What Is Self-Awareness and How To Make It a Daily Habit
Use this process to become more self-aware so that you change your thoughts, limiting beliefs, emotions, and behaviors.
Self-awareness is the super-power that will get you out of autopilot and knee-jerk reactions. It is the daily habit of noticing your automatic thoughts, feelings, and actions and reflecting on them so that you identify what triggers you and how.
Self-awareness requires:
- Understanding — knowing what it is, what it looks like in practice, and how to implement it daily,
- Deciding to just do it, and
- Motivating oneself to keep at it until it becomes a habit
Once you get the hang of it you will feel like you are on another planet. You will feel and act differently! You will have more self-control, you will exert greater self-discipline! You will be able to craft your own future!
I only started this practice in my thirties and my world has slowly shifted. Only a few years back I used to judge others, to criticize them but make excuses for myself. I didn’t feel as if I was taking 100% responsibility for my own emotions, thoughts, and actions. I allowed myself to be influenced by others and I let myself believe I was a victim of circumstances. I secretly wished for more self-control and self-discipline, as I was observing others having different life experiences and perceptions than me, better results, more friends, and a better grip over their emotions.
While growing up I was instilled with a lot of beliefs that held me back over the years. I wasn’t aware of how I had been creating my own feelings of anxiety and fear. I didn’t realize I kept myself isolated from people, instead of connecting deeply with them, because of beliefs my parents had taught me.
Then, once I became aware of how I was blocking myself, I didn’t know how to change my own thoughts and emotions, all of which seemed to pop up without me having any kind of control over them.
I found my answer to be the daily practice of self-awareness. Slowly but surely, I started questioning my perceptions of reality. I am still on this journey, but I feel completely different.
So, What Is Awareness?
Awareness is the state of being conscious of something. It is the state of bringing something to your active attention.
What Is Self-Awareness?
Self-awareness is becoming aware of our beliefs, thoughts, and words, to become responsible for and ultimately improve the stories we are creating.
Self-awareness is the state of being conscious of our inner world –our inner states, our thoughts, our feelings, our bodily sensations, our emotional triggers, and our unconscious behaviors.
When we are self-aware, we put our automatic reactions on hold and we start to live consciously, to reflect, to ask ourselves questions. The target is to uncover our unconscious patterns and triggers so that we run them instead of having them run us. We start to think about what is happening to us, instead of simply reacting to external stimuli.
Types of Self-Awareness
We can practice self-awareness in relation to a myriad of topics:
Emotional self-awareness
How we feel influences how we think, perceive the world, and act.
- What emotions do you have? What do we feel?
- Where do you feel emotions in your body?
- What are your perceptions about specific events?
Mental/intellectual self-awareness
How we think determines how we feel and what actions we take or don’t take.
- What are your thoughts about specific topics?
- What are your beliefs and assumptions about specific topics?
- How do you perceive the world? Are you more optimistic/pessimistic? Is the world a friendly or hostile place?
Physical self-awareness
How and what we feel in our bodies (emotions, pain, physical sensations) affect how we think and what we do or don’t do.
- What bodily sensations do you have?
- Do you feel pain? How does the pain feel? Where is it located?
- Do you feel tense? Where? At all times or in particular circumstances?
Internal self-awareness
Our “internal” self-awareness refers to anything that is already inside of us, such as our thoughts, beliefs, reactions, assumptions, worldview, which, when triggered by specific things, influence how we react. Our inner world determines how we act.
We must ask ourselves questions to uncover what our triggers are, to be able to handle them.
- What are your already acquired beliefs? What were you taught as you were growing up?
- What do you believe about specific topics?
- What is your personality?
- What are some emotional states that characterize you? What is your usual mood?
- How do you perceive the world — do you see the glass as half empty or half full?
External self-awareness
When we live in an unaware state of mind, external stimuli of all sorts can influence what we feel, how we think, and how we act in the world.
The “external” awareness refers to anything that may happen outside of us, but which can easily trigger us: people, events, situations, things.
- Who/What triggers you at home? At work?
- How do they trigger you/make you feel?
- When do they trigger you? In what kind of situations? How do you usually react?
Topic-related self-awareness
We have sets of beliefs for each specific topic we have come across in our lives, a set of lens we use to look at the world. These beliefs literally make our reality, so it is of crucial importance to your happiness and well-being to identify what they are, how you have formed them in the past, and which ones still serve you and want to keep.
