PRACTICE
Creating a Vocabulary for Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is defined as conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires; it is an awareness of one’s own personality or individuality.
The psychological study of self-awareness can be first traced back to 1972 when Psychologists Shelley Duval and Robert Wicklund developed the theory of self-awareness. They proposed that: ‘when we focus our attention on ourselves… we become self-conscious as objective evaluators of ourselves.’ In essence, they consider self-awareness as a major mechanism of self-control. This definition places emphasis on the ability to monitor our inner world, our thoughts and emotions as they arise (Ackerman, 2017).
Gentle reminder: Be a curious and compassionate monitor.
Identify and describe in writing your own personality, character, habits, and beliefs. Use the following definitions for guidance as well as the links in the footnotes to descriptive terms for added specificity and accuracy.
Personality is defined as the quality or state of being a person; the complex of characteristics that distinguishes an individual or a nation or group, especially the totality of an individual’s behavioral and emotional characteristics; a set of distinctive traits and characteristics.
What are the traits and characteristics that distinguish you as an individual?
- Consult personality trait examples [1]for more vocabulary to define personality traits.
- Consult Understandmyself.com to take a personality test.
[1] See http://ideonomy.mit.edu/essays/traits.html
Character: one of the attributes or features that make up and distinguish an individual; the complex of mental and ethical traits marking and often individualizing a person, group, or nation; main or essential nature especially as strongly marked and serving to distinguish
What are the mental and ethical features that uniquely define or distinguish you from others?
- Consult character trait examples [2]for more vocabulary to define character.
[2] See https://examples.yourdictionary.com/character-trait-examples.html
Habit: a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior; an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary; a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiologic exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance
What are your most obvious or common habits?
(include both what you consider positive and negative)
- You may need to conduct a habit audit to discover your habits, some of which may be engrained therefore almost invisible to you.
Belief: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing; something that is accepted, considered to be true, or held as an opinion: something believed especially a tenet or body of tenets held by a group; conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence.
What are some people, ideas, or things you place trust and confidence in?
What are some of your most strongly held opinions? List your beliefs.
