Developing Self-Awareness

Honest question: Do you know who you are? Like, really and truly know?

Do you know what your values are?

Do you know what brings you joy? Do you know what brings you pleasure?

Do you know what brings out your strengths? What about what brings out your resiliency?

Do you know how to be alone without distraction and truly sit with yourself?

Do you know what you believe about love? Do you know your position on racial injustice? How about discrimination?

Do you know what motivates you?

Do you know what clothes make you feel your best?

Do you know yourself? If not, it’s time to learn. It’s time to get to know the person you spend the most time with – yourself. 

WHY SELF-AWARENESS IS IMPORTANT

Having self-awareness will help you make decisions, and it will help you advocate for yourself. Knowing yourself means you have the ability to stand in your truth. It means being free from other people’s opinions. 

Having self-awareness means that you own up to your mistakes. It means that you are aware of how you take up space in this world, and even more importantly, it means that you not only allow yourself to take up space, but that you insist upon it with others. 

Knowing yourself means that you accept who you are, flaws and all. It means giving yourself grace for mistakes. It means rooting for yourself to succeed. 

Self-awareness helps you break free from second guessing yourself, and my God, how cool would that be to not second guess yourself? It gives you confidence to stand firm in your truth. It allows you to feel confident in your thoughts, your decisions, your actions.

When you know yourself, you are less likely to be influenced by others. And why is that important? Well, firstly, not everyone has your best interests at heart. Lets face it, there are a lot of selfish and self-serving people in the world – so why would you want to be influenced by them? And even more than that, if you don’t allow yourself to be influenced by others, you become more wholly, authentically you. And who doesn’t want that?

IT’S A JOURNEY

Knowing yourself is a journey. No one wakes up one day and has themselves all figured out. I certainly didn’t. In fact, even now, I am still learning more about the person I see when I look in the mirror. 

I think the biggest key to becoming self-aware is being willing to take an honest look at ourselves. To be willing to get uncomfortable. To be willing to inventory our thoughts, our feelings, or a particular situation.

Self-discovery is a process. And even more than that, we are always evolving and so is the world around us, and so there are always opportunities for self-reflection and growth. 

Sometimes it takes “big things” to bring awareness to our beings – a death or other loss, a tragedy, a car accident, a breakup. Other times, it doesn’t have to be big at all – things like journaling, writing, working out, reading, doing the dishes – can lead to continued self-awareness. Sometimes we learn about ourselves through conversation with others – a friend or family member, a therapist. How ever we come to know ourselves better doesn’t matter – just that we actually do it that does.

What’s stopping you from getting to know yourself better?

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