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Top 10 Self Awareness PowerPoint Presentation Templates in 2024

**Self Awareness Presentation Slides**Unlock the power of introspection with our fully editable and customizable PowerPoint presentation on Self Awareness. This comprehensive slide deck is designed to guide individuals and teams through the essential journey of self-discovery, enhancing emotional intelligence and personal growth. Each slide is meticulously crafted to present key concepts, frameworks, and practical exercises that foster a deeper understanding of oneself. From identifying personal values and strengths to recognizing emotional triggers and behavioral patterns, our presentation provides a structured approach to cultivating self-awareness.Use cases for this presentation are diverse and impactful. It can be utilized in corporate training sessions to enhance leadership skills, improve team dynamics, and promote a culture of open communication. Educational institutions can adopt it for workshops aimed at students, helping them navigate their personal development and academic challenges. Additionally, life coaches and therapists can incorporate these slides into their sessions to facilitate discussions around self-reflection and personal growth. Whether you are a professional seeking to elevate your career or an individual aiming for personal development, our Self Awareness presentation is an invaluable resource that empowers you to embark on a transformative journey towards understanding yourself better.

self awareness presentation ideas

Information security awareness powerpoint presentation slides

Presenting our security awareness PowerPoint presentation slides. This PowerPoint design contains fifty slides in it which can be completely customized and edited. It is available for both standard as well as for widescreen formats. This PowerPoint template is compatible with all the presentation software like Microsoft Office, Google Slides, etc. You can download this PPT layout from below.

Introducing our security awareness PowerPoint presentation slides. Make your employees aware of cyber threats with the help of this network security PowerPoint deck. This IT data security PPT theme consists of a slide that discusses the cyber attacks experienced by the company in the previous financial year. Assimilating this security recognition assignment PPT layout will help you in discussing gaps in the security programs. This readymade web security PowerPoint design contains a slide that showcases different training formats for different organization levels. Incorporating this particular organization network security PPT theme allows you to exchange ideas on the communication plan for cybersecurity events and incidents. This data safety coaching PowerPoint creative set contains a slide that discusses the impact of security awareness training. Selection of this internet security awareness PowerPoint template lets you represent the ROI (Return on Investment) of security awareness training. Choose this company information safety guide PowerPoint design to showcase organization and assurance. Download this PPT slide to explore true perfection.

  • Information Security Awareness
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self awareness presentation ideas

Building Awareness Powerpoint Presentation Slides

Make your thoughts more effective with our Building Awareness Powerpoint Presentation Slides.

  • Building Awareness
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self awareness presentation ideas

Cybersecurity Awareness Training Powerpoint Ppt Template Bundles

If you require a professional template with great design,then this Cybersecurity Awareness Training Powerpoint Ppt Template Bundles is an ideal fit for you. Deploy it to enthrall your audience and increase your presentation threshold with the right graphics,images,and structure. Portray your ideas and vision using twenty four slides included in this complete deck. This template is suitable for expert discussion meetings presenting your views on the topic. With a variety of slides having the same thematic representation,this template can be regarded as a complete package. It employs some of the best design practices,so everything is well-structured. Not only this,it responds to all your needs and requirements by quickly adapting itself to the changes you make. This PPT slideshow is available for immediate download in PNG,JPG,and PDF formats,further enhancing its usability. Grab it by clicking the download button.

Our Cybersecurity Awareness Training Powerpoint Ppt Template Bundles are topically designed to provide an attractive backdrop to any subject. Use them to look like a presentation pro.

  • Employee Awareness
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  • Safety And Security Program
  • Incident Program

self awareness presentation ideas

Brand Awareness Powerpoint Presentation Slides

Absolutely 100% editable PowerPoint presentation slides. Amazing picture quality. Easy to download. Perfect for brand management and brand development. Easy for Standard and widescreen see. Easily compatible with google slides. Have premium customer support.The stages in this process are Brand Advertisement, Brand Awareness, Brand Marketing.

Are you looking for Professionally designed presentation on brand awareness? Not sure where to find best designs and diagrams on brand management and brand development? Here we are presenting content ready brand awareness PowerPoint presentation slides. All you have to do is click and download perfectly designed brand positioning slide presentation. Going further, this brand advertising PPT includes brand awareness roadmap, campaign, metrics, effective measurement, bar graph, charts, etc. and much more. Besides this we aim to provide you the best slides related to branding which are highly useful as well as impactful. To thoroughly cover every aspect, we provide PPT templates like consumer behaviour, advertising management, brand recall, brand recognition, consumer purchase decision, brand strength, brand plan, brand positioning and many more. To suit your requirements, download this brand awareness PowerPoint presentation graphics today! Our brand campaign, metrics and charts have significance role for ensuring your win over your audience. Don't allow envy to get the upper hand with our Brand Awareness Powerpoint Presentation Slides. Establish control over jealousy.

