WWAIT
It often conjures an image of a person who knows exactly who they are, what they want, and why they act the way they do.
Real self-awareness often looks much more uncertain.
It can begin with the sentence:
“I don’t really know why I do this.”
Self-awareness is not a finished picture of yourself
A person can have a very established idea of their own personality.
“This is just how I am.”
“I would never...”
“It’s important to me that...”
These ideas might be entirely correct.
But they can also prevent us from seeing situations where we act differently from how our own story about ourselves claims.
Self-awareness is therefore not just about finding answers.
It is also the ability to tolerate, for a moment, that there is no answer yet.
Recurring situations often say more than a single feeling
If the same problem reappears in different environments, there might be something interesting there.
Why do I constantly feel unappreciated at work?
Why do I always pull away just when someone gets close?
Why do I procrastinate on things that I myself consider important?
Why do I find myself on the defensive before the other person has even criticised me?
For any single situation, you can usually find an explanation.
A repeating pattern starts to tell you something more.
Naming a feeling isn’t the same as understanding it
“I feel anxious.”
“I’m angry.”
“I’m disappointed.”
Recognising an emotion is important, but reflection can continue from there.
What is the anger directed at?
What had you hoped would happen?
What are you afraid the disappointment means?
What was it in this particular situation that hit so hard?
When the same thing is examined from multiple angles, the feeling starts to gain structure.
Why does another conversational partner help?
It's hard to surprise yourself inside your own head.
We usually already know what we think about a situation.
In a conversation, small details can become interesting: the word you chose, a contradiction between two thoughts, or something you quickly glossed over.
Someone else can linger on the very point you would have already left behind.
This is why a continuous conversational process can bring up things that isolated self-analysis cannot.
Self-awareness doesn't mean constant self-monitoring
Not everything needs to be analysed.
If reflection turns into endless monitoring of your own behaviour, it can even take you further away from your own experience.
The goal is not to construct a perfect explanation of yourself.
The goal is to notice what is happening, a little better than before.
Sometimes a small observation is enough:
“This is the point where I always withdraw, by the way.”
The next time, there might be one more option available.
Understanding changes
How you understand yourself today is not necessarily the same as how you will understand yourself a year from now.
That doesn't mean your previous understanding was wrong.
People change, situations change, and perspectives change.
That’s why self-awareness is perhaps not a destination.
It's an ongoing relationship with your own experience.