There are several ingredients essential for achieving success.  Self-awareness is one of them. People are more comfortable in knowing about others than about themselves. A few people have the habit of complaining, condemning, and criticizing others’ behavior and nature.

They cannot digest when others think and behave with them as they think that they are better than others.  

In fact, nobody is perfect in this world.  We all have our strengths and weaknesses and being aware of the same will help us to become successful persons.

What is Self-Awareness?

Self-awareness is all about knowing oneself thoroughly such as attitudes, aptitude, needs, desires, goals, habits, emotions, strengths and weaknesses, etc., In brief, it means knowing your personality.  

Self-awareness is nothing but being conscious about yourself and how you act and react in certain situations. 

We all have a low level of awareness but think that we know about ourselves better.  It is, in fact, wrong.  

When you know yourself properly, you judge yourself properly and you take your judgments seriously. It requires a lot of self-knowledge to be aware of yourself.

“He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.” —Lao Tzu

Merits of Self-Awareness

• People with self-awareness stand a better chance of winning the game because they know about themselves.   If any mistake is made, they immediately take remedial action as they know about themselves. 
• Self-awareness improves your judgment and decision-making skills. It helps in professional and personality development as you overcome your weaknesses.
• It bridges the gap between skills you have and those you don’t have and exploits your existing skills up to the hilt.  
• It helps in choosing the right career and ensures fast career growth.  
• When you know more about yourself, most of the problems in your life are resolved automatically.
• You can become a successful mentor, facilitator, teacher, leader, and role model with better self-awareness.

How to Know About Yourself 

Understanding yourself is a crucial step towards personal growth and effective relationships. Many people go through life unaware that their feelings towards others are often a reflection of their feelings towards themselves. To foster a comfortable relationship with others, it’s essential to first be comfortable with who you are.

Below are some practical steps to help you embark on a journey of self-discovery and self-awareness.

• Take time to think things through.  Spend some time analyzing yourself.  Self-introspection is essential to be aware of yourself.
• Go for the MBTI (Meyers and Briggs Type Instrument) test as it helps you find out what type of personality you are. 
• There are several psychometric instruments to know your personality.  When such instruments are executed by professional trainers then it becomes easier to know more about yourself.
• Take feedback from your colleagues, friends, and relatives.  Take their feedback separately so that the common qualities running across the thread can be taken as the correct characteristics.  
• Go for meditation as it reveals about your mind. Or go to a serene place and think about yourself to take stock of your qualities. 
• Take a notebook and write down your thoughts, ideas, and insights.  Record the same for analysis and evaluation. 
• Take intrapersonal feedback regularly.  For this, it is essential to engage in regular inner dialogue. 
• Constantly monitor your actions and their fallout. 
• Take the help of professional counselors, clinical psychologists, and executive coaches who can provide you with correct feedback.  Find out the inventory of your interests and personality that help in developing your self-awareness.

“Self awareness is the ability to take an honest look at your life without any attachment to it being right or wrong, good or bad.” – Debbie Ford

Ron’s Honest Feedback about Susan

People tend to judge others.  But they don’t accept when others judge them.  Rather they would be shocked by others’ feedback about themselves.  

Let us look at an example where two colleagues named, Susan and Ron worked in an office.  They had good relations and gelled with each other well.  One day, Susan asked Ron to give feedback as she wanted to know about herself from the perspective of Ron.  

Ron was straightforward by nature and he analyzed Susan from several dimensions both personally and professionally and prepared a report containing her strengths and weaknesses.  

It took around a week for Ron to generate the personality report of Susan.  He went to the extent of guessing the MBTI personality type of Susan based on her behavior, nature, and intellectual temperament. 

When Susan saw the report she could not digest and she did not agree with Ron in several areas.  Ron clearly said that he was not perfect in assessment but offered feedback the way he provided to several students when he worked as a faculty member in a Business School.  

Since then, Susan distanced from Ron as she never expected her nature to be like that.  It led to the severance of their amicable relations finally costing their friendship.  

The lesson to be learned from it is people don’t accept themselves when others offer their feedback because they think about themselves differently. There is always a gap between an individual’s imagination about himself/herself with that of others.

Conclusion

Self-awareness is all about being aware of your intentions, actions, emotions, feelings, attitude, and aptitude so that you can channel them successfully for achieving all-round success—be it personally, professionally, or socially.

When you know yourself you grow as an individual. You develop self-acceptance which in turn helps others to accept you as an individual. You become self-motivated and it leads to achieving success.  

Self-awareness enables you to grow in your chosen area of interest.  

To sum up, success comes to those who have better self-awareness themselves as it helps in improving themselves by overcoming their weaknesses and reinforcing their strengths.