The one thing I have tried to actively work on since the beginning of the year is my self-awareness. At first, it wasn’t intentional, the events that were happening in my life kinda forced me to introspect and do some serious inner work.
I’ve got a long way to go, but so far, it’s been a worthwhile experience and I wanted to share it with you.
So what is self-awareness?
In a nutshell, it’s the process of knowing and understanding yourself better – your thoughts, feelings, attitudes and gaps. As busy moms, it’s easy for us to live life in “survival” mode and fall into the trap of not working on ourselves and our own development or progress.
The benefits of improving your self-awareness are that you start to take greater responsibility for yourself, your thoughts, feelings and your actions; which can improve all the relationships in your life, including the one with your children.
When you know the part you play in a situation or problem, you can start to work on the things that need improvement. You will also be able to identify situations or people that don’t “fit” well with you. You will be clearer on your values and priorities.
It’s really not an easy journey. It takes courage and time to be honest with yourself because its easier to cover up our issues with excuses.
Things you can do to increase your self-awareness:
- Spend time alone. Meditate or sit in silence to reflect. It’s a hard one for moms, but it’s the ultimate luxury that we all deserve.
- Journal daily to unpack how your day went and list the things that you are grateful for.
- Create a vision board to visualize what the best version of yourself could look like.
- Listen to inspiring podcasts on your way to work or subscribe to YouTube channels that uplift and resonate with you. Follow inspiring accounts on social media.
- Be open to change and growth. On this journey you will discover things that you may not like about yourself. Knowing that you CAN change and being willing to do so creates a powerful shift towards your growth.
10 questions you can ask yourself to develop your own self-awareness:
- What makes me happy?
- What are 10 things I love about myself?
- What are 3 things I don’t like about myself?
- What were my wins for the day? Week? Month? What are the wins that excited me the most?
- Which areas of my life can I improve? (Work/home/spiritual/fitness, marriage, etc)
- Which relationship do I need to work on? and what would the improvement of the relationship mean for me?
- What blindspots could I potentially have? If you can’t answer this, ask your partner or a trusted friend for feedback.
- What inspires me?
- What makes me feel anxious or stressed?
- What do I want to be remembered for?
As you start this journey, be gentle with yourself. The aim is not to break your self esteem or to judge yourself, but rather to better understand your strengths, your thinking, traits and habits.
When you know know yourself better, you will approach everything from an informed perspective. Your accountability to yourself will improve and you will more than likely not be offended by the things other people do – because you will understand that they have nothing to do with you. As your relationship with yourself improves through self-awareness, you will also improve all the other relationships.
You are worth it!
What have you done to improve your self-awareness lately? Would love to hear from you.
Love,
Modern Zulu Mom
6 Comments
I have been spending a lot of time by myself and paying attention to my thoughts. It’s so easy to go into negativity mode and einv aware of my thoughts has been helping me reframe things.
Reframing is so helpful – because we tend to let our minds drift off with the negative thoughts. Hope this is still working well for you Mama.
Great post, it hit the nail right on the head. I am newly single and after almost 7 years in a mostly suppressing marriage I now need to figure out who I am, and who I want to be. On this journey of self awareness I have gone through a few potholes, but feel I will make it out in one piece – at least I will know which piece!
Esrida, this journey can’t be an easy one for you. You should be proud of yourself for having so much self-awareness – it will help you identify your next steps and keep you on track. Wishing you all the goodness for this part of your life.
A topic I am very passionate about…I spend time alone to reflect and do things that make me happy. And I have learned to be grateful and complain less.
I love that Mama! So much positivity comes from being grateful. Complaining is a hard habit to break, well done!