  • brand recognition
  • Brand Awareness
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self awareness presentation ideas

Product Awareness Powerpoint Presentation Slides

Introducing Product Awareness PowerPoint Presentation Slides. This deck comprises a total of 30 PowerPoint templates. PPT slides are 100% editable. Edit the color, text and background colors as per your requirement. Change the content as per your convenience. Easy to download. Download Presentation in both widescreen and standard screen aspect ratio. East to save the PowerPoint presentation in PDF or JPG format. These templates are compatible with Google Slides too.

Promote your product using our Product Awareness PowerPoint Presentation Slides. Product awareness is very important for products market’s success. The product promotion PowerPoint complete deck helps to showcase brand strategy and product awareness plans to win customers from competitors. The marketing team can properly explain the details of the plan using this brand awareness presentation which includes slides like brand awareness campaign, steps to build brand awareness online, brand awareness metrics, effectiveness measurement, brand execution roadmap, and brand awareness pyramid, etc. The brand awareness PPT template can present the purpose of branding along with a marketing plan summary. Marketing professionals can use content ready product strategy PPT templates for concepts such as product plan, product promotion, brand awareness, brand recognition, brand strategy, product marketing, product promotion, brand visibility and many more. Download this product marketing PowerPoint slide design to showcase the purchase decision process and marketing communication. Create the foundation for agreement with our Product Awareness Powerpoint Presentation Slides. It helps build grounds for consensus.

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self awareness presentation ideas

Attributes Leadership Awareness Communication Influence Education Training

This deck consists of total of ten slides. It has PPT slides highlighting important topics of Attributes Leadership Awareness Communication Influence Education Training. This deck comprises of amazing visuals with thoroughly researched content. Each template is well crafted and designed by our PowerPoint experts. Our designers have included all the necessary PowerPoint layouts in this deck. From icons to graphs, this PPT deck has it all. The best part is that these templates are easily customizable. Just click the DOWNLOAD button shown below. Edit the colour, text, font size, add or delete the content as per the requirement. Download this deck now and engage your audience with this ready made presentation.

Bring their gripes to an end with our Attributes Leadership Awareness Communication Influence Education Training. Address every hassle they face.

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self awareness presentation ideas

Label awareness powerpoint presentation slides

Presenting Label Awareness Powerpoint Presentation Slides. You can download this presentation easily and present it in standard screen(14:6) and widescreen (16:9) ratios. The font style, font color, and other components are completely editable. It is fully compatible with Google slides. Download this presentation into numerous documents or image formats like PDF or JPEG.

Spread awareness among the customers with Label Awareness PowerPoint Presentation Slides. Discuss the ways by which you can position the brand in the minds of people with the help of the brand awareness PPT visuals. With the help of a label awareness strategy showcase how you are different from the competitors. Evaluate the product based on commonly used parameters such as target customers, key benefits, and price with the help of the table given in the PPT deck. Demonstrate label awareness worksheet by showcasing industry and competitor analysis using our eye-catching brand repositioning PPT layouts. Provide the steps of label awareness framework by using our professionally designed brand positioning PPT graphics. Explain the purpose, value, process, product, infrastructure using a consumer awareness PowerPoint slideshow. Choose the attributes you want to communicate to the target audience with the aid of brand communication PPT templates. Build brand recognition in the market by downloading our professionally designed branding PowerPoint Presentation.

  • Label Awareness
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self awareness presentation ideas

Phishing Awareness Training Powerpoint Ppt Template Bundles

Deliver a credible and compelling presentation by deploying this Phishing Awareness Training Powerpoint Ppt Template Bundles. Intensify your message with the right graphics, images, icons, etc. presented in this complete deck. This PPT template is a great starting point to convey your messages and build a good collaboration. The seventeen slides added to this PowerPoint slideshow helps you present a thorough explanation of the topic. You can use it to study and present various kinds of information in the form of stats, figures, data charts, and many more. This Phishing Awareness Training Powerpoint Ppt Template Bundles PPT slideshow is available for use in standard and widescreen aspects ratios. So, you can use it as per your convenience. Apart from this, it can be downloaded in PNG, JPG, and PDF formats, all completely editable and modifiable. The most profound feature of this PPT design is that it is fully compatible with Google Slides making it suitable for every industry and business domain.

