We Get One Life, So Be True To Yourself
If we observe ourselves carefully , we will feel that there are thousands of thoughts, emotions and feelings travelling through your mind in one full day. But in the race of success and duties, we hardly get anytime to reflect upon it. No one realizes the importance of self reflection or awareness till the time one gets completely lost in the question of “WHO AM I?”
I personally see life as a journey where one boards a train and we meet different traits of people at different junctures. Some of them are meant to be till the end of your journey while some are meant for a few stops. Everyone around us says ‘ADAPT’, I also agree with it . But what I say ‘NO’ to is Blind Adaptation. And that is where the importance of SELF-AWARENESS lies. If we know ourselves in and out, if we know what kind of individual one wants to be in the long run, if we know what are our core values which we cannot compromise in any given circumstances, then in that case no one can fool us in our journey. But if we just get attracted to the change in the monotonous journey of life, and compromise our building values then we are just cheating ourselves. It’s just like a crow trying to be a peacock by putting its feathers. No one asked a crow ever that “Why are you A Crow?”. Its crow’s own conscience which is making it do the Blind adaptation.
We should not trick our own self like that Crow in our life’s journey. It’s ok what we are born as. Or what we are born into. We should honor and respect our true self to get respected by others. If we become susceptible every time about ourselves and our values when any new passenger joins us or by any illuminative juncture comes and starts shaking our existing life Than in that case any TOM,DICK and HARRY can come and fool us and make you do what they wanted you to do. And you won’t even realize that your own world is shattered in no time. And you just keep the blame game On for the rest of your life. So when we focus more on our self growth, rather than on the external environment, we will be able to compare ourselves with our own level of correctness. Such level of correctness will help you identify how you should feel, behave and even think. They can be also named as your Values i.e. your own building blocks of life. And thus, it is the first step towards Self-Management.
And believe me if you don’t want to get trapped in your own blurred thinking of life journey then you should know your Ground Values and Respect it. We should truly reflect on our mistakes time and again to stop making it a repeated process. If we start practicing self-awareness sincerely, we can certainly analyze how our goals, values and passions align with our emotions and prevailing environment.
It’s a common human attribute to nurture things which are beneficial for us. So, here are the few benefits that one can gain from practicing Self-Awareness:
- It helps you reflect on your core strengths and weaknesses, thus helps in improvising it.
- It helps in managing your emotions at the correct time which will ultimately strengthen your personal as well as work relationships.
- It will boost your satisfaction level when your actions will be truly aligned with your values and ideology.
- It will make you enjoy Leadership in a true sense by understanding how people around you perceive your behavior.
And to enjoy these benefits you must know how to Practice Self-Awareness on a daily basis. Undermentioned are the few points that should be kept in mind like drinking water to enjoy your life at the fullest.
1. Shift your mind from the questions of “WHY” to “WHAT”
It’s a very common habit among us that whenever we get into any situation which is against our mindset then we tend to ask questions in WHY’. For example, if we incur loss in our business, then commonly we start asking questions to ourselves like ‘Why did it happen? ’Or, ‘ why my hard work didn’t pay off?’
And the reason ‘why’ questions being unproductive is because it takes us to thoughts and emotions to our unconscious level. Like the questions above will be mostly answered by you like” I did my best and even then it didn’t pay me off.” And thus it will turn you off from evaluating your true strengths and weaknesses where you might have gone wrong and has led to a business loss. In some cases it might lead to over confidence which shall result in more dangerous paths in future.
Now simply shifting the question to’ What exactly went wrong that the project didn’t go as expected?’ shall make you reflect on your actions rather than emotions. It will help you evaluate your areas to improve upon and not to repeat the same mistakes. In turn you will be able to know yourself more clearly.
2. Value the thoughts and feedbacks your own people have about you
Always remember if you can listen to the feedback without getting judgmental or egoistic, it will help you constructively and will also make you more empathized towards others. Listening to your important people around will certainly give you a real sense of how you are being actually perceived by others. There are two ways Life can show you the mirror- One is by feedback of your own people, and the other one is Time will show it. Both seem fine, but the only difference is if we take feedback and thoughts in a constructive manner and keep it aligned with our values and environment you will be able to take faster actions in life. And if we leave it on time then we definitely leave it open ended and have to experience all sorts of setbacks during the course of time.
If you completely turn inwards, it will never get you to the complete picture of yourselves.
3. Practicing mindfulness or Meditation
It is the answer to all your blurred and confused state of mind. The practice of mindfulness or meditation on a regular basis helps in improving our minute-by-minute awareness. It doesn’t need any particular kind of rituals or format. It’s as simple as giving yourself few productive silent minutes in a day. Following your tendon of breath in that moment or asking yourself some self refectory questions should be your own choice. The ultimate motive is to build a strong foundation for self awareness in you.
4. Pen down your thoughts and actions in a day on a daily basis
When we actually give a pen and a paper to our hovering thoughts in mind, it will take us to the correct location of where we are actually standing in our life’s journey. Like a contract takes place when two people sign and seal it, in the same way your thoughts get authenticated when you write it down yourself. It will be like an image of your actions, perceptions, beliefs, thoughts and even behavior. And by doing it on a continuous basis it will increase your self-awareness and help you manage yourself.
Life is not the second name for problems, rather it’s the other name for Challenges. And we can achieve real success in it if we are able to handle those known and unknown challenges with higher degree of Values aligned Self-Awareness.
