How to Cultivate Self-Awareness?

In a world where people are becoming modern-day slaves to technology and money, cultivating one’s self awareness is certainly a must. As people are losing grip on themselves and their overall direction, it is truly a challenge to continue pushing forward while maintaining one’s sanity along the way. 

 More often than not, a good majority of us are unaware of such an epidemic. As we yield to the demands of the world, we allow ourselves to be consumed by it. A good example of this is the corporate worker culture. 

Generally speaking, in the corporate world, people are often stressed and exhausted with their job loads. Especially in third world countries, some or most corporations will hire a few good employees and subject them to arduous tasks in order to organically grow leaders within their company. And while this is good, there’s no denying that the employee is often too stressed to think of anything else. 

With that context, the exhausted employee will seek to quench the thirst for rest and pleasure. Spending their money on good stuff just so to keep their sanity intact, they further become trapped into the rat-race as they avoid saving and investing. Inevitably, the worker gets trapped and ends up succumbing to the culture of consumerism. 

Given this example, most of us are left on our own devices and are unable to break the cycle. But if you’ve noticed, some of the greatest minds and talents, even the grittiest of individuals end up being massively successful only by doing weird things. 

For instance, the start-up of AirBnB began with two individuals who sought to start a hotel business without owning a single property, right? While it may seem that their grand ideas catapulted their success, such is not necessarily the case. 

 True, our grand ideas for innovation and sustainable change often sell. However, in the end, the implementation part of these ideas hinders us from pursuing massive success just like those people. And so we ask – what is common among these individuals who succeeded in their way of things? 

Self awareness. 

Yes, self-awareness is the first step in achieving the success that you want. And you might ask why? The answer is simple – self-awareness is the first step in ensuring that all your bases are covered. 

With the power of self-awareness, you are practically able to dictate the direction of your own ship. Gone are the days where the cultures around you can manipulate your notion of how life should be. Instead, you are the captain now (with pun-intended reference on Tom Hank’s Captain Phillips) and can decide where to take your own life. 

As such, people have sought this question – how do I cultivate my self-awareness? 

7 Simple Ways to Cultivate Self-Awareness:

1. Control your time – first and foremost, you should have some sense of time and a good general philosophy about it. Whether it is allocating where your time goes or being on-time, management of this most valuable resource means that you are able to condition yourself towards self-awareness. 
2. Setting one’s goals – more often than not, people think that they’ve set their own goals. But in reality, these goals are set by the society around them. As such, they’ll grow increasingly reluctant to pursue these goals since they are not their own. 
3. Journaling – with this classic method, journaling allows us to keep track of the events in our life. By default, most of these events often happen in a flash, making us forget moments and their value within 6 months from now. But by journaling, we are actively taking a role in this situation as we try our best to be conscious even of our past. 
4. Dream Journaling – instead of focusing on waking life, dream journaling shifts to the sleeping one. By fervently recording our experiences during the dream state, we become more aware of the symbols that are flashed in it. As such, this allows us to take note of their possible meaning and interpret them in a way that increases our self-comprehension. 
5. Meditation – yes, meditation is one of the most effective ways to cultivate self-awareness. Since this method touches on the quality and amount of thoughts that we process on our idle time, it necessarily trains our mind to be conscious of what we’re thinking about. Especially when coupled with chakra frequencies. Thus, chakra meditation allows us to process our thoughts in a better way. 
6. Spiritual meditation – being a more advanced variant of the previous way, spiritual meditation enables us to gain access to our transcendental nature. Given that meditation itself is something that we pursue, a spiritual translation of such means that we’re opening ourselves up to the universe. Thus, this necessarily means that we gain more self-awareness, given that universal energy will now ebb and flow within us. 
7. Self-reflection – last but not least, self-reflection is the act of pausing and actively assessing yourself. Just like when you’re evaluating your looks when looking at the mirror, self-reflection is the task of trying to unravel who you are and what changes occurred to you. With this final method, you are able to actively assess which parts of your life are problematic or whatnot. 

Final Word

Self-awareness is never an easy task. Instead, it is something that requires diligence and hard work as we must constantly press ourselves to push further. But while such is the case, this lengthy process is not without merits. As we learn to become self-aware, it influences us at an exponential rate as long as we remain consistent with it. 

While there may be more ways to do self-awareness, just remember that the tips presented here are good ways to start off!

The Individualogist Team

The Individualogist Team is made up of archetype fanatics, individuation practitioners, and spirituality fans. Our humble group has banded together to deliver thought-provoking, life-changing, and growth-probing wisdom.