10 Areas of Self-Awareness You Should Understand
What is self-awareness? And why is it so important? It is because, without self-awareness, you can never solve the emotional and mental problems which are otherwise solvable. And not being able to solve these problems keeps you away from inner peace. There are 10 critical areas of self-awareness as listed below:
- The VAK model:
- Your personal archetype:
- Knowing yourself:
- What are your life values?
- Conflict within yourself
- Negative triggers
- The impact of your parents:
- Your limitations:
- Harming yourself:
- Future goals
VAK stands for Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic. This model suggests that we primarily process any information through three of our five senses – seeing, hearing and feeling. All these three senses work together while processing information. After that, the processing is just repetition. The degree of self-awareness depends on how aware are you about your inner image, sound, and feelings. Everyone is more or less aware of one VAK model as compared to other. Understanding what model you are less aware of can expand your self-awareness.
Your life’s purpose is clarified by answering questions like is there God? Why does life exist? What kind of nature do I have? The answers to these questions and your stand related to these topics will bring clarity about your personality.
Self-awareness is all about knowing yourself. Your perspective about what is good and what is bad about you. Your belief about what you are capable of achieving in life and who you are right now. Everyone has mixed feelings about themselves – some negative, some positive. Your self-belief shapes your personality and helps determine what you are willing to do in life.
Your life values determine what is important to you in life. Whether your principles are most important, or health or money or success? These life values guide you in life and help make important decisions. If principles are important to you, then your decisions are driven by that. If health is important to you, then you make healthy decisions. Similarly, if money is important, you will make decisions that are money-centric. If success is important to you, you will take decisions which will lead you to greater success.
Your beliefs or values can conflict with each other. Inner conflict is a common phenomenon. It may happen that you believe that you are capable of solving your emotional problems, healing them; but at the same time, you may be harboring serious doubts. Even your values can conflict. You may value safety and security, but at the same time, you may also love your freedom. Such conflicts can make decision-making very difficult.
Every person has some triggers which immediately bring to the state of negativity or frustration in a person. There are always certain things, internal or external, that triggers bad emotional behavior. It could be anything, like a particular sound, or an image or even a visual. When you know your negative triggers, you can begin to work on that to turn it into a positive response.
No kid’s childhood is detached from the influence of their parents. Every person has some portion of their parents inside them. Your values, behavior, beliefs, personalities are all defined and influenced by your parents in your informative years. It’s hard to admit that especially when you have negative feelings for your parents. No one likes to admit that they are behaving like their fathers or mothers when they hate them. A high level of self-awareness will show you how to accept these facts and change things that require changing.
We all have personal limitations. Sometimes they are self-imposed while some are due to genuine lack of talent or skills. Knowing your limitations can be a huge relief. When you know what you can’t do, it will help you avoid overcome that and also help you avoid making inappropriate commitments.
Coming in the way of your own success is a universal problem. Every person does that some time or the other. Self-sabotage is the most bewildering issue. We usually look outside and blame others for our failure. But self-awareness helps avoid harming yourself.
Every human being has goals in life. We plan our future according to our goals. Self-awareness helps you determine where you stand today and where you need to reach in future according to your goals.
Recent Comments
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Interesting. It makes me think of dogs and cats. Some who are rescues can have less than perfect behaviors. They may be defensive and growl or hiss or swat. They may be scared and cower or hide and refuse to come out.
People often write these animals off as "bad". In reality they are usually just a product of their "upbringing" like people. If they were abused they have learned to not trust people and be defensive. Two of our cats and some of our dogs had some of these or other issues. They were rescued and we don't know how they were treated in the past but it probably wasn't good.
It takes time and patience to retrain them to be able to trust people and feel safe. Once that has happened they are now nearly "perfect". They are calm, confident and "good".
People's bad experiences growing up can and do leave lasting effects. There is no way to simply move on overnight and not have lasting effects. They can't escape their past without time and work and patience.
Thanks for such a thought-provoking article.
M