Self-awareness is the ability to focus on yourself and how your actions, thoughts, or emotions do or don't align with your internal standards.
Having self-awareness gives us the power to influence outcomes; helps us become better decision-makers and gives us more self-confidence. We are then able to identify changes we want to make and recognise our strengths so we can build on them. We also can communicate with clarity and intention, which allows us to understand things from multiple perspectives. It frees us from assumptions and biases. Self-awareness is often a first step to goal setting. This includes admitting when you don't have the answer and owning up to mistakes.
However, for some people it’s not easy to explain what they feel or formulate what they want because it’s not something they used to do.
if you want to learn how to understand yourself better you can start with answering these simple question throughout the day:
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What am I doing right now?
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What am I thinking right now?
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What am I feeling right now?
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What do I want right now for myself?
It would take you more than once to answer these questions to become self-aware but every case is different. I would recommend keeping those questions as a note somewhere near your work desk or creating a reminder on your phone a few times a day, so they will pop up and remind you to do a quick self-check.
Below you can find an illustration of a wheel of emotions which could help you to figure out what you feeling in the beginning.
Over time you will start noticing that it becomes clearer and easier to recognize your own needs and wishes. You may also notice that you prefer to ignore certain emotions and in that case I would advise to look deeper and figure out why.
Remember, any difficulties you meet are temporary and you can always reach out to your family and friends or book a counseling session for more professional support.
