What is Self-Awareness?

A lot of the tips and tricks I’ve given require to first be aware of our thought patterns and behaviours. That advice is talking about self-awareness. A sort of “knowing is half the battle” kind of advice, but when most thoughts and habits are subconscious, understanding what it is and how to be able to do it will help since, as I’ve discovered these last few weeks, it is the first step to change habits or behaviours.

So, what is Self-Awareness exactly?

There are many definitions. And many layers to Self-Awareness, one writer even compared it to the layers of onions and a “navel-centric spiral of endless turtles”. The simplest definition I found was that self-awareness is the ability to focus on our own thoughts, feelings, and behaviour patterns. To notice them without necessarily letting them control us.  

Some psychologists go further and split this into two broad categories and even subdivide according to how they combine (as everything is on a spectrum). So, for these specialist, we have:

• Internal awareness: focusing on what makes up our “Self”. Thoughts, feelings, patterns, habits, and everything else you can think of when you think about your “Self”.
• External awareness: how well you perceive other’s reaction to you for the same thoughts, feelings, patterns, and habits.

This finding has been used many times for leadership training in business and for coaching purposes, as the higher you are on both axes the better you are, and the more aware you are, the better you are at managing stress, and empathising with subordinates and colleagues. What I found interesting was that increasing self-awareness also plays a role in decreasing anxiety and depression (when done right) and increases motivation, self-esteem, and creativity.

Self-awareness is a two-edged sword; however, go too deep too fast and it may be more depressing or anxiety producing, not less. It needs to be done the right way. Luckily, there is some research that explains the importance of this, and understanding can help us navigate the mine-field (or mind-field, whichever way you want to look at it.)

Asking why vs what

The difference between self-awareness and introspection is not big but it is important. There is research that shows that the questions asked during an introspection session can be either helpful or hurtful.

“Why” has little or no borders. “Why” has to be thought up and use the available resources to come up with an answer. Our brains excel at reason-giving. That is what they were made to do. Unfortunately, the conscious brain has no access to the unconscious brain and asking, “Why did I do/say/think that?” will result in an answer but no way to verify if it is the correct answer. The answer may even “feel” right, but was it hormonal or a lack of vitamins that made us act out, or the reasons we came up with? The brain does not have this information, so the answers it comes up with for this question are not very useful and can even be hurtful if our brain comes up with a toxic answer than can become a toxic belief about our “self” (like “I suck” or “I’m boring”) and our impression of how others see us as well.

So how do we avoid the downward spiral of introspection and get all the benefits of self-awareness?

By asking the “what” or “How” questions instead. Instead of “Why did I say that?” think of “what can I do to improve this, or what can I learn from this to avoid repeating it in the future?” For one thing it is easier to act on the response of the question than if our brain responds to a “Why” question with “Because I’m dumb…” and for another, learning to act and not just think can be a great way not to start overthinking.

An interesting point on self-awareness you would think that people that have a lot of experience would be more self-aware and be able to adapt better, but the opposite has been shown in research studies. People with a lot of experience actually demonstrate lower self-awareness because they believe they know all they need to know (to be experts). They will have a more closed-minded approach, less aware of their strengths and weaknesses than someone who is just starting out.

For those in positions of power there is also a link between high power and lower self-awareness. The more power they have the less they can empathise with others… Just a little interesting fact on the subject, but one that doesn’t really surprise me in this case.

Next week I will look at ways of increasing this skill and a few more insights into the subject. For any other questions you may have please leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading!

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.”

– Brene Brown

Resources

https://www.betterup.com/blog/what-is-self-awareness

https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-self-awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it

https://positivepsychology.com/self-awareness-matters-how-you-can-be-more-self-aware/

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-self-awareness-2795023

https://markmanson.net/self-awareness