Habits To Enhance Your Self-Awareness

by Andreea Prodan
in PERSONAL GROWTH

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How well do you know yourself? Do you know the things that make you smile ear to ear, your pet peeves, your boundaries and what makes your soul sparkle with joy and gratitude?

Self-awareness if the conscious knowledge of ones character and feelings, but I would dare to say it’s more than that. Self-awareness is the foundation for every action you take or cease to take. It is impossible to take “aligned action” or “go for dreams” or “find the right friends or partner”, if you don’t create an intimate relationship with yourself. It can be easier at times to trust other people’s opinions, let’s say your parents, husband than your own, because you spent a lot of time with these people and you got to trust them. If you never spend time with yourself, how can you trust yourself and your opinion. Trust within yourself is build in the same way trust in other is build. It requires you showing up for yourself time and time again. I have a few practices and habits that have made a bit difference in building trust and confidence in myself.

What is the intention behind what you do?

Think of intentionality as the foundation of everything you do. We don’t do anything aimlessly, even the things we do out of habit and do mostly unconsciously, they also have an intention behind them. If I feel sad and I pick up my phone to scroll on social media or watch something, the intention behind it is to avoid feeling my emotions and get a quick fix. I can do this unconsciously, yet if I take a second and myself “What is the intention behind it?”, then I become aware of why I am doing, what I am doing and I can consciously choose what to do. Even this choosing can be done with an intention to control and be perfect or it can be done from a place of ownership and love. The intention behind everything you do can change your attitude, energy and the quality of your life.

Create a Clean Canvas

We can say that each day in our lives is a clean canvas we can choose what to paint on. However, this can be a romantic way of looking at things, because in reality most of us wake up carrying the burdens of yesterday and worrying about things that we are about to do during the new day/days. I really enjoyed a quote I found about mediation saying that if we sit in front of a dusty mirror we cannot clearly see ourselves, we might see ourselves distorted, what we need to do is take the time to dust it off. In order to create a clean canvas we need to take the time to be with ourselves, hear our thoughts, feel our feelings, observe our patterns and habits. In other words, become a loving observer to how we feel, think and do life.

Journaling is your biggest ally

Journaling is the easiest, cheapest and most effective form of creating self-awareness, tracking your growth and enhancing your life in any possible way you can think of. There are many ways you can journal. There are the morning pages which means you take a notebook and free flow, letting every thought that comes on your mind on paper. If all you have on your mind is “I don’t know what to write”, you write that down. This can help you increase your creativity, as it is a brain dumping of all the stagnant ideas that float around your mind. Another way is to use daily prompts that make you dive deeper in certain topics, ideas. Write like you are the only one who is going to ever read that, don’t worry about making yourself look a certain way, be real & authentic. The whole purpose of this exercise is to see yourself as you are and figure out what you want to work on, love on, accept on.