According to Wikipedia, In Philosophy, self-awareness is the experience of one’s own personality or individuality, it should not be confused with consciousness. While consciousness is being aware of one’s environment and body and lifestyle, self-awareness is the recognition of that awareness.

Psychologists Shelley Duval and Robert Wicklund defined self-awareness this way:

“Self-awareness is the ability to focus on yourself and how your actions, thoughts, or emotions do or don’t align with your internal standards.  If you’re highly self-aware, you can objectively evaluate yourself, manage your emotions, align your behavior with your values and understand correctly how others perceive you,” (Betz, 2021). https://www.betterup.com/blog/what-is-self-awareness

As we know like is and/can be a serious struggle, I remember at certain stages throughout my life I would consciously mark milestones or achievements that I looked toward in my future. Getting my drivers licenses, graduating high school, finishing college or finally at long last becoming a police officer. I pushed and looked toward the future, with the idea that, when each milestone or achievement hit, I’d be happy. One day lead to the next, to weeks, months, years and I pushed past each milestone to find the same thing after each, I found me. Because simply put, no matter where go, there you are. 

I’ve gone through life humbling myself, keeping myself in check and walking that slippery slope of self-confidence and self-belief, but never becoming arrogant or conceded.  In order for us to grow and explore our self-awareness, we need to embrace and learn from those experiences that are meant to be humbling. Self-awareness is like any other exercise or habit, it must be done often and consistently, I’ve heard that habits take 30 straight days of completing that task or intention for it to become an actual habit that sticks around. Self-awareness is that important in our lives.

According to an article in BetterUp, www.betterup.com/blog/what-is-self-awareness, they list the following as how we benefit from the development of self-awareness.

  1. It gives us the power to influence outcomes

  2. It helps us to become better decision makers and gives us more self-confidence. A result of which is stronger communication, clarity and both come from our intentions.

  3. It allows us to understand things from multiple perspectives

  4. It helps to free us from our assumptions and biases

  5. It helps us build better and stronger relationships

  6. It helps us to regulate our own emotions

  7. It decreases our stress levels

  8. It simply makes us happier.