Key Steps To Gaining Self-Awareness That Helps You Grow

To understand why you need self-awareness, it helps to know exactly what self-awareness is. According to Psychology Today, self-awareness is “the accurate appraisal and understanding of your abilities and preferences and their implications for your behavior and their impact on others.”

 

To become self-aware, the first thing you need to do is get an accurate appraisal and understanding of your abilities. This can be one of the harder parts of becoming self-aware. Why?

 

Many times, our Ego will protect itself from any negative thoughts about our ability. Alternatively, on the opposite end of the spectrum, people with low self-esteem will not have a good view of their abilities. So, how do we gain an accurate understanding of our abilities?

 

Self-Testing

 

Both Psychology Today and Psych Central recognize that self-testing is one of the keys to recognizing your abilities. People self-test through both real world experience and by taking personal inventories. 

 

It is important to go through this testing period to gain self-awareness. Most people do this as adolescents. However, those with histories of trauma or other significant life experiences at early ages or as teens may not have gone through this process. This self-testing period is where you try new things to find out what you're good at and what you're not good at. 

 

You should continue self-testing throughout your life to discover hidden talents and new joys. Often people lack the confidence to endeavor into things they are passionate about until they are more mature. 

 

Once you have a good idea of your skill set and preferences you are ready for the next portion of self-awareness. Understanding how those abilities and preferences affect your behavior and how they impact others. 

 

Your Behavior

 

Knowing that loud noises make you uncomfortable is one thing. Understanding that this is why you get irritated in crowded spaces is another. Analyzing the reasons for your behaviors is the next step in becoming self-aware.

 

Not all behavior analysis should be negative. For example, you may discover that the reason you really enjoy going to a craft store (but never craft or purchase crafting goods) is that it reminds you of your grandmother. Making these types of behavioral connections can be extremely rewarding.

 

As It Relates To Others

 

This area of self-awareness can change your life. Knowing why you react and relate to people the way you do is the final step in being truly self-aware.

 

This can also be the most difficult step in becoming self-aware because it requires you to have gone through the first two steps of the self-awareness work. It also requires you to be 100 percent honest with yourself about how you perceive other people as well as your performance.

 

An example of self-aware behavior in the work place would be seeing your boss behaving indifferently to you after poor performance at an important presentation. Because you are self-aware, you know your performance was bad because you had been sick. You also know it is not an excuse for poor performance. Instead of getting angry with your boss for his indifferent behavior, you accept that there were things that could have gone better during the presentation.

 

A person who is not self-aware, in the same set of circumstances, would likely deny their poor performance. Things would only escalate from there as their inability to see their own shortcomings causes feelings of resentment towards their boss. Now instead of performing better, they perform their duties with resentment towards their boss for the boss’ poor attitude. 

 

The situation can go many different ways depending on the level of self-awareness that everyone involved has. It is only through self-awareness that people can begin to recognize how their role affected the outcome of a situation.