Self-awareness is the key to unlocking your fullest potential in life. Not only to identify the areas that need work, but to understand your strengths. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. By understanding yourself, you can better lean into your strengths to improve and overcome your weaknesses more effectively.
The good news is that self-awareness is a skill you can develop. How do you do that? Well, you can work on some of these behaviors that people with exceptional self-awareness use!
1. They welcome and utilize constructive criticism and feedback.
Sometimes it’s difficult to see our own flaws and shortcomings. Try as we might, we may be limited by our own worldly experience and knowledge. For example, it’s common for people who have been through a traumatic experience to normalize certain unhealthy behaviors because the behavior helped them survive the situation. However, that same behavior can be toxic and poisonous to a healthy situation.
Kind Mind Psychology informs us that’s why you sometimes need feedback from a trusted friend, associate, or counselor to get a better understanding of yourself. They can see flaws that you may be blind to out of familiarity. Of course, no one really wants to be criticized or have their shortcomings pointed out, but it is much easier when you ask for the feedback.
2. They understand their triggers and how to manage them.
Most people have triggers that can set off a chain reaction of strong emotions and equally strong actions. But people with a developed sense of self-awareness have often taken the time to better understand themselves and their triggers, and they have strategies to manage them.
You can’t always avoid your emotional triggers, nor should you. Avoidance doesn’t help you learn to manage when you inevitably find yourself in a situation where avoidance isn’t possible. That could be in the workplace or with a family member that you can’t distance yourself from.
3. They pause to think before they react.
Do you want to massively improve your life and relationships with just one little tip? The next time you find yourself angry, just take like thirty seconds to think about how you’re feeling and your reaction before doing anything. It is such a small thing, but for me, this habit has derailed so many arguments and bad situations before they could get worse.
We don’t always have the power to control how we feel about a situation, and we certainly don’t have the power to control other people. What we do have power over is the way we respond to a situation.
This bit of advice was the key to improving all my relationships and managing my anger. Yes, I still get extremely angry at times. However, if I just pause until I can consider my words and actions, I’m able to not explode my life around me. I still feel the flashes of irrational anger at times. I can’t control that. It’s part of my emotional landscape. What I can control is how I respond to those feelings, and so I do. I highly recommend it.
4. They align their actions with their values and beliefs.
It’s much easier to be happy with oneself when you align your actions with your values and beliefs, even when it’s hard. Not only does it help nurture your own happiness and peace of mind, but it keeps your compass pointing north when you are going through difficult times. The International Hospital Federation notes that self-awareness is a common and essential leadership trait for individuals with a greater cause.
Sometimes it’s hard to make good decisions when things aren’t going so well. You may feel pressure to conform, to do things that don’t align with your values, because it will be easier, but a self-aware person understands that this path leads to unhappiness.
It’s better to stand with unpopular values and integrity than sacrifice them on a whim.
5. They understand that their actions impact other people.
The self-aware understand that their actions impact other people because they are more aware of how others’ actions affect them. Self-awareness brings with it a level of emotional maturity and awareness that a lot of people just don’t have. They don’t necessarily think about how their actions affect others because they are too busy with their own feelings.
But, when someone does something that affects a self-aware person, they are taking the time to understand their emotions and what caused them. They may know that they need to limit how much time they spend with a triggering person, have strategies for dealing with emotions and triggers, and better identify unhealthy situations.
As you reach that level of self-awareness, you become acutely aware of just how much your own actions will affect other people, too. And it should change the way you interact with others.
6. They take the time to reflect regularly.
Self-examination is a must for the self-aware person. You must take the time to analyze your emotions, decisions, and reactions regularly to fully develop self-awareness. There are so many different circumstances that will trigger emotions and actions that need to be examined from multiple angles.
There are different ways to go about reflecting. Self-aware people may journal, meditate, or even just take some time to stop and ask reflective questions about a past event to better understand themselves. The point of thinking critically about a past event is not to use it to beat oneself up, but to better understand how to respond to that event in the future.
What did I do right? What did I do wrong? What can I do better? What caused the outcome? Can I do more or less of that? Then, take that information and apply it to the next similar situation you experience.
7. They can articulate and express their emotions clearly.
The work that is necessary to develop one’s self-awareness includes the ability to understand and express emotions. People who have developed their self-awareness will be able to articulate their emotions in a way that other people can understand because it’s such an important part of managing one’s own mental health.
The people that we surround ourselves with have a dramatic effect on our mental and emotional health. A self-aware person is going to understand that the way they interact with the people around them is going to have a profound effect on the way they feel and their overall well-being.
Communication is necessary to avoid arguments, misunderstandings, and other negativity in personal relationships.
8. They own their mistakes and hold themselves accountable.
As you develop self-awareness, you find that it’s easier to put things behind you so long as it feels right to you. That is, when you know you make a mistake, you understand that remedying the mistake is the key to happiness and moving forward through it. That’s what makes self-aware people so successful in life.
Everyone makes mistakes. It’s what you do about your mistakes that matters the most. It wastes precious time when you drag your feet on identifying and owning the mistake, figuring out a solution, and fixing it. Not only that, but accountability is one step of many on the path to peace and happiness.
It’s knowing that, yes, you screwed up, but you don’t have to let that follow you for the rest of your life. You can do what you can to make it right and then let it go.
Final thoughts…
Self-awareness is a pathway to peace and happiness. It’s always worthwhile to try to further develop your own. These habits are just some of the ways that people go about better understanding themselves, their place in the world, and how they interact with other people.
Many people don’t realize that self-awareness is a skill that you can learn and develop to be a better, happier, healthier version of yourself. The more you practice, the easier it gets until these particular behaviors just become part of your natural habits.
