The VITALS of Self Awareness

Self- Awareness simply explained is just knowing yourself and its exactly not as simple as it looks. It is said that self-awareness is the first step towards self-development. If you do not know where you stand today, you would not be able to even set your goals let alone achieve them. To make a line and connect the dots you first need to know where the dots are.

Quite a few times in our lives we have heard this question in our lives, “How did You know it?” and we reply “Because I know you better than yourself”. Well sometimes these are just lucky guesses and quite a few times we are right because our minds have spent a lot of time thinking about that person or that incident. But how well do we know ourselves? Can you predict your behaviors, your actions and reactions? Can you list down your beliefs? Can you tell what your true goals are? Do you know what you Exactly want in life? Do you accurately know what your likes and dislikes are?

I do not claim that I can make you entirely aware of yourself in this one article as Self-awareness is a long journey, but every journey begins with a single step and I believe we can take a few steps together.

So now let’s begin with the VITALS of self-awareness.

Values: Values are statements, stories or metaphors that you live by. It is a belief that matters to you the most and which would not change in any circumstance. You can base your entire life on it and would always follow it to reach your goals. Your core value may be honesty , do or die, truth, thinking before doing or may be something as simple as smiling . To bring further clarity let me give an example of one of my values that I live by :

Pehle Aacharan , Fir Updesh” or “Practice what you Preach.” I have no idea when this belief entered my system but I have been following it as long as I can remember.

You can have any value that resonates with your life the most. So to start with list down your values and write an experiential story with each of your values. Sometimes it may lead you to your core value when you connect the dots.

Interest:  This step is a bit simpler than the previous. Interests are your hobbies and passion. Anything that can keep you glued to itself. Many people have built a successful career around things that interest them. But to do so you need to ask yourself what is that thing you never get tired of? Something that would make you forget time. If you have such a passion or interest wherein you can continue doing it without even realizing that you are feeling hungry or thirsty then that my friend may build a career for you.

Temperament: It is best described as your inborn preferences. Just try to answer the following questions.

·         Are you an introvert or extrovert?

·         Do you plan things way before time or do you just go with the flow?

·         Do you focus on the details always or do you like to see the bigger picture?

·         Do you take your decisions on the basis of the facts r your gut feeling?

There is no right or wrong answer. Just observe yourself and know what your temperament is. And when you answer these questions do not answer on the basis of what you mostly do but what you would actually prefer to do. This will help you get in situations helpful in your growth.

Activities: By the term activities we mean your bio-rhythms. At what time of the day are you most active? When do you feel tired? When do you feel focused? When do you feel hungry? we all have a certain pattern throughout the day and it goes in a cycle. We have several periods throughout the day when we feel active and certain periods when we feel lazy. Being able to identify your period of activity will help you in maximizing your productivity.

Life-missions: Your life-missions are not the same as your goals. Goals are short term while life mission is never ending. It is something that keeps you going no matter how much you accomplish. It is something that gives purpose to your life and satisfaction to your heart. It does not have to be anything deep and philosophical it just has to be something that connects you to yourself. Just ask yourself what have been the most meaningful events of your life? You will be able to reach to your life mission through chunking up. 

Strengths: Your strengths can be the easiest or toughest to find but once you get to know your strengths and the ability to use them, nothing can stop you. The best way to find your strengths is not to list them directly but list a few situations of your life. Try and find what helped you get out of those situations. This may be a good beginning to find your strengths.

You need to have a clarity and calmness in your mind to start working on any of these points. 

Something that would help you to have this clarity is spending time with yourself. Without your phone or any other gadgets. Just spending sometime of the day introspecting and talking to yourself because all of us sometimes need expert advice.  ;) 

Thank You for taking out your precious time and reading my blog. If you like it please share with others too and subscribe to my blog for more such articles and to keep me motivated to write. 


Divya