Class XI Life Skills: Developing Self-Awareness
LIFE SKILLS & VALUE EDUCATION – CLASS-XI – UNIT-1 Self Awarenes
Self-awareness is conscious attention directed towards the self. To cultivate self-awareness, we may engage in reflection or introspection. When we have this life skill, we often find ourselves pondering/thinking why we are the way we are or why we do the things we do.
Being self-aware also means recognizing what you can and can’t control. Many of us rely on the external world to tell us how to live. As a result, we take away our ability to define our own truth. We also fail to fully discover our values, dreams, and patterns – all important keys that can help inform our decision-making in creating the life we want.
If you’re looking to define self-awareness in your own words, you might say this: if you’re self-aware, you’re able to notice and name what you’re doing and feeling at any given time.
Some of the primary benefits of self-awareness include:
- Give you a better understanding of what you want and/or need
- Increase your chances of getting what you want and/or need
- Improve your decision making
- Help you manage your emotions
- Lead to healthier reactions to external factors
- Boost your productivity and success
- Enhance your ability to make positive change
- Bolster your self-esteem
- Strengthen your relationship
Examples of Self-Awareness in Everyday Life
1. Identifying your emotions and what you’re feeling
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to self-awareness is our emotions. When our emotions become involved, we lose our rational thinking and, instead, give way to a bunch of thoughts and defenses that skew our objective nature.
One of the examples of self-awareness is your ability to identify these emotions in the moment.
This means that, at any given moment, you can objectively name the emotion you are experiencing. While this might sound obvious, it’s actually pretty tricky. Emotions, especially when they’re negative, have a tendency to take over our body and mind without us realizing it. Picture it like putting a pair of sunglasses on. Often, you forget they’re on your face until you consciously focus on them.
When you can identify your emotions, you can begin to question what you need in that moment.
Throughout my day, I experience a range of emotions. Sometimes, when I’m feeling frustrated, I begin to get overly critical of myself and my work. In the past, I was less aware of these feelings and would fall into an unhealthy work rage. This would neither help me feel better or fix the actual problem. By improving my self-awareness, I can understand what I’m feeling and address the actual thing that made me upset in the first place.
Of all the examples of self-awareness in everyday life, checking in with your emotions is the one that you can do at any given moment of your day.
Questions:
- What emotions do you experience each day?
- How often do you listen to your body?
- What causes some of your negative emotions?
2. Recognizing your primary coping mechanisms
In addition to confusing emotions, we also employ a range of defensive coping mechanisms in our life. Often, we’ve developed these coping mechanisms over time. Many stem from our childhood and significant life experiences.
Being able to recognize when we get defensive and how we show it is an impactful example of self-awareness.
Let’s say, Josie grew up with a family that gave her incredibly high expectations. As she maneuvered through life, she tried to find the balance between pleasing others and pleasing herself. In this journey, she began to withdraw when other people asked things of her as a defense. At times, this coping mechanism might prevent her from finding her own pride in her work.
If Josie isn’t self-aware of this coping mechanism, she’ll continue to withdraw in moments that could be positive opportunities for growth. The coping mechanism that once worked no longer serves her.
We all have our own coping mechanisms that protect us from the hurt, disappointment, and failure that we fear.
Examples of self-awareness include identifying these defenses when they’re happening, understanding the cause, and recognizing when they serve us and when they don’t.
Questions:
- What are your most common coping mechanisms?
- When do you get the most defensive in life?
- What coping mechanisms did you develop as a child that no longer serve you?
3. Defining your own beliefs without being influenced by others
Our society tricks us about what is meaningful in life. On top of that, our need for belonging makes us feel pressure to fit in with the people around us. As a result, we’re always getting messages about what we should believe and who we should be. Not only can this be confusing, but it can be really harmful to our own happiness.
An example of self-awareness is your ability to distinguish your own beliefs from others. You can step back and ask yourself, Am I being true to myself at this moment?
I spent much of my life feeling like I needed to fit into feminine norms. I thought that I had to care about dressing up and wearing makeup, so I dedicated hours to becoming the “ideal female.” Not only did these pursuits make me feel worse, but they took me away from the things I actually cared about.
By being self-aware about what I think is important, I can shape my life around the things that will make me happy.
It’s incredibly difficult to ignore all of the outside messages about what we should believe. However, the more you can improve your self- awareness and determine your own core values, the more you can create the life you want.
Questions:
- What are your core values?
- When have you got caught up trying to please others?
- When have you based your decision more on other people’s expectations than your own?
4. Prioritizing what gives you joy and purpose
I’m sure most of you have seen the quotes that scream, “Choose joy!” If you’re like me, you might think, That’s great, I’d love to… if only I knew what choosing joy looks like.
Self-awareness can help you identify what gives you joy in life and then prioritize it.
This example of self-awareness is relatively straightforward, yet many of us fail to take the time to ask ourselves the question: What gives me joy, and when do I prioritize it in my life? Often, we might know what makes us happy, but we convince ourselves that other things are more important.
Our culture is set up in a way that makes us prioritize a lot of stuff before happiness.
The discipline to commit to what makes you happy is not always easy. For this reason, possessing the self-awareness to realize what gives you joy is the first step.
Questions:
- What gives you joy and purpose?
- How often do you prioritize joy in your everyday life?
- What do you put above your joy, and why?
5. Identifying your strengths and shortcomings
Sometimes we avoid self-awareness because we mistakenly associate it with not being good enough. It feels intimidating to look inward because we’re afraid of what we’re going to find.
Self-awareness examples encompass both our shortcomings and our strengths. By refusing to acknowledge the bad, we also fail to recognize the positives.
No person is perfect (despite what some of us might be conditioned to believe). Even the most successful person you know has a list of shortcomings that they had to overcome to achieve their success. It’s not about having no weaknesses.
Self-awareness is about identifying your strengths and weaknesses and finding a way to highlight your strengths.
By possessing this self-awareness, you can begin to create your life more productively. You can find strategies and support for your weaknesses, while simultaneously letting your strengths flourish.
Questions:
- What are your strengths?
- What are your weaknesses?
How can you redesign your life or environment to emphasize your strengths?
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