“The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.”
Thales
“Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?”
Bob Marley
“Your time is your most precious commodity. When it’s gone, it’s gone forever, so use it wisely.”
Anonymous
We live in a world where we constantly compare ourselves to others, and our social media has become an addiction. It’s like we are living the life of a different person. We’re living vicariously through our alter egos. We’re constantly commenting and sharing, tweeting, admiring, following, liking, friending, and subscribing. We have to project to the world the life of a person who is constantly happy, witty, adorable, or pretty. Is this you?
Media is a giant vacuum of your time and a burden on your mind. Why? Because it’s always in the back of your mind. There is a term for this, and it’s called addiction.
Addiction “is a condition in which a person is unable to stop using a substance or engaging in a behavior.”
The behavior is impulsive, and the substance is dopamine, the pleasure hormone. We seek to give ourselves minor hits of dopamine all day long when we check our media. It’s a pleasure, a thrill, a reward, a success, a result, a hit of dopamine.
When we haven’t gotten the replies we crave or receive the response that we don’t like, we become annoyed, irrational, anxious, or depressed. Why? We haven’t received our hit of dopamine.
We’re losing ourselves while trying to be more like everyone we see on social media.
To be yourself, you have to be fully aware of who you indeed are, not the character we play in cyberspace.
You have to know and recognize your weaknesses and your strengths. You have to ask yourself what my goals are, what motivates me, what my purpose is. You have to look at your personality, character, integrity, and morals. Are they all in good standing, or do I need to work on them?
If you care to take an honest look, you will discover who you are. When you realize and accept all aspects of yourself, the good and the bad, you have become aware. If you are aware, you’ll know you are capable of changes and improvement.
How do you increase your awareness?
Let’s have a look at the four simple things you can do to become aware!
Get To Know You
Have you ever sat down with yourself and asked the question: “Who am I?” And more importantly, Would you be able to answer that question.
The first step in building a healthy awareness of yourself is understanding who you are when you look at yourself objectively.
You can start by writing down your perceptions of yourself if you look at yourself objectively and from an outside perspective.
During this process, you shouldn’t compare yourself to others but rather look at yourself as an individual without comparing your accomplishments, interests, beliefs, and personality. It does not matter if our assessment is a negative one. At least you know. You will get to know your most frequently occurring patterns, habits, and addictions. You are aware now, and if you are aware, you can do something about it.
Journaling
One of the best ways to keep track of your daily emotions, reactions, and feelings is to keep a journal to write down those things.
It will amaze you how putting pen to paper can put things into perspective—writing down your habits, feelings, thoughts, failures, and successes of the day. It will give you a new view of how you deal with things.
Journaling is a means of self-reflection to see your strengths and weaknesses. It gives you the objective perspective to change bad reactions in the future.
Recording your daily way of acting and reacting will also help you clear your mind and open up space for you.
Mindful Habits
We can become quite robotic during our daily lives as if we are on autopilot just cruising through our schedules, and before we know it, weeks and months have flown on by.
To savor every moment of the day, we have to be more mindful of what we do; this means being aware of good and bad habits. Nurture the good and substitute for the bad.
Trying to keep up with a fast-paced world can keep us from enjoying simple things like breathing in fresh air or simply going for a stroll around the neighborhood.
Which tasks during your day give you a sense of serenity, calmness, and happiness? Is it washing the dishes, meditating, cooking, writing, walking, or exercising?
Whatever they are, ensure that you do these kinds of activities more!
Ask For Feedback
Even though it might be a bit scary, it’s essential to know what our friends, family, and even colleagues think about us and our behavior.
Ask those closest to you to give an honest and open, but critical and objective, description of who they see you as to provide you with a better idea of what people genuinely think of you.
Honest feedback from people around us will give us a better idea of who we are and how our behavior affects our everyday lives.
You must remain open-minded and non-offensive during an open feedback session from a friend. Listening with an open heart might help you recognize something within yourself you never knew was there before.