What is Self-Awareness and Why is It Important?

When I think about one thing I work on with absolutely every single one of my clients, self-awareness is what comes to mind. It is crucial to be successful in relationships of any kind, to be emotionally, mentally, and physically healthy, and to make any type of positive change in your life. If you think I’m full of bologna…well, you’ll see why I’m not. Keep reading!

First, I would like to explain the two types of self-awareness:

Internal self-awareness (like it sounds) involves acknowledging and understanding what’s happening inside of yourself – this means understanding your own feelings, thoughts, and also how we perceive ourselves. High internal self-awareness is key to managing symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress. 

External self-awareness requires an understanding of how others perceive us. When a person has high external self-awareness, they are able to more easily understand others’ perspectives and show empathy. External self-awareness is crucial in maintaining and strengthening healthy relationships in all aspects of one’s life.

Now, with that knowledge under your belt, here are four of the MANY life bonuses folks get to experience when they optimize their self-awareness! 

1.    Self-awareness allows us to understand how what we do affects those around us. For example, if something we said to a friend makes them uncomfortable, but we don’t even realize we said it, we might assume that their discomfort is stemming from something else entirely. We don’t even get the opportunity to apologize because we lack the awareness of ourselves and how we impact others. Then you’re left with a friend who may not feel comfortable talking to you about what you said. That can make for a very awkward and unfortunate friendship situation.

2.    Self-awareness helps us to understand the signals our body and mind are giving us. I have had clients come in and say things like, “I have been getting these terrible headaches, been really irritable, and my appetite is nearly non-existent.” I always ask my clients about their sleeping, eating, and movement habits. Turns out, these clients almost 100% of the time say they are sleeping about 5 hours per night (clearly not enough), they work 50+ hours per week, and are sedentary because they’re exhausted when they get home from working too much. Because there is poor self-awareness, they don’t connect these dots: with poor sleep, you’re going to be irritable and likely experience pain/discomfort somewhere in your body (headaches), and when you’re working like a race horse, you’re STRESSED which sometimes causes a decrease in appetite. All of these are interconnected and without self-awareness, you might assume the dinner you ate last night is causing all of these issues. When you can’t see that the choices you’re making are causing the problems, you aren’t able to fix the problems.

3.    #2 on this list leads us to the benefit of more easily being able to change habits. For example, if you’re considering coming to therapy for the first (or 6th) time because you tend to overreact or lash out when receiving constructive criticism, I can almost guarantee you the first thing your therapist will ask you is, “What do you think leads you to act that way? Where does that come from?” With self-awareness, you may find that there are beliefs you hold about yourself that make it hard to calmly accept a critique, or that experiences from your past impact the way you react to things now. With insight into ourselves, we can understand the root of the issue and change behaviors we don’t like!

4.    People who are self-aware are better listeners. Aldo Civico, PhD states that “The art of listening begins with the ability to listen to oneself… Our previous experiences, believes, values, assumptions, judgments and bias influence the quality of our listening. Whenever we listen to something, we evaluate what we are hearing and this in turn triggers our emotional reactions and our judgment. If we hear something that contradicts our values or our interests, we tend to react, by becoming defensive; our ability to be effective listeners is hostage of our own filters.” I couldn’t have explained that better myself. When we can be in control of our own feelings and thoughts, we can set them aside and focus more on understanding the other person and being fully present while listening.

So, now that you’re pumped up and motivated to work on your own self-awareness, here are some tips for doing so. 

1.    Pay attention to how you talk to yourself in various situations. If you lose your keys, you might say to yourself in your head, “Gosh, why are you so stupid? You do this all the time!” That may be feeding into your poor self-esteem, or may reflect how you react to others in the same situation.

2.    Realize when, instead of actively listening to another person, you’re going through your grocery list in your head or planning what to say next. 

3.    When you’re starting to get anxious about something (a meeting or interview, for example) check in with your body to see if it’s sending you signals like sweating, dry mouth, or lightheadedness. That will tell you when anxiety is coming.

4.    Set your ego aside and acknowledge when you make a mistake. It will show the other person you’re aware of the impact you have on them, and also that you care to make things right with them and continue to better yourself.

The mental health therapists at our office offer counseling for a variety of issues including trauma using EMDR, depression, anxiety, grief, and couples counseling. We work with teens, adults, and couples. We also offer online counseling services which can be great for people with busy schedules or for people who live in parts of Pennsylvania with limited counseling options. You can check out our website to see the full list of counseling services that we offer. Or, Request An Appointment here.