Grok this: at the center of all personal development is self awareness. Becoming self aware changes your life.
Self awareness is raising the quality and quantity of consciousness in your life. Yes, you are technically exhibiting biological “consciousness”, but how conscious of your life are you?
You’re awake, your eyes are moving, but how many parts of your life have you put on auto pilot? Do you consider your choices before you make them? I bet you do in the important areas, but you let the rest just happen. The more consciousness in your life, the more control you have over your destiny. When you raise your self awareness, you are raising your consciousness and quality of life.
What is Self Awareness
Self awareness, as defined by the kind folks over at Wikipedia is, “An awareness of the self as separate from the thoughts occurring at any one point in time.” It is what makes us human beings. We are aware of our awareness. Rather cyclical, but not too confusing.
Self awareness is self knowledge. It is presence and awareness of your own choices, actions and reactions. Self awareness allows you to show up in your life consciously. You can be self aware in some areas of your life, and utterly unconscious in others. The trick is to find out which you are.
I had a pretty enlightened professor in college. He was teaching Sociology of Deviant Behavior, which turned out to be perspective shifting. He challenged us the first day by saying:
I don’t care what you believe. I care why you believe it. If you don’t know why you believe what you do, you don’t belong in my class.
It made me think long and hard about my own values and beliefs, especially as we explored the vagrant underbelly of society. That was an important step in my own journey of self awareness. Self awareness is knowing the why behind what you believe.
The Impact of Self Awareness
If you don’t have self awareness, you are a vegetable. We’re all functioning with it on at least some level. You can pick out one brand of noodles from another in the pasta aisle. So can I usually.
Self awareness affects us in more than just our grocery shopping though. It runs throughout all of our lives. When you hit a wall in any one area, it may be because you are enjoying a significant lack of self awareness in that area of life.
Get this: without self awareness, you’re never even going to be aware of the source of pain in your life. It will be just like junior high with someone throwing things at your head while you are unable to turn around to see who it is.
You will just go through life with a gnawing pain causing you stress. It is not until you open your eyes and look into your self that you’ll find the cause and be able to do something about it. You’ll be a trick pony performing your routine as trained until you become self aware.
So what areas are most often affected by a lack of self awareness?
Health – Your health is your own responsibility, and yet most people squander it. Too little focus on a healthy diet, too little exercise, and too little awareness of the consequences of your choices. If you counted calories and knew what was in your mocha, would you still buy it? Hard to say, but you’d at least know what you were getting into.
Money – I’ve been guilty of this one often enough: you know about how much is in your bank account, but not precisely, so you make poor spending choices. You start swiping, end up miscalculating how much you actually have, and end up scrambling. Awareness is the the number one tool to prevent such mistakes. Too bad it is easier to not face that pain point.
Relationships – The relationship started out amazing, you got comfortable and started coasting. A few months in, you start getting in arguments for reasons you can’t quite pinpoint. If you stop coasting and raise your self awareness, chances are you’ll find the source of your conflict.
Work – Stuck in a job that you’re not satisfied with? Do you even know what you’d rather be doing? Get aware, and you’ll have a better chance of actually making a change in a direction that you’d like. Once you are aware and dedicated to giving your all, change WILL happen.
Those are all pretty important parts of our lives, wouldn’t you say? I know that I spend most of my time in those areas, and would prefer for all of them to flow smoothly.
Self Awareness on Steroids
So how do you go from trick pony to self-awareness superstar? It is a journey that you’ll be on for awhile if you want live a conscious life. Walking that path isn’t always pretty either. Usually self discovery is both enlightening and painful – the increased self awareness helps you make sense of life and make better decisions later.
The key to raising self awareness is to admit that you could become more self aware. We all can. Then you need to take action towards becoming so. How?
Grok Tools – Since grokking is so closely related to self-awareness, I’m a big fan of using all of the Grok Tools for raising my level of self awareness. I find journaling to be an amazing tool on this path. My involvement with water brothers and relationships are where I constantly am learning more about myself.
New Ideas – The more often you confront yourself with new ideas, the more opportunity you have to observe yourself. Explore your curiosity. Don’t stick to the ideas that you are comfortable with. Go find someone with radically different points of view. Have an open conversation. When your views are challenged and you must explain them, you become more aware.
Feedback – Getting feedback from someone you trust gives you a mirror to hold yourself to. Did you know how you were being received? How different is their perception of you than your own?
Internal Observation – Take a mental step back from any situation you are involved in and really think about how and why you are reacting the way you are. Did something really trigger you? If you don’t know why, you’re just running in reaction mode. Observe it and get clear about your own internal process. The more self knowledge you have, the greater your self awareness and consciousness will be.
If you want to change your life, let alone the world, you’re going to need to amp up your self awareness. Self awareness is the first step towards meaningful personal development. You can’t reach your destination if you don’t know where you’re starting from.
Where will you apply your self awareness?
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Another wonderful article, friend.
I've been there-especially the bits about work and money. I spent years in a daze, not even aware of my own motivations for doing something. When I realized I was only doing it to keep someone else happy, I quickly lost interest. And, money, well – that's not one I have to go into much detail with. Everyone's done it sometimes.
Great work, friend!
Thank you! Everyone is in a daze for a time. I've heard people say that they see the world “waking up,” and I feel thats what they are referring to. There is a difference between being a drone and being consciously aware. If we want to change the world (And I most certainly do), we have to begin my raising awareness.
Those that just manipulate the machine are fighting their own awareness struggles.
Good advice. Might be the same thing as Mindfulness (as defined by Ellen Langer).
Good advice. Might be the same thing as Mindfulness (as defined by Ellen Langer).