Self-Awareness Is The Key To Self-Improvement

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You need to become extremely self-aware if you want to improve yourself.

You need to become aware of your thoughts, emotions, and actions.

If you want to control yourself from indulging in bad behaviors, you need self-awareness.

If you want to push yourself into doing tasks even when you’re not motivated, you need self-awareness.

If you want to identify the small and big mistakes that you’re making on a day-to-day basis (so that you can correct them), you need self-awareness.

Simply put, self-awareness is the key to self-improvement.

So in this article, I’m going to share with you why developing self-awareness is the first step to becoming the best version of yourself, and a simple 10-minute habit that helped me develop monk-like self-awarness.

Let’s begin.

Every day you act out of impulse. You feel a little stressed, you grab your phone, and start scrolling. And you don’t even think when you’re doing all this. It’s like a reflex.

Just like how you quickly take your hands off when you touch a hot stove. You quickly grab your phone and scroll when you feel stressed or feel any other uncomfortable emotions.

If you don’t break this impulsive-reflex action, you’ll never develop the skill of emotional management.

Emotional management is the skill of handling your emotions and responding to them in a thoughtful and constructive way.

Escaping uncomfortable emotions by indulging in instant-gratification activities is a temporary fix. You may feel relieved for a few hours.

But in the long run, you’ll become completely dependent on it. This is what leads to addiction.

Now if you don’t want to fall into this trap, become self-aware.

Here is how it feels to be self-aware:

When I feel stressed or bored or anxious, I don’t grab my phone like most people do. I pause. I understand what emotion I’m going through. I ask myself why I’m feeling this emotion. I ask myself what is the best course of action. And take that action.

I’m able to do this because I strengthened my prefrontal cortex and weakened my amygdala.

Let me explain what I mean with an example:

Let’s say I’m feeling anxious because I have to work on a book, and the sheer volume of writing and research is completely overwhelming. Now one part of my brain (amygdala) tries to “save” me. It tells me to grab my phone and watch some YouTube videos so that I don’t feel anxious.

Amygdala is responsible for impulsive actions.

For addicts, amygdala is extremely strong and active. That’s why they can’t control themselves from indulging in bad behaviors.

Strong amygdala = low self-awareness.

If I hadn’t weakened my amygdala, I would have acted impulsively and watched YouTube videos instead of writing this amazing book[click on “amazing book”] (if you want to break free from your addictions, grab the book. It’s free.)

Whenever I felt anxious, I paused (this pause requires you to strengthen your prefrontal cortex. Strong prefrontal cortex = high self-awareness).

I understood that I’m anxious because of the huge volume of work that I have to do.

So the best course of action I took was to break down the tasks into small steps. Instead of thinking about the entire task, I broke it down into chunks.

First, I’m going to work on the table of contents of the book.

Then, I’m going to research to collect key talking points for the first chapter.

Then, I’m going to braindump everything in my head for the first chapter.

And so on.

Amazing, right?

I was able to control myself from watching YouTube, push myself into writing the book even when I didn’t feel like it, and identify my mistake (focusing on the entire task) and correct it immediately.

All this was possible because I developed the skill of self-freaking-awareness.

Now, let’s get practical.

This is the one habit that helped me develop self-awareness.

10 minutes of meditation every single day.

Studies show that meditation can lead to a reduction in the volume of gray matter in the amygdala.

A smaller, less active amygdala = less emotional reactivity.

Not just that, meditation trains focused attention, which is a core function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC).

Regular practice increases the PFC’s efficiency in maintaining focus and monitoring internal states, making you extremely aware of your thoughts, emotions, and actions.

If self-awareness is the key to self-improvement, meditation is the key to self-awareness.

If you’ve never meditated before, start small. Start by meditating for 5 minutes a day.

The most important thing here is consistency. You need to make meditation a part of your life. It should be like brushing your teeth. You should do it every single day.

My favorite method to build habits is the Habit-Stacking method (credit: Atomic Habits by James Clear).

Here is how it works:

I’ll [new habit] every day, after [existing habit].

Example:

I’ll meditate for 5 minutes every day, after brushing my teeth.

I’ll meditate for 5 minutes every day, after finishing my lunch.

I’ll meditate for 5 minutes every day, after finishing my workout.

The most important thing here is to avoid doing anything else other than the new habit that you want to build.

One more important thing: Don’t expect quick results.

It takes time. You’ll not notice any visible change in your awareness level unless and until you meditate consistently for 21 days.

Don’t think too much and don’t judge the practice. Just do it for 21 days. After 21 days, you’ll notice the improvement and may even get addicted to the practice.

Last thing: It’s supposed to feel uncomfortable. Most people who sit down to meditate for the first time ask themselves this: “Is this how it’s supposed to feel?”

And the answer is yes. It feels weird. It feels stupid. It feels like you’re wasting time. It feels like you’re doing it wrong. It feels like someone is watching you and laughing at you.

Your mind will be racing with thoughts, but don’t judge them. Just think of every one of your thoughts as clouds passing through the sky. They just come and go. Don’t hold on to any thought.

Just focus on your breathing. That’s it.

This is meditation.

Start with 5 minutes, then gradually increase it to 10, 15, or even 20.

I personally prefer sticking to 10 minutes a day.

Hope it was helpful.

See you again!

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P.S. Start now, sit a timer for 2 minutes, close your eye, and focus on your breath until the timer goes off.