Insight

Insight will help you understand what self-awareness is, why it’s vital if you want to become your best self, and how to overcome the obstacles in the way of having more of it.

Self-awareness comes in two parts.

The first is understanding our own behavior, or internal self-awareness.

The second is known as external self-awareness, or having a sense of how others see us.

It is beneficial to develop your self-awareness because research shows that the better you are at it, the happier you will be. Knowing yourself also helps you make wiser decisions, have deeper relationships, and be more creative.

So now that you know why you need it, how do you get more self-awareness? There are seven forms of insight, all of which must be developed to become wholly self-aware:

Values are the fundamentals we use to choose how to live. Passions, or identifying what we enjoy doing.  Aspirations, which are defined by our goals. Fit is how happy our surroundings make us. Patterns are the habits we constantly follow that make up our personality. Reactions, or our emotional and physical responses to the events in our lives. Impact, which is knowing the effect of our behavior on others.

Looking closely at yourself to examine your actions and feelings is important, but going about it the wrong way will harm you. Self-analyzers have a worse view of themselves, more negative relationships, and more anxiety.

The issue here is that although we can easily understand our insights from self-analyzing, we usually fail to question their legitimacy. The solution is to instead be more flexible in your mindset when examining yourself. Let your mind drift between ideas and perspectives, without needing a definite answer.

Another problem with self-analyzing is that we may ask why we are a certain way. Unfortunately, our carless brains automatically divert to the easiest answer, instead of carefully searching for the truth.

Instead, it’s best to ask what or who we are, and what we think, feel, and do in each circumstance. This helps us name our emotions, including the negative ones, which allows us to recognize better and adequately cope with them.

On the complete opposite spectrum of introspection is rumination, or a preoccupation with our weaknesses, anxieties, and insecurities. This pattern of thinking leads to depression and inhibits our ability to grow from real self-awareness.

A team I once worked on taught me that the greatest people don’t just take correction; they seek it. I’ve found this to be true as I’ve tried it myself. Every time I ask someone how I can improve, I gain a new perspective on where I’m really at and what I need to do to be my best.…