The Importance of Being Self Aware

Self awareness is an important aspect to our judgment, and personal growth. People are complex creatures. It is an underestimation to think that we understand ourselves and others as well as we think we do. There are some important points about self awareness, including personality traits, our habits, values, feelings, and emotional needs and moods that motivate our behaviors.

Who we are is connected to our experiences and interpretation of our world. What we believe about ourselves is based on what our level of self awareness. The more we understand ourselves, the better we will put ourselves in situations that match who we are, and help us avoid stress. Our strengths and weaknesses are part of our personalities. Our skills, our values and our habits are part of our strengths and weaknesses. The more self awareness we have, the better our judgment becomes and the more opportunities we will have to develop ourselves and achieve personal growth.

What are your personal priorities?The very things we value are the things we focus on each day. When we pay attention to the values we treasure, we will accomplish what is most important to us. Our habits are the routine and repetitive behaviors we do on an automatic basis and reflect our behavior on a daily basis. Some of our habits are effective tools that helps us get things done. Some of our habits interfere with our ability to be better and more effective.

Part of understanding ourselves is to understand the psychological needs that motivate our behavior. For example, if we seek attention, perhaps because we did not get it as a child, our need to belong, for acceptance, attention, to feel loved and many other needs may be greater. The deficit of these feelings will cause us to behave in a certain way in order seek and satisfy the voids in our psychological self. Our needs have a strong influence on the choices we make. Needs that are not met cause us to feel unsatisfied, feel frustration, and create conflict and stress for ourselves.

Self awareness, self realization, self acceptance, and emotional intelligence help us understand who we are, and have a major impact on our thoughts and actions. The more self awareness we have, the more we understand what motivates us to do the things we do. Our emotional experiences, and the impact our thoughts have on what we do are related to the way we behave and react. The more we understand about ourselves, the more we can control ourselves, our behaviors, and our actions.

Becoming self aware helps us see our skills, our effectiveness, the decisions we make, our stress management, and the gaps we have in these situations. Assessing ourselves will help create an accurate sense of who we are and make purposeful decisions that will lead us to greater self satisfaction. We often live under an illusion and it is this illusion that stops us from making accurate evaluations that will lead us to self improvement. When we become self aware, we can work on improving the things we know about ourselves. Becoming self aware can help us cope with our weaknesses and capitalize on our strengths.

The more self awareness we have, the better decision maker we become. The more self realization we have about ourselves, the better we can make decisions instinctively that will better match our needs.

The relationships we have, the jobs and careers we have, the way we spend our time will be better suited to our personality when we become more self aware. The lives we lead will be less stressful and happier through self realization.

Much of our self understanding stems from the very things that motivate us. When we don’t understand why we do the things we do, it is hard for us to understand why we are in the situations we are in. A feeling of helplessness can pervade our actions, and we can become depressed or anxious. The more aware we are of our needs, the more we can increase what drives us and improve our performance. Feeling more motivated can help us achieve the rewards we seek for ourselves.

Self awareness, and understanding our behaviors means we have insight into ourselves. Understanding ourselves, gives us greater understanding of others. The more insight we have, the more we can achieve the things that bring us satisfaction. The more we understand our values, our personality, our habits, our needs, our skills, our strengths, our weaknesses, and the vision of who we are, our motivation we will move us towards the things we truly want for ourselves. This leads to greater happiness, better relationships, and more fulfilling careers.

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Self awareness helps us stand apart from other animals. The capability we have to think ahead, to have self realizations and insights is what helps us think behave, dream, and achieve things beyond our basic existence. Self realization is the key to understanding ourselves, improving ourselves, and accomplishing the things we want to accomplish. Self awareness can help alleviate the stress and problems, and negativity we endure. Our mood, our behavior, our self understanding are more improved when we become self aware.

Self realization can help us understand why we react and behave the way we do. Our very perceptions begin with our own awareness. Our environment, our thoughts, events, and the things people say and do, cause triggers that make us react to threats we feel in the moment, to unresolved feelings and to old wounds.

When we live our lives surrounded by false beliefs, denials, and deceptions, we create more irrational beliefs that cause us to behave in ways that cause greater dissatisfaction, and perhaps more issues for ourselves. Self awareness is power. When we understand this power we can challenge the long held beliefs and patterns of behavior that have led down the path of feeling unfulfilled. When we behave in unconscious ways, we become slaves to the thoughts we are not aware of. This makes us feel powerless, causes pain, and illusions that perpetuate the excuses, denials, and self defeating behavior we continue.

Self awareness can be painful at certain aspects. Discovering, realizing, and accepting our shortcomings is difficult to say the least. Mindfulness and self awareness brings about a greater sense of self power, self love, and self satisfaction and is far better than continuing the illusions that keep us trapped. Painful as it may be, it is better to become self aware and go through the hard work of change than to stay clouded in a frustrating existence. Our self worth, our emotional well being, the behaviors that bring about fulfillment, can only happen when we are self aware. When our mind, body, and soul feel comfortable and at ease in the situations we find ourselves in, we are more in tune with ourselves.

Our thoughts are filled with a myriad of feelings that affect how we interact with our environment. The things are that inconsistent, uncomfortable, and difficult are the things that don’t match with who we really are. The better we know ourselves, the less we find ourselves in negative or contrary situations to the things we like to do.

It is difficult to untangle and understand the jumble of feelings and thoughts we have every moment of every day. Self awareness is a full time job. It takes honesty, a complete commitment, determination, and focus on the issues that we do see. It takes perspective and openness to become aware of the things we don’t easily see. We need to be delicate with ourselves. Not critical, but analytical. Not leading with our feelings, but leading with logic. The rewards of these efforts will be a more authentic self. The pain of realizing our imperfections will help us become more self aware, and have a better self confidence.

With new knowledge about who we are and why we do the things we do, we will diminish the pain from unsatisfying situations, relationships, and careers. By integrating our personality with the way we occupy ourselves, we will achieve a harmony that will give us inner peace and a better and brighter future that will allow us to feel more comfortable with ourselves and then with others.

Take a look at what you are doing, and how you feel. If it doesn’t feel right, you might want to help yourself become more self aware. How many things do you do are out of habit? How many things do you do make you unhappy? How many things do you do are just about going through the motions?

How many things do you do make you feel wonderful? How many things do you do that you truly love? How many things give you fulfillment? These questions will help you see where on the scale of self awareness you are.

Do you feel like you have choices? Do you feel like your actions are leading towards the person you have always wanted to be? Do you enjoy the things you do? Do you have a sense of mastery over your actions? Do you feel like you have power and control in your life, or are your obligations and daily activities controlling you? Yes, we all have obligations and we all do things we would rather not be doing. But overall, how do you spend your days? Being mindful and self aware allows you to make choices, to take action that will give your personal and emotional freedom.

Feeling trapped is a sign that you are not self aware. Making conscious choices that help you harness the power within you is self awareness. Understanding why you do what you do, giving yourself the power to choose, to slow down, to take personal responsibility, to stop making excuses, and to change your circumstances can only happen when you have self awareness.

Change your thoughts and you change your world.