"He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened." – said Lao Tzu, ancient philosopher and founder of Taoism. Some people even believe that knowing the world happens through knowing oneself.
Realistic self-awareness greatly eases our situation when we need to make an important decision affecting our lives. If we possess sufficient self-awareness, we can make decisions that better fit our personality, which ultimately leads to a more harmonious and satisfying life.
But how can we know what we are truly like? From tests? Or does journaling help? Or should we observe what other people think of us?
What is worth establishing first and foremost: self-awareness is not a state, but a process. A rather long process.
On the one hand, because we change over time, our personality changes somewhat as well. Things that used to excite us suddenly seem boring... to mention just one example. On the other hand, in different stages of our lives, at different levels of maturity, the emphasis shifts to different things, and other traits or abilities of ours come to the fore. The way we knew ourselves in one stage of life may seem shallow or mistaken amid the tasks or requirements of another stage of life.
Therefore, self-awareness work has legitimacy and utility in any stage of our lives.
Okay, this is clear, the reader might grumble... But when does the part come about how I can get to know myself?
Well, there are many paths and numerous sources for acquiring self-awareness. Each can contribute to deepening self-awareness, but none leads to results on its own.
What am I like? We can begin by observing ourselves and our own reactions. "It's hard to get me riled up." "When I'm sad, I eat more than when I'm happy." "If someone shouts at me, I freeze." "It fills me with joy when I can give a gift to someone." "I like algebra problems best in mathematics." "When I'm in love, it's hard for me to part from the person I love." "I like to sleep."
These provide a good starting point, but we must not forget to observe our emotions, thoughts, needs, and values either.
We can also learn a lot from our relationships: around what kind of people we feel free, when we become uncertain, how we react in conflict, and in what situations we repeat the exact same scenario over and over again.
If we possess sufficient self-reflectiveness and dare to be honest with ourselves, through the things described so far, we can get a fairly nuanced picture of ourselves. Of course, we may have biases against ourselves and we may have blind spots, but this is already an achievement.
We can also ask our family members or acquaintances what they think about this. However, let us be cautious: the perspectives represented by others are by no means certain to be sufficiently grounded and objective. For example, if someone thinks we are "too sensitive," that is not necessarily an actual, objective description of our personality.
Why am I like this? We might not be satisfied with the descriptive level of self-awareness outlined above, and we might become curious about the causes and explanations for our individual traits and reactions. "Why was it so important for me to be right?" "Pourquoi did I say yes when I actually wanted to say no?" "Why did I suddenly get angry at a seemingly completely innocent sentence?" "Why do I procrastinate on certain tasks while completing others without a problem?"
This level of self-awareness already requires some "investigation." We may need to think through the milestones of our life story to understand where, because of what, and how a characteristic trait of ours appeared and changed over time.
At any stage on the path of self-awareness, professional-supported self-awareness work can be beneficial. We can receive numerous new perspectives and landmarks to advance or deepen the process. We can gain experiences that would be much harder to access by other ways—for example, we can come into contact in safe conditions with less known, previously backgrounded aspects of our personality.
