How often do you hear stop, get control of yourself, just get started, try harder!? Maybe, you feel desperate or at your wits-end with these words spewing out at your child or inside your head? Frustration bubbles up when practical tools and strategies are not in place. What would it be like to live with greater ease? Dean Graziosi states, “self-aware people recognize their skills and the skills they’re lacking while maintaining their confidence, drive, and desire to grow. They keep an open mind about who they are and where they’re going. The more self-aware they become, the more they connect with their unique identity.” (50 Self Awareness Activities (For Yourself, Adults & Students), 2021) What could your life look like or, better yet, feel like if you were to shift towards a positive practice of identifying your strengths and weaknesses to grow and move forward towards your goal?

Steve Maraboli writes it best, “Stop trying to ‘fix’ yourself; you’re NOT broken! You are perfectly imperfect and powerful beyond measure.”

How do you know this, though? I have combed the internet to create a list of self-awareness hacks to help you deepen your personal understanding of yourself. These strategies and practices can help you know who you fully are. From there you can decide what you want you to be. Being open to knowing “you” is the first step.

12 Self-Awareness Hacks

1. Journaling- writing down your thoughts helps to bring awareness to what is floating or racing around in your mind.

2. Take a strengths finder test online and repeat it every three months. VIA Strengths Finder is a free online source for identifying what is at the core of you. Personality Test, Personality Assessment: VIA Survey | VIA Institute (viacharacter.org)

3. Mindfulness Meditation and Practices- Leslie Riople states on positivepsychology.com, “Studies have also shown some fantastic benefits of mind-body practices, such as lower blood pressure in hypersensitive patients after relaxation-response training.” (17 Self-Awareness Activities and Exercises (+ Test), 2019)
4. Recognize your triggers. Do you know what triggers you? What makes you hot and reactive? By identifying your triggers, you can process them with three simple questions. Using self-reflection can strengthen your awareness and build greater self-control. Try this worksheet to help you process your top three triggers. Triggers Worksheet | PsychPoint (LMHC, 2019)
5. Are you a Frenemy- a friend or enemy to yourself? Who do you treat better- yourself or the stranger next door? Work to catch yourself when you are not giving the equal kindness you give to someone else.
6. Build your vocabulary. Write down the emotions you feel regularly and how your body feels and expresses them. Do you cry when you are sad? Do you yell when you are frustrated? Do you hit when you are mad? Does your stomach have butterflies when you are nervous? Do your palms sweat when you are anxious? Do you talk faster when you are excited? Do you laugh out loud more when you are happy? Are your muscles tight when you are stressed? What other emotions do you experience?
7. Get deeper into your emotion. Ask yourself these three Coach Questions.                                                         What has you feeling “this way”?                                                                                                                               How can you feel “this way” more or less often?                                                                                                   How does what you feel impact your communication skills?
8. Set a goal— put it down on paper.
9. Know what you must do before you are in the middle of it. What are the most pressing tasks you need to accomplish? Write them down. You can create a habit of planning out your day the night before or before your day starts. Check back in to see if you are getting things done as you had planned. This helps to build accountability. Hint: planning the night before can help ease your mind in knowing you are on top of your needs allowing you to sleep better.
10. Start a wins list. Write down all your accomplishments- big and small. Having a record of what you have done will help you stay aware of your achievements and build up your self-esteem. Our brains quickly forget what we have done well.
11. Express yourself- tell others what you feel and what you need. So often, we expect others to know already. Try saying:

          It bugs me when ___(what the other person said or did)___.

          I wish you would __( the action they would like the other person to take) __.

12. Become your hero. Ask yourself, “What would __”hero”__ do. When you place yourselves in the shoes of someone you admire, you can shift your mindset towards possibility and help yourselves solve your problem.

You can build your self-awareness through many different practices. Get creative and listen to what works for you. Make adjustments and tweaks to the suggestions above. Cam Caldwell, Ph.D., an author, and professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield, says, “Self-awareness is an effort. It’s a conscious effort to invest in understanding who we are, who others are, our universal rules that [we] apply in life and our commitment to the future.” (Gallo, 2019) In growing your self-awareness, you create space to become your better self continuously evolving. Self-awareness takes a conscious choice to dig into and stick with an internal presence. Sometimes it may feel easier to displace your junk onto someone else rather than choosing to take ownership and responsibility for yourself.  What will you gain in giving away part of what makes you whole to someone else? Vulnerability is hard to open yourself up to, but it will allow your whole self to experience your world. Hard will be worth the effort. Explore and dig into growing self-awareness, and you will discover a more significant being within you. Let that self become your friend. You are creative, resourceful, and whole. Allow this to be fully accessible.

Resources:

17 Self-Awareness Activities and Exercises (+ Test). (2019, September 14). PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/self-awareness-exercises-activities-test/

LMHC, P. G. G. (2019, February 6). Triggers Worksheet. PsychPoint. https://www.psychpoint.com/mental-health/worksheets/triggers/

50 Self Awareness Activities (For Yourself, Adults & Students). (2021, February  Dean Graziosi. https://www.deangraziosi.com/self-awareness-activities/

‌Gallo, S. (2019, May 15). The Importance of Self-awareness in Leadership – Training Industry. Training Industry. https://trainingindustry.com/articles/leadership/the-importance-of-self-awareness-in-leadership/