Our Phishing Awareness Training Powerpoint Ppt Template Bundles are topically designed to provide an attractive backdrop to any subject. Use them to look like a presentation pro.

  • Cybersecurity Awareness Training
  • Phishing Attacks
  • Email Attacks

self awareness presentation ideas

Brand Awareness Powerpoint Ppt Template Bundles

Deliver a credible and compelling presentation by deploying this Brand Awareness Powerpoint Ppt Template Bundles. Intensify your message with the right graphics, images, icons, etc. presented in this complete deck. This PPT template is a great starting point to convey your messages and build a good collaboration. The twelve slides added to this PowerPoint slideshow helps you present a thorough explanation of the topic. You can use it to study and present various kinds of information in the form of stats, figures, data charts, and many more. This Brand Awareness Powerpoint Ppt Template Bundles PPT slideshow is available for use in standard and widescreen aspects ratios. So, you can use it as per your convenience. Apart from this, it can be downloaded in PNG, JPG, and PDF formats, all completely editable and modifiable. The most profound feature of this PPT design is that it is fully compatible with Google Slides making it suitable for every industry and business domain.

Our Brand Awareness Powerpoint Ppt Template Bundles are topically designed to provide an attractive backdrop to any subject. Use them to look like a presentation pro.

  • Brand Visibility
  • SEO Awareness
  • Brand Expansion
  • Brand Identity

self awareness presentation ideas

Corporate Data Security Awareness Powerpoint Presentation Slides

Presenting our corporate data security awareness PowerPoint presentation slides. This PowerPoint design contains fifty one slides in it which can be completely customized and edited. It is available for both standard as well as for widescreen formats. This PowerPoint template is compatible with all the presentation software like Microsoft Office, Google Slides, etc. You can download this PPT layout from below.

Introducing our corporate data security awareness PowerPoint presentation slides. Make your employees aware of cyber threats with the help of this network security PowerPoint deck. This IT data security PPT theme consists of a slide that discusses the cyber attacks experienced by the company in the previous financial year. Assimilating this security recognition assignment PPT layout will help you in discussing the gaps in the security programs. This ready-to-use web security PowerPoint design contains a slide that showcases different training formats for different organization levels. Incorporating this particular organization network security PPT theme allows you to have a discussion on the security training programs. This data safety coaching PowerPoint creative set contains a slide that discusses the organization impact metrics. Selection of this internet security awareness PowerPoint template lets you represent the ROI (Return on Investment) of security awareness training. Choose this company information safety guide PowerPoint design to showcase organization and assurance. Download this PPT slide to explore true perfection.

  • Corporate Data Security Awareness

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Happier Human

13 Self-Awareness Examples You See Throughout Life

When was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror?  

Recently, my family and I were at a local fun fair, and we happened to walk past the funny mirrors. You know the ones that distort your reflection and make you really tall, extra wide, or all bent and upside-down looking. I was struck by how clumsy we all look , and it was one of the few self awareness examples that really made sense to me. 

We are often not aware of how our reflections, or the imprint of us, are twisted by the world around us. To really control your reflection or self, you need to be really aware and connected to yourself, your world, and the people around you. 

But exactly what is self awareness and how do you use it to live a fuller life that is authentic to who you are? Let’s find out.

Table of Contents

What Is Self Awareness? 

To be self aware means you are fully aware of your character , what your motivations are, your desires, and how you are feeling in each moment. It’s quite a mouthful, but the simple truth is that self awareness is about knowing yourself and what you feel, think, experience, and are worthy of. 

Self awareness is the catalyst for change , and if you can’t see yourself in the mirror of life , you will never be able to straighten out your own reflection—you will keep on being bent and twisted by the world around you. 

Why Is Being Self Aware Important? 

Being self aware is the key to initiating change . When I was standing at the funny mirrors, I could decide to step out of the reflection area of one mirror into the next if I didn’t like the reflection I was seeing. But, I had to see myself before I could take action and choose what I wanted.

Without self awareness , you are sailing blindly through life, not choosing, merely falling downhill.  

Your self awareness is a bit like the onboard computer of your car—it helps you diagnose when your engine or existence is no longer idling authentically. Instead of purring through life, you are spluttering, and you don’t even know it. 

If you don’t check yourself and reclaim self awareness, you will keep struggling needlessly through life. You have the power to find your authentic self and take the necessary steps to protect your self awareness. 

Self awareness identifies where there are problems in your life . With self awareness examples, you can learn how to live your best life. 

13 Self Awareness Examples 

There are several ways in which you can practice and increase self awareness . Examples of self awareness include:  

1. Growth Mindset

Being self aware means you can see where you are not a fully grown person yet. With self awareness, you begin to see how many aspects of your life work together, and you are then better able to grow these.  

