What are the things that most Self-Aware People do?
The very first step in finding a solution is to acknowledge that you have a problem, and that is true for every aspect of our lives. This is what is widely known as self-awareness, which essentially involves being aware of different facets, including one’s feelings, behaviours, and different traits. It is not just about being aware of your feelings and behaviours but more importantly, it is about learning to better understand why you feel what you feel and the reason behind your every behaviour. Those who can understand this, are in a better position in life to bring about a change in order to build a life as they would want. This would not be possible for someone who does not have any clarity about who they are and what they want, and hence it would be difficult for them to initiate the process of change.
People those who are self-aware, understand their own needs, desires, feelings, habits and everything that makes them behave in a certain way. It is apparent that the more you know yourself well, the better you are at adapting to different life changes. The more you know about your habits or your problems, the better you are in improving those. So what is that most self-aware people do that makes them better at this game?
They know what is important to them and they live by it
Most of the things that we do in life are what is important to our parents, friends, colleagues or what someone else thought is important. That is the reason why many of us are unhappy, as we hardly do things that are important to us. As an exercise, write down everything that is important to you. If required take help from a mentor to do this, and then order the list from most important to least important. Now that you have the list, evaluate how much of those you really practice in your life.
Self-aware people not only have the knowledge of what is important to them, but they also make sure that they live by them. If you simply know what is important to you, but rarely practice it then it surely will hurt your goals. If you continue doing what others feel is important, then you are going to drain yourself down. What is important to you may not necessarily be important to someone else, and hence their opinion should not take precedence over yours.
Also Read:
1. What Makes You Happy?: How small changes can lead to big improvements in your life
2. The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life
3. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
They admit mistakes and take responsibility
Although everyone makes mistakes, it reflects badly when you don’t own up your mistakes. Few people will always find it easier to blame the others, instead of taking up the responsibility for the things that went wrong. But then is it really that easy to blame others, even when you won’t get what you want?
Self-aware people will always take responsibility because that is how they can truly work on it to make it better. They understand that it gives them an opportunity to learn from the mistake so that it never gets repeated. It is easy to understand your own flaws when you take up responsibility for your mistakes. It also helps you gain respect from others who in turn would be willing to help you to make things right. It is always liberating to take up responsibility rather than blaming someone else for your own deeds.
Also Read:
1. Ten Dumbest Mistakes Smart People Make and How To Avoid Them: Simple and Sure Techniques for Gaining Greater Control of Your Life
2. Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes
3. Taking Responsibility: Taking Responsibility for Your Life
They seek feedback
It is important to be aware of your feelings, habits, and behaviour, but it is even more important to know whether you are doing it the right way. People who are self-aware always seek feedback from their friends, colleagues, and family to understand how they really come across to others. In the same way, take help from your friends to get a direct and honest view about how they feel about you. There are several psychometric tests as well which are useful to read the traits and characteristics of oneself.
Also Read:
1. How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens
2. Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well
3. The Feedback Fix: Dump the Past, Embrace the Future, and Lead the Way to Change
They learn to place themselves in other’s shoes
It is often said, there isn’t anything right or wrong but it is the perspective from which you view the situation. Unless you take an effort to understand something from someone else’s perspective, one might always feel as if the others are wrong. It is important to understand things from others point of view as well if you truly want to know someone. Self-aware people always try to step in other’s shoes and walk for some distance before judging that person. Inculcating this habit in oneself helps us to gain the much-needed perspective in tough situations.
Also Read:
1. How To Analyze People: The Ultimate Guide to Speed-Reading People Through Behavioral Psychology, Analyzing Body Language, Understand What Every Person is Saying Using Emotional Intelligence, Dark
2. Toughest People to Love: How to Understand, Lead, and Love the Difficult People in Your Life — Including Yourself
3. Manipulation Tactics: 10 Techniques to Influence Human Psychology & Behavior, Understand How People Manipulate, and Effectively Use Persuasion to Your Advantage!
They are grateful to people
Every individual who has come into our lives have had their impact on us, whether they have helped us, loved us, cared for us, disliked us, or offended us. These people who come in our lives are the ones who have given us our identity, and so we should be grateful to them. If you don’t like who you are, you might not be grateful to others, but that will never be the case with self-aware people because they always like who they are.
Also Read:
1. The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias
2. The Next Person You Meet in Heaven: The Sequel to The Five People You Meet in Heaven
3. When Strangers Meet: How People You Don’t Know Can Transform You (TED Books)
These are some of the things that self-aware people live by, and there are much more as well. However, the main essence is to learn the art of self-awareness and by not just being aware of one’s feelings, habits, and behaviours but knowing in a complete sense, who you are.
