How may we develop Self-Awareness?

In my last post, I had written about how my young friend was able to shift his perspectives as he began to look inwards and develop some self-awareness.  When we are in the grip of some strong emotions, we are unable to view our situations dispassionately and arrive at a satisfactory solution for ourselves. We often find ourselves triggered when we encounter similar situations and find ourselves stuck in those emotional patterns. This in turn, gives rise to increased frustration with ourselves and the relationships or situations around us.

In this case, how may we start to cultivate self-awareness?

An important part of my journey through life begins with looking within myself  for insights. How do I react in certain situations? What triggers my emotional reactions to those situations? How may I choose to respond to other people in those situations, rather than react? And if I choose to respond, do I have better results in terms of those relationships? This exercise is important for children as they grow into their teenage years and beyond to high school and college. Teenage is particularly fraught with bewildering changes and is exacerbated with social pressures and the challenges of high school. As I am about to graduate from high school, what kind of work do I want to engage in? What kind of career would I like for myself? As I start to ask these questions, more insights emerge about who I am as a person. Do I like working with my hands?  Do I like working with other people?  Do I like helping other people? Slowly career choices start to crystallize.

The hope and desire is that the habit of seeking within for answers is encouraged and cultivated throughout one’s life.

On the flip-side, it is not just important for me to look within myself for insights and answers, but also necessary to gain an understanding of how others view me. Different research studies and articles on Self-awareness suggest that introspection alone is not enough to gain a comprehensive view of oneself.  Introspection alone may cause a person to be overly critical or harsh with himself and may be counter-productive in such cases. It is also important to seek to understand how others view us. This is particularly true in the work-place as I seek to make a space for myself in my career. And as I venture forth to build significant relationships in my life.

Self-awareness is, therefore, a balance between how I view myself and how others view me. In seeking to find out how others view me, I discover aspects of myself that I was unaware of – my ‘blind spots’ – which educate me and serve to give me a more comprehensive view of myself. While it is undoubtedly uncomfortable to seek and receive feedback from others, it offers me a window into myself and provides me with rich opportunities for growth and expansion. And as I become more open to seeking and welcoming feedback, I am actually able to respond to situations with an understanding that was not possible earlier. I therefore, become less reactive and more responsive.

How Awareness Can Change Perspectives

‘We cannot become what we want by remaining what we are’ - Max Depree

My young friend is living abroad and is looking for a different job opportunity so that he can come back to this country. While traveling abroad and working there for the last one year has been an amazing learning opportunity, he is ready to come back home to a more familiar environment. He misses little things and misses being close to his family and friends.

When he started to look for a job, he was starting to get stressed. It did not help that he had started working on a project which kept him working six days a week with fourteen hour-days. While he is used to working with a fierce intensity and determination, he is also particular about maintaining some semblance of work-life balance.  So equally, the job search was getting to be intense and needed focus and concentration; yet he was finding he had very little time and even less energy to do the needful when he had one day off.

What was interesting was hearing him talk to me two days ago. His tone of voice was different and he was enthusiastic about the insights that he had had. He routinely displays a maturity well beyond his years and is given to frequent introspection and self-awareness. He had done some soul searching and realized that he was experiencing feelings of despondency and desperation in relation to his job search which seemed to be a repeat of what he went through last year when he was looking for his first break. It appears that when he realized this about himself and became aware, he immediately decided that he was not going to go down that path again and suffer from the same emotional down slide. This awareness seems to have motivated him to change his perspective completely. In so doing, he shifted emotionally to a more optimistic view. Interestingly, this helped him see new possibilities for himself and helped pivot him towards what he truly wants to focus on.

When we are used to doing things a certain way and have a set of outcomes to show for the way we do things habitually, it is impossible for us to have a different set of outcomes by continuing to do the same things. If we want different outcomes, we need to change what we are doing. While this seems elementary, it is anything but. What helps in a situation like this is self-awareness. When my young friend became aware that he was experiencing the same negative emotions, his awareness helped him to observe his own behavior and decide that he did not want to go down that path and repeat the experience. Instead, when he consciously chose to change how he viewed his situation, his outcomes changed.