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November 15, 2024
You spend every day with yourself, so you'd think you know yourself pretty well, right?
Yet, many of us still find ourselves in jobs we don't enjoy, relationships that don't meet our needs, or lives that feel off course. "How did we get here?"
Maybe the truth is, we don't know ourselves as well as we thought. Maybe developing self-awareness can help with that.
In its simplest form, self-awareness helps us understand what we stand for, why we feel the way we do, and highlights our strengths and weaknesses. Like an internal compass, it guides us to make decisions aligned with our values. Without self-awareness we may blindly drift through life, completely unaware of our own needs and desires, lacking clarity and direction.
Life is challenging to navigate, even at the best of times. All too often we make decisions that don't align with our internal compass and we arrive at destinations of discontent. We find ourselves dissatisfied in jobs that lack meaning, in relationships that feel incomplete, or living lives far from what we once envisioned. We do all these things and then wonder why we are left feeling unfulfilled.
How often do we meet people unhappy in their jobs? So many of us just fall into a career without ever intending to. Then there are those that find themselves enslaved by time and money they invested into their careers long ago. Others who are trapped under the burden of financial responsibility. As a result, we may never truly ask ourselves if we're in the right place.
Developing self-awareness in our work involves identifying whether our roles align with what's important to us. But doing that requires us to know what we stand for! A good place to start is by defining our personal values as these core values reveal what matters most.
Now your current role may already leave you feeling fulfilled. Or you might find you like what you do, but you struggle to assign meaning to it. Equally, you may realise that you are far from what is important to you and chasing after things that you don't really care about. Developing self-awareness allows us to start asking ourselves questions that help identify what is missing from our work so we can begin bridging the gap to a more fulfilling career.
There are many reasons relationships fail, but it's likely we are half the problem. If that's the case, it's worth investing time to understand ourselves better. Many of us enter relationships without clarity on what we want, taking unmet needs as signs of incompatibility. But how often do we stop and consider what we need from the relationships in our lives?
Self-awareness in relationships is about understanding who we are. If we know why we feel the way we do, our strengths, and our weaknesses, it becomes easier to communicate our needs to our partner. When we better understand our own emotions, the more empathy we can have for those we love. This provides a greater level of understanding when conflicts arise and things get hard.
Questions like these help us take ownership of our side of the relationship. How can you expect someone to meet your needs in a relationship if you don't take the time to identify what you need? Developing self-awareness allows us to help our partners give us the love we require so that we can build more fulfilling relationships.
Many of us wander through life without clear purpose or direction. We make decisions based on what we feel in the moment without taking time to stop and consider what is most important to us. We continue doing this until somewhere down the road, often triggered by a milestone or traumatic event, we find ourselves asking, "How the hell did I end up here?"
Developing self-awareness in life means understanding who we are and what we stand for. It empowers us to make decisions that will inevitably lead us in the direction of what is important. Which tends to make decision making easier and helps us to identify those feelings of uneasiness when we take actions that conflict with our values.
At the end of the day, this is your life to live. Asking yourself questions like these helps to identify what you want from life. It is easy to get wrapped up in the everyday routine and forget about the bigger picture. Self-awareness allows us to see beyond daily demands, guiding us toward a more fulfilling life.
If we all invested time in developing self-awareness it would make our lives a little easier to navigate. We'd learn from our mistakes a bit faster, notice when we're off course sooner, and follow paths of less regret. With greater self-awareness, we'd find meaning in our work, foster healthier relationships, and create lives of clarity and fulfillment. Ultimately, this would lead us to experience more fulfilling lives.
Where in your life could deeper self-awareness make a difference?