Having a growth mindset is vital for self awareness to really pay dividends on your life journey. Your self awareness allows you to use growth ideas in your own life. Like a gardener who knows which soil is right for a particular plant, you need to be self aware so you will know what growth ideals (plants) will work in your life (garden).

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Action: To develop a growth mindset , you need to fully explore your life . Use and develop your self awareness by reflecting on what part of your life is still underdeveloped . Next, select a “plant” that you can cultivate here. If you are lonely, you can choose to join clubs or interest groups to meet new people.  Of course, you need to be self aware and practice self-reflection to really see where you are lacking and not just go through life in sulk mode.  

2. Discover Your Habits 

Do you do things without even knowing you do? We all do—this is called using a habit . This is great news if you don’t want to concentrate on a mundane task, like making coffee or vacuuming; but, it’s not so great if your habits are destructive or harmful to yourself or others.

When you are aware of the things you do without thinking, you are better able to own these habits , examine them, keep the good ones, and get rid of the bad ones. But how do you see a habit you don’t even know is there? You become more mindful .

Start practicing mindfulness activities like meditation , breathing , and yoga . By becoming more self aware and mindful of the things you do without thinking. Knowing what you do (especially when you don’t normally pay attention) will help you become more aware of who you are and what you do. 

Action: Begin with some mindful breathing exercises each morning, and notice how you feel with each breath. Next, pay attention to what you are doing at each moment. It may be a simple awareness that you raise your head when you breathe in or you can discover a more profound habit that you didn’t know about like blinking repeatedly when someone makes you nervous.   Write down each of the habits you discover and state whether they are good or bad or neutral. Some habits are driven by anxiety and can become destructive so you need to be aware of these, identify them, and then work on changing them.

3. Create Boundaries

We may be taught that boundaries are a bad thing, but in your own life, setting up some barriers that keep things or people in or out can make or break you. The concept of a boundary may be quite simple, but it’s the application or stepping up to defend that boundary when it’s being threatened that indicates real self awareness. 

If you have a boundary in place to keep strangers out of your physical and mental space, you need to police that boundary or it is meaningless (and worthless to your development). But the best way to enforce a boundary is to warn someone off before they cross the line. 

To do this, you need an early warning system that will sound the alarm and let you know you need to act. Your self awareness is that alarm system . 

Action: Think about the boundaries you have in your life (and the ones you need in your life). Write them down, if that helps. How would you take action to defend that boundary if it is being threatened? Write down the appropriate response that makes sense to you.  This is also a great exercise in discovering how indoctrinated you are by societal norms . Don’t let a valuable boundary go or hang back on acting when that boundary is crossed simply because of the notion of being polite or what’s accepted. Your boundaries, your rules.  

4. Your Thoughts Become Actions

It may seem like such an obvious example of self awareness, but knowing and practicing the idea of your thoughts becoming actions is easier said than done. What you think has power, especially if you are aware of those thoughts.

However, the thoughts you aren’t aware of can be even more damaging if you don’t practice your self awareness and develop a deeper sense of awareness for your mind. 

When you know your thoughts, you can take steps to help good ideas manifest and prevent poor ideas from ruining your life. Self awareness gives you the wisdom to know which thoughts are good and which are bad.

Action: When you are alone, start thinking out loud . Narrate your life, paying attention to the words that tumble from your mouth. What you say is what you’ve been thinking . The way you say things is also very revealing of your mental state .  When you are self aware, you will pick up on a negative “tone” of thoughts , and you will be better able to take action to remedy whatever is going on. If your thoughts go unnoticed , you may steer off a mental cliff without heeding the warning.

5. Discover Your Triggers

We all have triggers —emotional fuses that quickly trip when we find ourselves in a situation that we can’t accept. The result of a trigger being set off is that you may become quite irrational and act in a way that’s not in your best interest. 

The only way to head off a trigger is to see that it’s sending off warning signs. Being self aware is how you detect your emotional temperature and can sense a trigger is about to erupt. Knowing where your triggers are, what it takes to trip them, and being mindful of your response to a trigger situation can help you remain calm under pressure. 

A level-headed and calm individual is in touch with their triggers and they know what to do to remain calm and responsible. But how do you discover your triggers? It’s not like you can simply buy an instruction manual for your triggers.

