Introduction
While undertaking their daily activities, humans underscore available opportunities, personal capacities, and innate trajectory toward psychological well-being and personal growth. Different theories give varying outlooks of traditional humanistic psychology. They advance and refine these perspectives by emphasizing the self as the central causal object in people’s functioning. In light of this view, self-awareness is the principal tenet of human behavior. While growing up, people have to make some decisions whose impact could positively or negatively affect them or others in equal measure. However, being aware of one’s emotions, feelings, thoughts, and actions drive an individual’s decisions on the self as well as the external environment. In this case, self-awareness becomes the main controller or determinant of one’s decisions. Being aware of myself has been an integral aspect of my behavioral conduct. For instance, knowing that my self-esteem falls steadily after failing an exam, it has been my practice to avoid peer pressure-driven outings and events but to allocate such time to studying. Self-awareness is the key factor that determines personal, interpersonal, and real-world outcomes.
Research Discussion
Since the 1800s, self-awareness arose as an interesting and equally thought-perturbing aspect among psychologists. The quest for an all-acceptable definition of self-awareness, its importance, and how it impacts people’s development and growth has been ongoing. In the course of this continuing discourse on self-awareness, it has emerged that self-awareness, as described in its definition, is inseparable from the progression of people’s behavior and well-being. Self-awareness could be defined as the ability to view oneself objectively and clearly through introspection and reflection (McCutcheon et al., 2014). Based on this definition, self-awareness is a psychological state in which people become the focus of their attention. People could think and act while at the same time reflecting on their thoughts and deeds.
Understanding the self is the central precept in self-awareness. It involves multiple dimensions of people’s familiarities and practices in the course of their life. According to McCutcheon et al. (2014), self-awareness entails consciously understanding the self by paying attention to the individual’s dispositions and attitudes. This mindful knowledge of the self includes awareness of thoughts, emotions, sensations, relationships with other people, one’s physical body, feelings, and the way all these aspects interact with one another.
Periodically, people should self-examine themselves through self-reflection. In this case, self-reflection is the turning of attention towards the self to understand the underlying individual’s behaviors and attitudes and their relation to the outside world. As McCutcheon et al. (2014) highlight, self-awareness is a fundamental mechanism in one’s exercise of self-control. While self-focused, an individual compares oneself with societal standards of correctness that govern how they ought to feel, think, or behave. While evaluating the self against the set standards, people could adjust their behavior accordingly. Therefore, developing clarity on the self is imperative to realizing the implicit or subtle and precise, explicit mental states and feelings that shape people’s behavior.
Real-Life Application
Through self-awareness, I have been able to change my behavior remarkably. Initially, I could spend a lot of time with friends traveling, partying, or attending events for pleasure. This experience had a domineering but negative bearing on my studies and life. Sometime back, I suffered low self-esteem, as I could not withstand failing to meet my academic expectations. Notably, the low self-image became worse when the same friends I spent time traveling and sharing stories with scored higher grades in the exams. It was time to find out the reasons behind my low self-esteem and failure in my academics.
On self-examination, I understood I needed more time to study to understand some of the concepts we covered in class. Moreover, being extremely tired and deprived of sleep due to the weekend travels affected my class attendance and attention while in the class. It is within my family beliefs that academic excellence is the precursor to a good career and life. Within this belief I understood my performance in school depended solely on my time management and the activities that I gave priority to during my free time. Being aware of my feelings (low self-esteem), behavior including partying and traveling, allowed me to adjust and focus more on my education. I reduced the time I spent with friends and allocated the same to my studies and resting; affirmatively, my grades improved considerably. In light of this outcome, self-awareness shaped my self-control, the activities I chose, and how I spend my time.
Conclusion
Indeed, self-awareness influences the outcomes of people’s life choices. It shapes their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Self-reflection is a crucial process in understanding the self. It allows people to evaluate themselves against the correctness standards practiced within their society. Moreover, it enables them to develop awareness regarding their abilities and potential opportunities that they could harness to boost their personal and interpersonal growth and development. People should spare some time periodically for self-reflection. This aspect would be a valuable experience, as it would allow them to understand their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and how all these interact to shape their interactions with the outside world.
Reference
McCutcheon, L. E., Bartels, J. E., Hackney, A., Hart, J., & Rauch, S. M. (2014). Social psychology for today’s world. Georgia Southern University.