Self-awareness is the ability to understand your strengths and weaknesses and work on being a more conscious person. By being more self-aware, you can improve relationships with the people around you, including supervisors and coworkers, and your productivity levels.

So what is self-awareness, and how can you develop it in your life and career?

What is Self-Awareness and Why is it Important

Self-awareness is mindfulness about your strengths and weaknesses, interactions with others, physical presence, and emotional and physical states. It’s vital to have introspection because how you think and feel inside can impact how you communicate with others. Self-awareness can also help you make more informed choices about your work and life. Let’s take a look at how we can improve self-awareness.

Find an Accountability Partner

Step one is to have a trusted confidant you can speak with about your thoughts and feelings. This could be a professional, such as a therapist or counselor. It can also be a close friend or family member as someone who knows you as well as you know yourself. You can check your temperature on certain things before you act by asking them their thoughts.

Be Open to Feedback

Sometimes, when we’re not fully aware of how our actions and reactions affect others, we can get immediately defensive when we’re given constructive feedback. But feedback is never intended to make you feel bad about yourself; that’s how you’ve chosen to interpret the information. Instead, allow yourself to be open to feedback and make positive adjustments.

Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness is often associated with meditation, but that doesn’t mean it’s about sitting in a quiet room and shutting out all thoughts. Mindfulness is a practice where you spend time with your thoughts and feelings and allow yourself to experience things fully. When you practice mindfulness, you open yourself up to more positive interactions or better ways to interpret or deal with adverse circumstances.

Self-Assess Regularly

For the self-aware person, it’s not about steadfastly adhering to your one and only perception of yourself. It’s about allowing yourself to reassess regularly and make changes in your thoughts and behaviors to create positive change. You don’t have to hold on to things that are no longer serving you; you can change your mind about certain things. Just know why and how to do that.

Contact the team at Nextaff to see how we can help you reach your professional goals today.