Duval and Wicklund (1972), who first researched the idea of self-awareness, in their book titled: A Theory of Objective Self-Awareness, believe that if we learn about ourselves, we tend to compare our behavior in the current moment to our general standards and values. This brings about objective self-awareness.
In order to acquire self-awareness, you have to pay attention to the details of your personality and behavior; you will begin to notice aspects of your personality and behavior that you did not notice before.
If you have emotional reaction of anger and frustration, for instance, you notice many of the thoughts and small triggers that build up to those emotions, you also notice moments when you can change the interpretations in your mind and not believe what you are thinking. At this high level of awareness, you can make better choices in your thought processes before an emotional reaction or destructive behavior happens. Making changes in your behavior is easier when you are able to get hold of your thoughts and emotions early before they get strong.
Why Do I
Need Self-Awareness?
Some of the reasons why you need self-awareness are listed below.
a) Being self-aware is a first step in the creation of the life you want. It helps you in pinpointing what your passions and emotions are and how your personality can help you in achieving what you want in life.
b) The direction of your life is determined by the direction of your thoughts and emotions. When you are self-aware, you can recognize where your thoughts and emotions are taking you, and make any necessary changes to get the outcomes you desire. This may include changing your thoughts, your emotions, your beliefs or your personality. Until you achieve this, it may be hard to change the direction your life is taking you.
c) If you have a clear understanding of your thought pattern and your behavior pattern, it will be easier for you to understand other people and empathize with them and also detect how they perceive you in return. This quality of empathy enhances better personal and professional relationships.
d) Being self-aware will provide opportunity for positive change in your mental state and also alter your emotions and increase your emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, manage, regulate and harness your own emotions and the emotions of others and apply them to useful ventures like problem solving. Emotional intelligence is an important factor in achieving overall success.
e) Self-awareness is important for leadership. It explains your successes and failures and gives clear understanding of who you are and what you need most from other people to have a successful team.
f) Self-awareness is also essential for students. It helps students to focus on what they need to read. It gives students tools for self-reflection and growth in their academic, emotional and social lives.
g) Self-awareness will also guide you in choosing vocations and disciplines that are well suiting and in which you will achieve satisfaction.
h) Self-awareness is needed to enable you choose a spouse that complements you and is compatible.
How to Develop and Increase Self-Awareness
Below are some of the ways you can develop and increase self-awareness.
- § *Look at yourself objectively: Take a hard look at yourself and try to identify your current understanding by writing down your perceptions of yourself. For instance, your likes, dislikes, strengths weaknesses, interests, beliefs, values, behaviour, character, personality, etc.
§ *Keep a journal of your behaviours, thoughts, emotions, reactions, actions, and attitudes on a daily basis; this will help you get a better understanding of who you are and what you want out of life right now.
§ *Write down your goals, plans, and priorities. Plan out your goals in a worksheet so that they will turn from ideas to a step by step process.
§ *Perform daily self reflections. Meditation and improve your mindful awareness.
§ *Practice meditation and other mindfulness habits in order to improve your mindful awareness. For example: what is your goal? What are you doing that is not working? What are you doing that is acting as a hindrance to your success? How can you change your process to improve it?
§ *Take personality tests and psychometric tests (a professional counselor or a psychologist can help). These types of tests make the test takers to think about characteristics or traits that closely describe them in relation to other people.
§ *Ask trusted friends to describe you. Make sure your friends know that they are doing this to help you not to hurt you. You need them to be objective.
- § *Ask for feedback at work or school. If feedback is constructive and well done, it helps you reflect on your own strengths and weaknesses.
*Self-awareness is an essential factor in the development of the individual. As the scripture says “…in all thy getting, get understandingâ€. You should start by first understanding yourself
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