4 Steps To Self-Awareness

By: Camden Baucke LLP

Self-awareness is not inherently good. It is a tool, and it’s usefulness depends on how you use it. In its simplest form, self-awareness is gathering information about your actions, emotions, and thoughts. What you then choose to do with that information is your choice. It can be useful in relationships both at home and at work. It can assist you with improving your craft or honing your skills. However, it can also provide you more ammunition to criticize yourself. It can cause you to isolate yourself from relationships or stop progress right in its tracks. Self-awareness is like a hammer, it can build you up, or break you to pieces. There is a healthy method to increasing your self-awareness, and it starts with acceptance.

#1 Acceptance

Acceptance is not the same as approval. When you accept that you feel a negative emotion, it does not mean you’re settling to stay in that emotion and not strive for something better. Acceptance means the simple acknowledgement that your feelings and actions are exactly what they are in that moment in time. For example, if you see a fight, acceptance does not mean approving of the fight. You would accept the fight as happening in reality, which then would lead you to a decision of what to do next. Like the fight, you don’t have to approve of your current habits or thoughts, but they must be accepted as occurring if you plan on changing them. Once you’ve accepted your current condition in a non-judgmental manner, you then have room to reflect.

#2 Reflection

Now that you can accept your situation, it’s time to reflect on its parts. No action, emotion, or thought occurs in isolation. Reflection means taking a look at all factors in a situation. This includes causes, context, and consequences for everything. Reflection is identifying the weight of all the different factors involved in the context of your actions and thoughts. For example, if you want to react less angrily to political discussions, then you must consider yourself, your audience, and the context and history surrounding both you and who you speak to. This step is crucial because unless you have all the relevant information surrounding a certain habit, then you have no guidance on how to act later. Your actions will need to be created to directly address all variables you accounted for while reflecting. 

#3 Action

Now that you have accepted your situation and reflected on all the factors involved, you can turn thoughts to actions. These actions must have specific targets and goals in mind. Sometimes these goals are not one step away but several, like a game of chess where you are thinking multiple moves ahead. While thinking ahead is important, the purpose behind your actions must not be to mask some part of yourself. These actions you choose must allow you to be yourself around others, but to do so in a way that is considerate of your well-being as much as everyone else’s. Like other actions to create change in your life, being receptive to feedback is crucial in making a sustainable change.

#4 Accountability

Taking account of your actions is a daunting task. This is especially true if you are reactive to failure or are perfectionistic. Taking feedback can easily lead to self-criticism and shame, taking you back to the initial step of self-awareness. Internal accountability is the evaluation of your own outcomes. This process must be patient, respectful, yet accurate to what you’re evaluating. For external accountability, you are taking feedback from others. Openness to feedback allows you to be humble. Humility is not self-criticism however, it is accepting and approaching your mistakes and missteps in a nonjudgmental manner. If you make mistakes, that’s okay. Mistakes are what make us human. Taking accountability opens your eyes to your mistakes and allows you to keep learning, growing, and going towards your goals.

Bring it All Together

Self-awareness is difficult. Many of us do not like what we find in the mirror. However, it is a necessary and helpful tool for improving relationships and your quality of living. If you can look at yourself in an accepting way (#1), reflect on the context of your life and other’s lives (#2), act to make a difference (#3), and be open to your feedback as well as others (#4), you can truly become self-aware.

Please remember, it’s not about becoming perfect, it’s about doing the best with what you’ve got.

If you would like to start your own journey towards self-awareness and better mental health, please visit greatlakesmentalhealth.com

THANK YOU FOR READING!