What is self-awareness? Merriam-Webster defines self-awareness as one’s own personality or individuality. To me, it goes a bit deeper than that. Self-awareness is the ability to focus on your personality and how your actions, thoughts, and emotions do or don’t align with your morals and values. It’s understanding how to evaluate yourself and your feelings and ensuring that your behavior aligns with your values.
Being self-aware is essential to understanding your strengths, weaknesses, and beliefs. It can help you make better decisions and take responsibility for your actions. So how can we become more self-aware to help us become better versions of ourselves for our teammates, coaches, and those around us off the field?
- Practice mindfulness: Always pay attention to your thoughts and feelings at the moment. Being more aware of how your thoughts and feelings contribute to your actions will help you be more intentional with your responses.
- Reflect on your experiences: Think about all the experiences from your life. Why have you done them? What have you learned from it? How have they shaped who you are today? These are all critical questions to answer when trying to become self-aware and figure out your morals and values.
- Journal: You have heard us discuss the importance of journaling many times. Journaling allows you to do many things. It can help remind you what you are grateful for, it can help you put down thoughts you can’t get out of your head, and it can help you on your journey to achieving your goals. Writing out your thoughts and feelings will help you better understand them and find patterns.
- Seek Feedback from Others: We have loved ones and mentors around us for a reason. Whether it is a parent, close friend, coach, or teammate, we have those around us we can trust. Ask them for observations or insights about your behavior and how it potentially impacts them. This will give you better insights into how your actions affect others, especially those you love and care about.
- Practice self-inquiry: Constantly ask yourself, “What am I feeling right now?” or “How did [insert action] make me feel?”. Asking yourself why you are feeling specific ways or reacting in certain ways will be beneficial in picking up patterns and making you more self-aware of what you do.
Self-awareness has many benefits for us personally. It can make us happier and decrease stress. It can help us generate a better understanding and give us new perspectives. Being self-aware doesn’t just help us individually but can help us be better teammates, friends, partners, etc. It can help you build better relationships and honestly try to gain an understanding of where people come from. It can help you be more precise when communicating with others, so they better understand what is important to you. Self-awareness is vital when we think of character development, and it can provide you with better relationships and improved leadership skills both on and off the field.