How we ultimately think is a choice, a decision, albeit it is not always a conscious one!
- How do you see the world? Is it friendly, is it supportive?
- What are our beliefs about — the world, life, politics, spirituality, religion, science, education, family, poverty, wealth, etc..?
- How do you form your beliefs today? Is it a conscious process? Are you aware? Are you aware of when you are being influenced?
- How objective/subjective are you when forming your opinions?
What are the main benefits of being self-aware?
Being self-aware has a lot of benefits.
- We get to reflect deeper on a wide range of topics; we become wiser.
- We do not take things and ideas for granted. We become aware of how we are influenced by others. We ponder on the ideas we hear, and we strive to decide for ourselves.
- We seek the truth.
- We put things in perspective and no longer automatically feel like victims.
- We become more objective and honest with ourselves. We assess ourselves more accurately.
- We understand our values, which is what drives our behaviors.
What does it mean to be self-aware?
Being self-aware means:
- We are able to go meta on our thinking –we observe our thoughts.
- We discover what triggers us emotionally and we put the events that trigger us into perspective.
- We control ourselves more — our thoughts, our reactions, our interpretations. We may not always be able to control our emotions, but we will recognize them when we are triggered. With deliberate practice, in time, we will be able to control them, diminish their hold on us and even nip them in the bud.
- We know what we want in life; we are clear on our personal and professional goals.
- We notice when others try to influence us and are able to stop ourselves from getting caught in that.
- We know ourselves. We know what we find personally rewarding, what gives us satisfaction, what motivates us, what gives us joy. We are clear on the types of situations that give us the most satisfaction.
- We figure out with more accuracy what we did wrong when we fail at something because we assess our performances more objectively.
- We understand the impact our actions have on those around us.
- We examine how people respond to us during our interactions.
Use this process daily to become more self-aware
The ultimate purpose of self-awareness is for us to live a happier life, whatever happiness may be for you.
Usually, being happier in our lives involves improving something about ourselves: replacing a pattern of thinking, changing a worldview, assigning different meanings to our perceptions, mastering our own emotions, gaining control over our thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Follow the process below to incorporate a daily habit of self-awareness in your life:
1. First, make a list of all the things you would like to change about yourself / improve in your life.
What are your “change” wishes? Make a list.
2. Then, prioritize this list. Pick what you are going to work on first. You cannot work on everything at once, even though you might be enthused about it. You must choose up to 3 things and focus on them diligently, daily, over an extended period of time. Otherwise, you’ll start strong but fizzle out due to overwhelm and time constraints.
So, what 3 intentions will you set for your transformation process? What will you work with — your emotions, your thoughts, a bad habit, your stress levels? You can choose anything you would like to improve in your life.
Whatever you choose, pick 3 intentions only.
3. Get yourself a little notebook.
How to write in your notebook:
- On the first page write down the 3 things you have selected to work on.
- Then, every morning take 5 minutes to re-write the 3 things you are working on. Copy them again and again, every morning.
Each morning, set the intention in your mind that you are going to remain aware during the day of these three things. You are going to notice them when they happen.
- Then, every time you notice any of them, you must ask yourself some relevant questions. Go META on your thoughts. Questions them!
At first, you will not be able to do it while you are in the midst of the action, but in time, with every new occurrence, as you are setting your intentions again and again at the beginning of each day, you will become ever more able to catch yourself right in the action and modify your behavior.
4. Every day (preferably during the evenings) jot down in your notebook any pertinent insights related to your 3 intentions.
5. Review your notebook every week and contemplate your progress.
6. Get yourself a yellow plastic bracelet. You will use it to keep reminding yourself to remain aware throughout the day. The less the bracelet fits with your personal style and outfit, the better. This way you are constantly reminded to remain self-aware.
7. Keep practicing! Use this method for at least 21 days — preferably 66 (apparently it takes 66 days to change a habit) — ideally 100 (to make sure the change is permanent).
Conclusion
Your goal is to keep at this practice until you fill out this notebook entirely!
Aim to write in your notebook every day, if not with insights, at least with the daily re-writing of your 3 intentions. Why? Because by setting your intentions daily, you will remain focused on them! You will remain aware, without doing anything else!
I promise you, even if you merely rewrite your 3 top intentions every morning, by the time you get to the end of your notebook, you will be a much more aware person!
