The importance of self-awareness

Self-awareness is a way for us to explore our individual personalities, value systems, beliefs, natural inclinations, and tendencies. Because we are all different in the way we react to situations, learn, and process information, it’s helpful to spend time in self-reflection to gain a better insight into ourselves.

But, why is self-awareness important? Self-awareness is important because when we have a better understanding of who we truly are and with this knowledge we are empowered to make changes and to build on our areas of strength as well as identify areas where we would like to make improvements. Self-awareness is the first step towards setting goals for ourselves.

If you’re still perplexed as to what self-awareness is, ask yourself a few questions:

• Do you listen to others during a conversation? Or, do you tend to do a lot of the talking?
• Do you ask others how they feel about situations? Or, do you make assumptions based on your own feelings?
• Do you think about how your actions affect others? Or, are you confident that others are fine with how you handle situations?
• Are you aware of other people’s social cues? Or, do you mostly focus on your own?
• Can you admit when you are wrong, and have apologized when you are? Or, do you tend to think that things are wrong or go bad because of others?

If you answered yes to most of the first questions in each pair, you are most likely self-aware. If you answered yes to most of the second questions in each pair, you probably need to spend some time practicing how to tune into other people’s reactions and also spend time getting to know yourself.

The bottom line is that self-awareness will give you the ability to be open, thoughtful and aware of how your actions impact others. Self-awareness is one of the most valuable qualities that you can possess as a human being.

There is but one ride in this life … enjoy the journey! 

©2010-2013 Journey To Self – All Rights Reserved 

Tips For Increasing Your Personal Power

Taking the time to invest in a solid self-assessment of our self-awareness can increase your personal power. So, what is personal power? A good way to think of personal power is to associate it with self-confidence. In other words, it is an inner belief in our ability to attain our goals and achieve the things we want in life. Those who possess a highly developed level of personal power believe they can set the direction of their lives and, in fact, they do.

Here are a few tips that can help you build your personal power:

Make a list of your strengths. Keep a journal of what you feel are your significant accomplishments. Ask yourself where you excel and this will lead you to identify your strengths. The objective of writing your accomplishments and the feelings that surround them is to help you to envision how you feel when using your strengths and succeeding. Remember, emotions and feelings, especially positive ones, will be powerful motivation towards your life goals.

Ask for feedback. Don’t hesitate to ask for input about your actions from a trusted friend or family member. Insight from others can prove to be an invaluable resource in helping you recognize how well you handle various situations, and point to areas where you can grow even stronger.

Move on from failures. Don’t dwell on what you consider to be a failure. Failures are not life lasting or permanent. A perceived failure is an excellent time to do some real self-assessing. Take the time to recognize what you can learn from whatever misstep, and then take that information and apply it to future situations.

©2012 Journey To Self, All rights reserved.

How Enhancing Self-Awareness Increases Your Emotional IQ

Enhancing our self-awareness begins the journey to achieving higher emotional intelligence, or increasing our EQ. We simply must be aware of our own emotions before we can manage them effectively. Self-awareness of our emotions also helps us to empathize, so we can better understand what others are experiencing.

People with high emotional self-awareness know how they feel at any given time, can identify the source of those feelings and can recognize how the feelings manifest in physical symptoms, such as sweaty palms, headaches and panic attacks.

To begin enhancing emotional self-awareness start with these three steps:

1. “Check in” with yourself. Set aside time during your day to assess your emotional state. Ask yourself a series of questions and answer them honestly. You might ask: What am I feeling? What is the source? How are these feelings manifesting themselves in my body? Am I experiencing tenseness in my shoulders, clenched teeth, feeling fatigued, anxiety, fear or joy?
2. Identify your emotions. Once you determine what and how you feel, if you learn to identify these emotions, it can help you identify the source or “trigger” of negative feelings. Some common examples of labels for emotions include anger, fear and surprise. Write down the identified emotions, along with your thoughts on what you think triggered each specific emotion. Once you can identify the source of a feeling and see it on paper, what you need to do to improve your response to a trigger becomes clearer.
3. Be in the moment. “Listen” to what your emotions and feelings might be telling you at any given moment. You can learn to use the information you “hear” from within to gain added insight and guidance in working through an issue or problem.

From a goal-setting point of view, it is crucial for you to possess high levels of emotional self-awareness. In other words, effectively achieving your personal goals will require an acute understanding of how feelings can affect your behavior, mood and performance.

©2012 Journey To Self All Rights Reserved