How to increase self awareness: 13 pratical ways to know yourself better

 

My younger brother did his schooling from a boarding school, he barely remained at home in his childhood. But, whenever he comes he creates havoc in our home over tiny issues. 

While all other family members remain silent in the meantime. Nobody says anything till he settles down. 

The most surprising thing for all of us….is that after 15-20 minutes he comes back to his senses. 

So, other family members do not take it seriously. And he himself makes fun of him or how he was reacting? 

But, I often wondered why he was behaving like this? Why does he lose control over himself? Why can't he remain calm and control his emotions? 

Whenever I asked him about this, he said, “ I don't know what happened to me at that time? I try not to react, but I can't help it? 

After reading so many books on self awareness, behavior, and about mindset. I came to realize that my brother lacks self awareness. He lacks emotional intelligence. He lose control because he doesn't know himself? He neither tracks his feelings nor his triggers. He doesn't have any idea about the term called “Self awareness”. And this is pretty much common I have realized, when I observe the behavior of others of his age. 

This is…what I suggested to him to build self awareness. It helped him a lot and proved a milestone in his journey of self awareness. I hope it can also help you in your journey of knowing yourself. 

The ultimate guide to build self awareness:

1.Look inwardly

Sit with yourself daily for 10-15 minutes. Observe your thoughts. Ask questions to yourself. Try to figure out what you are thinking? 

Why are you thinking that? 

Try to trace the origin of your thoughts. By doing this you will be able to know yourself better. This is the first step of your journey of self awareness. 

2.Track your habits

By tracking your habits mean … . 

How do you behave in a particular situation? 

What makes you sad? 

What makes you happy? 

This will make you understand your behavior. And your habits play a significant role in your behavior.

 By knowing this you can track your emotional triggers. Which are key in losing our control. Once you know your triggers, you can easily bend your behavior. This taught us to respond not react. This is what self awareness is. 

Power of positive habits: Gateway to the life you want to live

3.Review your day daily

To dig deeper into yourself, you have to make it a ritual. Try to review your whole day before going to bed. 

What did you do the whole day? How do you react to situations? What could you have done better? 

This will build up your self awareness over time. This will make you hold control on yourself.

 Over time this will not only enhance your self awareness but also, you will become the better version of yourself. 

4.Question your belief

Sometimes we act, think and take action in a standard way as per ourselves. But we don't realize that we are holding the old rudimentary beliefs… where we prefer to be good to everyone. We become what society values. 

Here, we pretend rather than behave, we buries ourselves deeper as our self awareness. 

So, question your belief? Challenge your assumptions. Because our beliefs act as a bridge in our journey of self awareness. 

5.Explore yourself

Put yourself in a discomforting situations. Explore yourself to unknown places, unknown people, unknown cuisines, and to the unknown cultures. This will enhance your self awareness like nothing else. 

Because adversities often define our real character. It brings you your real self in front of you. 

That's why travelling is considered the best way to find yourself. 

6.Read books

This helps me a lot in decoding the concept of self awareness. Books taught me, what is self awareness? How to build self awareness?  

Books are the most important source of knowledge. Books broaden our horizons. They help us to understand what works for us and what does not. Books provides us new perspective and different pratical exercises to improve our self awareness.

7.Practice mindful living

Try to live in a present moment. Thinking in the past events or future uncertainties is not going to build in your self awareness.

To enhance mindfulness… practice meditation, deep breathing or simply pay attention to your surroundings.

Try to experience whatever you are doing in the present moment without judging yourself to improve your self awareness. 

Must read:Mindful living in digital age

8.Take criticism as a constructive mechanism to enhance self awareness

Stop being defensive to every counter argument against you. Instead, take it as a constructive feedback. Work upon it. 

Listen to your friends, family or known person carefully, when it is about yourself. Ask them for honest feedback. Try to know more about yourself from their lenses. It will build your self awareness to the next level. 

9.Pursue hobbies

It is also one of the ways to know yourself. Hobbies lead us to spend “alone time” with ourselves. It brings out our likes and dislikes. It improves our self awareness. So, we can continue to do what we like and discontinue what we don't. 

10.Define values

What are your core values? As your values influence your decisions. It will enhance your self awareness. It will help to understand what motivates us in our life, where we need to make change. We regularly have to audit our values, if they comply with our journey of self awareness or not. 

11.Improve your emotional intelligence

Self awareness is important in improving emotional intelligence. But, self regulation is also equally important to improve our emotional intelligence. Self regulation compliments self awareness. 

12.Accept your drawbacks

This will provide you a clear picture of yourself. Because, we often carry our goods and neglect our bads or drawbacks. 

But, we forget that self awareness is all about knowing both the perspectives, then only we get a wholesome idea about ourselves. That's why, if you want to know yourself better, accept your drawbacks and imperfections also. 

13.Listen more than speaking

By speaking we only reflect what we know. Our judgement is based upon our own perspective only. But by listening we get to know the other side's perspective also. Then we better get to know about our response. 

Thus, self awareness is a lifelong journey. It is a process, where we keep digging deeper to know ourselves better. These practices can improve your self awareness to a certain extent. 

Moreover, never let yourself down. You have to behave well with yourself like you do with your loved ones. Try to become your best friend. Remember, you yourself have to tap your back in tough times. 

Please comment and share this blog post, if it anyhow add value to your journey of self awareness. Your feedback is appreciated.