Trying to live your “best life”?
Many experts say that one of the keys to living up to your potential is to be self-aware. With out true self-awareness, it is difficult to grow as an individual. What does that mean? Let’s say you’re in a math class and no matter how hard you try you keep failing every assignment. It’s just not clicking. So, you decide to take a step back and reflect. You start to list the reasons why you’re doing so poorly: “I don’t try that hard, I suck at math, I’ve never been good at it, I’m just more of a science person.” After this pitty-party, you think to yourself “I just self-reflected.. Why isn’t this self-reflecting thing working? Why am I not getting better?”
Do you see a pattern in these self-reflections? They all ask the questions “why” A-Ha! What if instead of asking “why” you rephrased your questions to start out with “what“. So, instead of “Why am I bad?” you can ask “What am I not understanding?” or “What can I do differently on the next assignment?”
“What” questions give you a chance to answer more constructively. Instead of dwelling on your wrongs, they can force you to think logically versus emotionally. They can give you a growth perspective because they focus on what you can do in the future versus what you have done wrong in the past/ what you think is wrong with your character.
Here are some more rephrased self-reflection examples:
Instead of “why am I broke?” you can ask “what habits do I need to change to be more financially sound?”
Instead of “why are things not working with my significant other?” you can ask “what is not working well for us?”
These questions will help you achieve more self-awareness by removing emotional attachments.
“Self awareness is the ability to take an honest look at your life without any attachment to it being right or wrong, good or bad.”
FYI-This way of self reflecting did not come from me and I do not take credit for the idea. It is my own interpretation of a a piece of work with my own examples. The ideas in this post were taken from and inspired by a Ted Talk called:
“Increase your self-awareness with one simple fix- Tasha Eurich”
Check it out. Click the Link Here.
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