Life
is accompanied with a number of challenges that individuals have to deal with.
There can be uncertainties and insecurities, and a sense of incertitude that
tends to develop. When such experiences occur too often, it becomes difficult
to cope with. It gives rise to a state of confusion and waywardness, and
individuals tend to lose direction.
One
way of preventing and avoiding such experiences is to develop a sense of focus,
and deep self-understanding; in other words, have self-awareness. Self-awareness
is the ability to focus attention on the self as an object. It is a state,
which involves an active identification and processing of information related
to the self. Being self-aware enables individuals to focus on their private
self-aspects like traits, emotion, mood, and feelings; and public self-aspects
such as physical appearance and mannerisms.
Self-awareness
helps a great deal in developing a deep understanding of oneself. Individuals who
are highly self-aware have a more accurate understanding of themselves; they
develop a good sense of self-knowledge. Self-awareness makes individuals understand
their abilities and realize their true potential. It gives an understanding of who
one really is.
An
important aspect of self-awareness is that the individuals are able to identify
their strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to do a proper self-assessment or
self-evaluation. This, in turn, gives a good understanding of their abilities
and gives them an idea of the things that they can do in a better way. It helps them in setting appropriate goals, and give an understanding of where they
can head towards, giving them proper direction in life. It gives individuals a
good perspective of their standing in their surroundings, which further helps
them to play along to those strengths and weaknesses. Playing along strengths
has been found to give meaning and satisfaction in life.
Realizing
strengths and abilities, due to self-awareness, further, makes individuals feel
good about themselves. Self-awareness, then enhances self-esteem. It makes the
individual feel confident and develop self-belief. Development of self-belief
increases the self-efficacy – belief in one’s ability to succeed or accomplish
tasks - of the individual. Consequently, the person becomes more motivated,
goal-oriented, and focused.
Along
with realization of strengths and abilities, by focusing attention on inner,
private self-aspects, self-awareness allows individuals to understand the subtleties
with respect to feelings, emotions, and mood. Self-awareness enables to
understand one’s feelings and emotions in a better way.
Self-awareness
helps in identifying and understanding the finer aspects of one’s feelings and
emotions. The individual is able to identify the finest of changes in mood, and
even understands the cause(s) behind it. Individuals with high self-awareness
will have a realization of what exactly they are feeling, and why they are
feeling that. This helps them not to over-react in situations, not tend to be
edgy, and be able to keep a check on their impulses to express emotions such as
anger, which may be inappropriate in specific situations.
Further,
being aware of what one is feeling, helps in regulating of emotions and
channelizing of emotions in a proper direction. For instance, an individual
experiencing negative affect, and being high on self-awareness will be able to
not just recognize it, but even understand the reason behind it. The person
will then, with relative ease, be able to overcome that negative affect and mould
it into a more positive feeling.
In
a similar manner, a person with self-awareness, is able to channelize anxiety
to calm oneself down, or be able to adopt mechanisms to cope with stress, and
even be able to understand the sudden mood swings and react appropriately. Self-awareness,
thus, helps in developing psychological and emotional wellbeing. It helps in keeping
the person in a positive frame of mind, making it easier to deal with
uncertainties, and not getting demoralized too often.
Because
self-awareness enables individuals to identify their strengths and abilities, feelings
and emotions, it helps in realizing how they are different from others. This makes
them understand others in a better manner, and develops perspective-taking. Knowing
about oneself, about one’s uniqueness gives an understanding of the perspective
of others. It helps in understanding abilities and limitations of others as
well as what others might be feeling. It develops a sense of empathy and
compassion for others.
This
aspect of self-awareness becomes useful in having fruitful social interactions
and developing satisfying interpersonal relationships, which further helps in
enhancing the wellbeing of the individual. Having fruitful interactions and
developing positive relationships has been found be very satisfying.
Additionally,
understanding the perspectives of others helps in dealing with the toxicity
that one may often be surrounded with. With a lot of negativity around, one
does realize that it’s the other person that is going through those feelings,
and has nothing to do with oneself. This enables one to not indulge in self-blaming
and shame, and helps in not experiencing distress.
It
also helps in managing conflict with others. Understanding others’ perspective,
what they are going through, helps in knowing the other side of the story. Because
of this, instead of getting into a conflict and making matters worse, the
individual understands the other person in a situation of conflict, and
responds in an appropriate manner, which does not escalate the conflict, and
rather allows to move towards a resolution.
Self-awareness,
therefore, has been found to be beneficial in a number of ways. The more
self-aware an individual is, the more useful it turns out to be. Thus,
individuals should always be trying to enhance their self-awareness.
There
are a number of simple ways in which people can increase their level of
self-awareness. Because self-awareness involves focusing attention on
self-aspects, the practice of reflecting on the past has been found to be
useful. Reflecting allows the individual to look back at how things have gone,
it makes individuals think about what had happened, and re-assess how one
behaved and reacted in certain situations. By doing so, individuals get to
understand themselves in a much better way. In this regard, journal writing has
been found to be enhancing self-awareness.
Apart
from that, trying to understand how one is unique and different from others,
helps in realizing one’s abilities. In addition to that, trying to associate
oneself with as many words as possible, helps in understanding oneself in a
better way, and thus, enhances self-awareness. Further, thinking about the future,
about the possible goals that one may have in life, and how one’s strengths and
weaknesses may relate to them, helps individuals to indulge in some deep
self-assessment, which in turn, enhances self-awareness.
Self-awareness,
the ability to focus attention on self-aspects, therefore, helps individuals to
deal with the uncertainties and distresses of life. By enabling a deep
understanding of self-aspects, it develops a positive frame of mind. In a larger
perspective it helps in personal growth, and enhances social, psychological,
and emotional wellbeing. All this develops satisfaction, and gives a great
sense of direction and meaning in life.
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