Self-awareness is a major key to successfully creating what you want in your life and thus feeling fulfilled in your efforts. Without self-awareness, you are literally blind as to why things may not be working out in the way you had hoped. But with it, you can grow your experience of confidence and personal power in ways you never imagined!

When things don’t work out the way that we want, we usually look outside of ourselves for the answer. This is definitely important, but if you leave out your own awareness of self in the matter, you may never feel certain about what you should do next.

The self that you are today directly influences your decisions and choices in life. It influences your actions or lack thereof. It ultimately influences your results. If you remain unaware of what is going on with that self, you are likely to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. You are much more likely to become discouraged and want to give up.

Nurturing self-awareness is like shining a light in a dark room, so you can see again. You may see some things you don’t want to see, but at least you will learn how to avoid making the same repetitive mistakes in the future. After all, what really matters is the positive result that you want to experience that’s much better than where you’ve been so far. The more clearly you can see how to get to that positive result, the happier and freer you will be!

Here are some of the benefits of self-awareness:

• It’s much easier to let go of things that no longer serve you, because you understand their negative effects. Thus, they become less desirable.
• You are able to shine an increasing light of consciousness in the direction you want to go, making your journey much easier and more clear.
• You can save a lot of time by not repeating the same mistakes and patterns of behavior that take you further away from what you want, instead of bringing you closer to it.
• Self-awareness is like an ever-expanding light that continues to show you the way. You have the advantage of experiencing continuing insights into your situation that will literally amaze you!
• Self-awareness allows you to be the very best friend that you could ever have because true self-awareness always comes from love and a desire to take good care of yourself.
• It greatly increases your level of intelligence and your decision-making capabilities.
• You become far more empathetic toward others.
• Your level of self-confidence can skyrocket!

Here are some downsides of a lack of self-awareness:

• You can get stuck in a pattern of blaming others, yet nothing ever changes.
• It’s easy to get discouraged and find fault with yourself, instead of knowing how to improve your situation.
• It’s a recipe for feeling guilty.
• You learn to put up with far less than what you really want, because you don’t know what else to do.
• You collect an abundance of excuses, but the excuses only reaffirm and reinforce what you don’t want in life.
• It’s easy to feel like a victim.
• You feel stuck and frustrated, not knowing how to change.
• It leads to negativity and a lack of productivity.
• It makes others responsible for your happiness.

6 Steps to Cultivate Self-Awareness

As you can see, there are great advantages to cultivating self-awareness. Here are six simple steps to take to begin this process within yourself:

1) Change your mindset. You might think that you don’t need to think much about yourself because you already know yourself pretty well. But there are many things about you that you might be literally unconscious of. Some of those things could be very good! Develop a mindset of accepting that you are a living being who is learning and evolving every day, and that there is much to learn about yourself in this process.

2) Make a decision not to jump to conclusions when things go wrong. Pause and examine everything quietly before you judge yourself and others.

3) Take time to influence yourself with the high ideals of other people that you admire. If it feels right for you, then see if you can instill these higher ideals into your own consciousness. Own them for yourself.

4) Accept the fact that in order for things in your life to change, it means that you will have to change as well. The only way that you can change is to be clear about where you are right now and where you want to go. Only you have the power to know yourself to the greatest depths possible.

5) Turn off the old mental chatter that continues to explain everything in your life in the exact same way. You’re not a robot! You are a creator who has the capacity to look at things in new, different, and unique ways.

6) Self-awareness means waking up to the fullness of who you really are and your highest potential. Thinking in the same old way puts you in a rut. Instead, develop curiosity about yourself. Expand your awareness and be eager to learn new things about life and yourself in general.

Self-awareness makes you a flexible, expanding consciousness whose greatest desire is to grow and evolve. It causes you to lose interest in your old stories about life. It opens the door to greater opportunity and brings in inspiration.

Ultimately, self-awareness is one of the greatest paths to personal power!

Leave me a comment below, and tell me what you think about the idea of increasing your level of self-awareness 🙂