PRACTICE
What is Your Understanding of Self-Awareness?
What is your understanding of self-awareness? Give your own definition, your own understanding of self-awareness, in your own words. (Refrain from Googling answers!)
Describe your level of self-awareness. How self-aware do you think you are? How self-aware would you rate yourself on a scale of 1-10, 1 being completely unaware of who you are and 10 being knowledgeable about every detail of who you are? Explain your rating.
How might a high degree of self-awareness be a valuable “soft skill” or important ‘human literacy’ in life?
How might self-awareness be important in dealing with other people? in your work? for your own sense of wellness (physical, emotional, mental health)?
Compare and contrast self-awareness as a “soft skill” with “being smart” or having “hard skills,” like high IQ, academic knowledge, or practical job-related skills.
How often do you reflect on who you are? (Constantly, Often, Sometimes, Rarely, Never)
Is self-awareness one of your habits?
Do you think some people might be born or by nature more or less self-aware?
Can people improve their self-awareness? If so, how? If not, why not?
If you are reflective or introspective at all, does your intentional self-examination or self-assessment happen primarily or usually when you make mistakes, when you are feeling bad, or when someone else draws your attention to one or some of your personal faults or strengths? In other words, what prompts or motivates you to become more self-aware?
If you reflect on who you were in your past and who you (think you) are now, in what specific ways have you changed over time? Does anything obvious stand out?
How are you the same and/or different from the person you were five years ago? ten years ago? twenty years ago? How might you account for those changes?
Are there things about yourself you didn’t know when you were young that you know now? What are they? (this could take a while…you get the point—probably a lot of learning happened and it didn’t all happen in school!!)
How would you describe your own temperament?
How well do you know your levels of physical and/or mental stress?
How well would you say you know your body and how it works? For instance, do you know the degree of muscle and/or fat of your body? What’s your normal blood pressure?
What does stress and tension feel like in your body? What does relaxation feel like? Can you describe these things in detail? Have you ever tried to define them in detail, in writing?
How emotional would you say you are? (What does “being emotional” mean to you and what positive and negatives do you associate with “being emotional?”)
Are you able to describe your feelings well? Give examples. If you are unable to pinpoint your feelings and write about them using specific language, write about your struggle to articulate your feelings.
What are your most reoccurring thoughts and dreams?
Describe your most prominent tendencies and proclivities.
If you asked other people who know you well, do you think they’d give you the same answers/assessment on any/all of these prompts above?
How accurate do you think you are about your own level of self-knowledge?
How honest are you being? How can you tell?
Part 2
On a different day, when some time has passed after completing the previous activities about self-awareness, please re-read and reflect on your answers, then answer the following:
Based on what you wrote about self-awareness, what did you learn about self-awareness as a concept?
