There’s no doubt that life is fast! Life is intense. Life is complex. Life is messy and that striving to be the best version of ourselves while juggling responsibilities can feel overwhelming.

If you check in with yourself….do you aspire to experience more joy, influence change, make better decisions, and lead yourself or others with confidence? The key lies in cultivating the powerful skill of self-awareness.

Do you want the ability to navigate life’s challenges and opportunities while maintaining a clear understanding of who you are and the impact you have on the world around you?

Don’t we all.

Well you can!

What is Self-Awareness?

At its core, self-awareness is the conscious knowledge of your character, emotions, motives, and desires. It’s the skill of focusing on your thoughts, actions, and emotions and evaluating them in relation to your internal standards. Psychologists Shelley Duval and Robert Wicklund define self-awareness as the ability to manage emotions, align behaviour with values, and accurately understand how others perceive you.

Simply put, self-awareness empowers you to interpret your actions, feelings, and thoughts objectively, without being driven solely by emotions. This skill is crucial because it enables you to assess your personal growth and make shifts and changes that serve you.

Two Facets of Self-Awareness: Public and Private

There are two distinct forms of self-awareness: public and private.

Public self-awareness involves being conscious of how you appear to others, which can guide you to stick to the social norms. However, when we get stuck on this, we can become self-consciousness and worry excessively about others’ opinions.

On the other hand, private self-awareness involves introspection and a deep understanding of your internal state, enabling you to approach feelings and reactions with curiosity rather than judgment. In hyper-drive we can go into rumination and get stuck in our own goofy loop!

Anyone else been there, sucked that lemon?

Hands up! I have.

The Importance of Self-Awareness

Extensive research shows that self-aware individuals experience greater levels of happiness, improved relationships, and enhanced personal and social control. The real benefit of awareness is that we can empathise with different perspectives, make decisions, and build stronger connections with others. Women who understand how they’re perceived are more likely to be inclusive, empowering, and effective in pursuing their dreams, goals, ambitions, and definition of success in life.

Strengthening self-awareness liberates you from the scripts, biases and assumptions that impact us daily, enabling you to view situations from multiple angles and make informed decisions that are in your best interest.

Here are some examples of common benefits of self-awareness:

• It gives us the power to influence outcomes.
• It helps us to become better decision-makers It gives us more self-confidence — so, as a result, we communicate with clarity and intention.
• It allows us to understand things from multiple perspectives.
• It frees us from our assumptions and biases.
• It helps us build better relationships.
• It gives us a greater ability to regulate our emotions.
• It decreases stress.
• It makes us happier.

The Self-Awareness Gap

Although self-awareness is talked about a lot, only a small percentage of individuals truly possess it. This gap is created from the messages within society that encourage us to suppress emotions, leading to internalised resentment or externalised blame. Lacking self-awareness can create an obstacle to your own personal development, hindering empathy and fostering self-absorption.

Many of the women I work with ask me “What can I do to get to know myself again?”

Like most of the responses I give to so many of the questions I’m asked, I tell women all the time – it’s about the process more than the outcome.

To help you I put together 6 easy to do, simple strategies you can use to cultivate and recapture your own self-awareness:

1. Envision Your Ideal Self:Visualise the best version of yourself, harnessing your strengths to overcome setbacks and distractions. Make note of her and tune in to what she is showing you.
2. Ask the Right Questions:Focus on “what” questions instead of “why” questions to objectively analyse situations and behaviours, leading to better choices.
3. Strengthen Your Brain:Recognise negative emotions in the moment by catching them, checking them for evidence of truth and challenging their meaning and impact. This is you actively rewiring your brain for better decision-making.
4. Seek Feedback:Request feedback from others about your behaviour, helping you identify blind spots and areas for growth.
5. Keep a Journal:Journaling provides insight into your internal and external experiences, helping you identify patterns that impact your self-awareness. Remember journaling doesn’t have to be formal, it can be a drawing, dot points or notes about your feelings and reflections.
6. Practice Mindfulness:Engage in mindfulness activities such as deep breathing, naming surroundings, organising your space, or creative expression to cultivate self-control and awareness.

As you embark on the journey of self-awareness, remember that it’s a continuous process, not a destination.

Remember you don’t have to do it all alone. Embracing the path to becoming the best version of yourself doesn’t have to done solo, in fact while it is always a delicious journey of courage and curiosity, bringing in a fresh set of eyes to support, guide and encourage you along the way can be extremely helpful.

Take some small pockets of time to apply these strategies and bring attention to the answers they reveal for you. By doing so, you’ll empower yourself to navigate challenges with grace, connect deeply with others, and be able to draw on a sense of unwavering confidence to help you achieve your very own version of success in life.

Go gently

Mel xx