In this article, we’ll look at these 5 habits of highly self-conscious people and learn how we can cultivate them in our own lives. Whether your goal is to achieve a little more happiness and peace of mind in your life or bolster your performance and effectiveness in your work, improving your self-awareness is key.
They reflect on their values.
Highly self-aware people have a habit of regularly reflecting on and considering their values. While they’re always trying to be aware of what they might be unconsciously avoiding, they’re also striving to be clear about what they want to move toward. But this can be surprisingly difficult…
For one thing, it’s easy to move toward things that look and feel important or valuable but may not be, perhaps because the trade offs would be too great:
- Chasing the next promotion or salary bump at work, even though it means spending even less time with your family and friends.
- Enrolling in grad school (and taking out another $80K in student loans) because you’re not sure what else to do and your parents will be impressed because, hey, more education!
- Buying that new iPhone because it’s awesome and surely it will make you more productive even though you’re not saving for retirement at all.
They’re curious about their own minds.
Self-aware people have a habit of thinking about their own patterns of thought.
Just like a good scientist is curious about the world and lets their natural curiosity and observations guide later theorizing and experimentation, self-aware people have a curiosity about their own minds and inner world. For example:
- They find it curious that guilt was the first emotion they experienced after getting cut off on the freeway rather than anger or fear.
- They notice a pattern of pessimistic thinking in certain contexts and optimism in others.
- They wonder about the overarching beliefs that motivate their behaviors.
Now, before you rush to assume that maybe some people are just more curious and self-reflective, while others are more outward focused and practical, let me tell you a little bit about my work as a therapist…
Listen more than they talk.
- When it comes to self-awareness, you can’t simply think your way into it.
- Of course, there’s nothing wrong with deliberate self-reflection. In fact, it probably will facilitate self-awareness to a degree. But it won’t be sufficient for building self-awareness because we’re social creatures who learn primarily through each other.
- From babbling out our first words as toddlers to graduating from college, most of our learning happens socially — toddlers imitate their parents just as students imitate their mentors and advisors. Even the notion of the solitary sage, alone in a tower studying dusty tomes is actually highly social — books are other people’s voices and ideas made permanent!
- The quest for self-knowledge is a fundamentally social endeavor.
- But simply being around other people won’t do the trick. True self-awareness comes from genuine interaction with other people, from conversation. But to get there you need to be able to listen. To really listen. And real listening can be a surprisingly difficult thing to do.
The key to gaining meaningful self-awareness through listening is to manage your own thoughts during a conversation.
They ask for feedback (and take it well).
People who are genuinely self-aware have the humility to understand that they can’t always see themselves objectively. And that often the best way to be more objective about yourself is through the lens of other people.
The trick here is that there is no trick: If you want to see yourself through other people’s eyes you must ask. It’s that simple.
- Are you frequently getting into conflict at work? Identify a co-worker whom you respect and ask for their honest opinion about the situation.
- Does your spouse keep telling you that you don’t listen? Ask some else in your life you’re close to (parent, best friend, mentor) whether you can come across as not listening well.
- Or maybe the situation is more general: Maybe you just feel a little dissatisfied with your life and suspect that it has something to do with you but you can’t put your finger on it. Again, look for someone in your life who knows you well whom you respect and ask them if they see any patterns or tendencies that could be a cause.
What gets in the way of most of us asking for good feedback is that we’re afraid of getting uncomfortable news: We’re afraid to hear that we’re not as good a salesman (or lover) as we think.
Asking for feedback isn’t rocket science. But it is scary.
They look for emotional blind spots.
We all have emotional blind spots — parts of our emotional live that, because they’re especially painful, we tend to ignore. Often, we’ve been ignoring them for so long that we don’t even know they’re blind spots.
All you need to know
Lasting happiness and success require self-awareness. If you aren’t aware of the emotional baggage and blind spots holding you back, how can you hope to achieve your potential?
Thankfully, self-awareness is a skill that can be cultivated with practice and good habits:
Take time to reflect on your values.
Be curious about your own mind.
Listen more than you talk.
Ask for feedback frequently (and take it well).
Look for your emotional blind spots.
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