Benefits of Self Awareness
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Being self-aware can completely change your experience in life, taking you from a passive observer to an active participant in your own life. But what is self-awareness? How does one build it? And what are the benefits of being self aware? Read on to learn how self-awareness can completely change your life, your perception of it, and your place in it, today, and moving forward.
What is self-awareness?
In their 1972 publication, A Theory of Objective Self Awareness, psychologists Shelley Duval and Robert A. Wicklund first described self- awareness as “the ability to focus on yourself and how your actions, thoughts, or emotions do or don’t align with your internal standards. If you’re highly self-aware, you can objectively evaluate yourself, manage your emotions, align your behavior with your beliefs, and understand correctly how others perceive you.”
This is all to say that highly self-aware people are more adept at accurately interpreting their own thoughts, actions, and feelings. Being self-aware gives us flexibility in our behavior and choices and allows us to change course when necessary.
Different Types of Self-Awareness
There are two main types of self-awareness, and each works differently, and serves a different purpose. Together, they can paint a fuller version of the world, and allow you to become a better participant in life’s twists, turns, and challenges.
Firstly, there’s external, or public self-awareness. This basically means that you have an awareness of how you appear to others. This helps us understand and adhere to social norms and leads us to behave in a socially acceptable manner. Falling too far into external self-awareness can steer us toward excessive self-consciousness, leading us to care too much what others think of us.
Next, there’s internal, or private, awareness. This type of awareness allows one to notice and reflect on their internal state. This gives one a sense of introspection, allowing them to approach and handle their feelings and reactions securely and with acceptance. However, when one falls too far into this type of self-awareness, it can lead to excessive self-consciousness, which may make us reluctant to share our full, authentic self with others.
Benefits of Self-Awareness
Having strong self-awareness gives you a better understanding of yourself, which in turn gives you a better understanding of the world and those in it. Here are some benefits you stand to gain as you become more self-aware.
Power to Influence Outcomes
If you are more self-aware, you can better use your inner beliefs and how you appear to others to influence a desired outcome in a given situation. Knowing yourself and being able to read the room and your place in it are two game changers when it comes to successfully exerting influence.
Become a Better Decision Maker
When you know who you are and what you want, it’s easier to make all types of decisions, large and small, ranging from what to eat for breakfast this morning, to what you want your career to look like in five years’ time.
Better Communication Skills
Once we know who we are and what we want, we are able to be more articulate in expressing ourselves. Understanding how others perceive us can also help us communicate with them in a way that will resonate with them and best allow them to understand.
Allows us to See Things from Different Perspectives
If you understand how you perceive things, and also understand how others perceive you, you can begin to understand how others perceive certain situations, as well. This will allow you to approach a situation or problem from multiple angles, fully understanding how many different people might approach the same scenario.
Create Better Relationships
If you can be clear not only about who you are, but also about where the other person in the relationship is coming from, you can build a relationship upon honesty, understanding, and mutual respect. In the long run, this is the type of relationship that is likely to pass the test of time and grow with you.
Live a Happier Life
Understanding yourself and others eliminates stress from your life and helps you lead a happier existence. At the end of the day, that’s what matters the most.
How To Become More Self-Aware
There are many ways to improve upon one’s self-awareness, from keeping a journal, to asking others of their perception of you, although most can most easily be achieved with the help of a life coach, trained in self-awareness coaching, like Jonette Dyer.
Unlike therapy, life coaching can focus on the specific needs of a particular moment in your life, such as wanting to gain self-awareness. Jonette Dyer will meet you where you are in your journey and help you to rise to the level of self-awareness you desire. This is one of just many reasons to hire a life coach.
Finding the right life coach for you can be tricky, especially when wanting to work on such an elevated and delicate skill as self-awareness. The right coach will help you envision the best version of yourself and use that as a way to develop self-awareness. They’ll help you learn to use “what” questions like “What can I do to overcome my fear of speaking up?” rather than why questions like “Why did that just happen to me?”
Finally, they’ll teach you how to strengthen your brain and deepen your awareness through guided sessions and mindfulness activities that put you in touch with your inner self.
Personal coaching services can help you navigate through all of this, and begin to improve your self-awareness, bit by bit. To start your coaching journey today, click here to meet Jonette and get started on your path to self-awareness.
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