Intro to Self-Awareness 1: Who Am I?

Hi! It looks like you’ve decided that it’s time to really get to know yourself. I’m so excited that you’re here because this is the start of your evolution and we’re honored to be a part of it.

Maybe right now you’re asking yourself whether and why self-awareness really matters and you’re here having a quick look so that you can decide if you should bother with this course. 

Well, you should. The purpose of self-awareness is self acceptance and we all need a little more of that, don’t you think?

Getting in touch with who you really are will mean that you can feel better about yourself, have better relationships, communicate more clearly, be happier, think more clearly, be more productive and make better decisions. Sounds amazing right?

More specifically, working on your self-awareness (because it is a process):

• can make us more proactive, increase our acceptance, and encourage positive self-development (Sutton, 2016).

• allows us to recognize and understand our emotions, practice self-control and see ourselves from the perspective of others, (Silvia & O’Brien, 2004).

• leads to better decision-making (Ridley, Schutz, Glanz, & Weinstein, 1992).

• can make us better at our jobs, better communicators in the workplace, and enhance our self-confidence and job-related wellbeing (Sutton, Williams, & Allinson, 2015).

Higher self-awareness is directly correlated to higher success in life. Basically, self-awareness has the potential to enhance virtually every experience you have, as it’s a tool and a practice that can be used anywhere, anytime, to ground yourself in the moment, realistically evaluate yourself and the situation, and help you make good choices.

Now to start, I’d like you to think about the question, “Who am I?”. Do you have a clear answer?

I’m sure you thought of a few things like “I am a person who likes gummy bears, The Bachelor and karaoke”. And maybe, “I am someone who is annoyed by my mom and I want to be rich someday”. Or maybe, “I am a person who’s friends think she’s hilarious and who’s boss thinks she’s a pushover”. 

And now, next question, are you satisfied that you actually know the answer? Like did it really get at the heart of who you are? I am guessing probably not and I am happy to tell you that by the end of this Thinkbook, you’re going to be able to answer that question to your satisfaction 😊.

Today, you’re going to learn some stuff and do some exercises, including some self-reflection, that will deepen your understanding of who you really are.  Through this process, you will explore your own self-awareness, your values, your interests and your abilities so that when you ask yourself that question – “Who am I?”, you have an answer. And, if you don’t love everything about your answer, together we’ll figure out what you need to do to get there.

Now to take a step back, I know that some of you might not accept that it’s actually even possible not to know who you are.  But for many of us, we attempt to build our identities based on what we think will bring us acceptance.  We often wear masks, scarves and shields and only let pieces of ourselves show through. We hide aspects of ourselves that we think people might not love or accept. And we only show and share things that we think people will like or accept.  Sometimes those are authentic parts of ourselves and sometimes we are simply playing a role.

That’s what we do when we don’t think we’re enough. And that people won’t like or accept who we really we are. 

What does not knowing yourself look like?

Meet Carla. Carla is 25. She’s working as a receptionist at a big law firm and has been there for four years. She’s not loving her job but doesn’t really know what else she wants to do. She has one roommate and they live together in a high rise apartment near where she works. Her social life is pretty lit. Most of her money is spent keeping it going and consists of clubbing at least three nights a week. The other nights are spent in front of the tv. Her IG is bomb, her life looks amazing. Solid career, big social life, sweet apartment and usually a guy. In the moments that she hasn’t been able to distract herself, she realizes that she is far from happy but she doesn’t know why.

How self-aware are you? Let’s do a little self-reflection to find out.

Click here to download the first fillable self-reflection PDF of this lesson before continuing.

You might be asking now, “How does this happen that we can end up showing up as someone other than who we truly are?”

Throughout your life you’ve connected with hundreds of people who in direct or indirect and spoken or unspoken ways, told you what you should think, feel, look like, value, and aspire to be. These people may have been your teachers, your friends, your family or the people you follow on social media. When you live your life like this, you can lose touch with who you really are.  

And if you do lose touch with who you really are, you probably know that it can be a constant source of discomfort and unhappiness and can lead to ongoing stress and anxiety.  And we already have more than enough of that in our world today.  

So, knowing this, I think it’s fair to say that being you needs to be a conscious, ongoing pursuit and it requires that you stop doing certain things and that you intentionally start doing others.