Action: Reflection and introspection can build your self awareness. When you’ve come through a serious argument or challenging event, ask yourself what set you off . Try to think logically about the incident and look for evidence (not blame), so you can discover what makes you zing.  If you’re still stuck, you can ask a close friend if they’ve seen any triggers that they know sets you off. Once the triggers are identified, list the events or contributing factors that lead to the trigger snapping. Now plan what you’ll do next time the same set of events or incidents happen that triggered you. 

6. Ask Why 

Life is a mad rush , and most days you are probably barely keeping head above water with your career, social life, responsibilities, and more. The result is that you may have gone onto autopilot, and you may be stuck there . 

Instead of questioning your life and daily experiences and thoughts, you are simply soldiering on. You stopped asking why and simply accepted everything. When you no longer live your life with intent, resentment forms inside you due to a complete lack of self awareness. 

Start asking a very important question: why?  

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When you begin to question life and what happens to and because of you, it will boost the development of your self awareness . Ask why you didn’t get a promotion at work. Ask why you are not unhappy to have missed out on the promotion (maybe you didn’t want it). Question life and how you should respond to it. 

Action: Remind yourself to ask why whenever you need to make a decision or take an action. Give yourself thinking time by waiting three seconds before you answer or do something. Those precious three seconds will give you enough time for your brain to kick into self awareness mode and reflect on the “why” before you do something simply to please others. 

7. Adjust Your Inner Child

Many of us didn’t have the most appropriate or perfect childhoods . As a result, we struggle with issues that affect our inner child or our sense of innocence and trust . When you go through life as an adult denying the injuries their inner child suffered , you will always battle a feeling of not being authentic and not being accepted for who you truly are. 

Self awareness helps you develop a clearer understanding of your inner child’s needs. When your inner child has adjusted to who you are now as an adult , you become more empowered to succeed. When you don’t take ownership of yourself and your subconscious self (your inner child), you will always feel like you are hiding behind a mask. 

Action: Create a safe space for your inner child to come out and feel welcomed. Your self awareness can help you communicate with your inner child and learn about yourself, acknowledging the parts of yourself you had previously ignored.  Take your inner child on a date, explore creativity, and dream about your childhood, seeing it in a rainbow hue where change is always possible .  

8. Embrace Empathy

A huge example of self awareness that we all need to develop is the ability to be empathetic to others. We can only see others authentically and have empathy with their lives when we can see ourselves clearly. 

Self awareness can create an example of living by letting you see yourself, accept yourself for who you are, and show empathy to yourself. When you see and feel yourself, you can show empathy and understanding with others. 

Action: Have a mirror conversation. Sit by a mirror, staring deeply into your own eyes. Wait patiently as your mind connects to your self awareness and your inner child. When you doubt yourself, share comfort. And when you feel foolish, assure yourself you are valued and looking at yourself in the mirror isn’t a waste of time.  Finally, share empathy with yourself. Accept your pain, experiences, and feelings. 

9. Let Go of Past Experiences and Work on Facts

If you’ve failed in the past, you know that experience can make you hide from opportunity . You doubt your abilities because the past was a flop. However, you can also live with hope and push harder for future success. 

Your self awareness is vital to letting go of a negative expectation that came from a past failure and instead focusing on who you are now and what you can do now. Knowing yourself is vital to letting go of the past and focusing on what is (not what was). 

Action: Make a list of all the past successes you’ve had. Add big or small successes, such as when you won the coloring competition at school or when you successfully changed a flat tire on your own. This is you in all the glorious ups and downs . Even mistakes were learning opportunities .  Draw the successes and failures into your awareness. Now list the current tasks and events. How will you succeed? What will you do if you fail? Self awareness guides you like a kind teacher, so listen. 

10. Ask others how they see you

We are naturally biased in favor of ourselves. We tend to believe we are good, kind, loving, or, sometimes, perfect humans. We really don’t like it when someone makes negative comments about  our personalities  and behaviors.

For instance, you may feel offended if people in your social circle say you’re arrogant, selfish, self-absorbed, abrasive, or withdrawn. Getting upset is easy if  how others see you contradict how you see yourself .

As part of increasing self-awareness, you must find out how the world sees you. Here’s what to do. Ask your friends and family members to provide honest and unbiased feedback about your personality.

Do so with an open mind and be prepared to hear positive and unflattering opinions. The feedback will help give you a more accurate image of yourself.

Getting a third-party view of yourself  helps you to be mindful of how you interact with and treat others . You may be encouraged to adjust behavior that causes conflict or prevents you from building healthy relationships. If you’re seen as a  people-pleaser , then changing that trait could prevent people from taking advantage of you.

11. Keep checking in with yourself

We experience a variety of emotions on a daily basis depending on what’s going on in our environment. Those emotions such as happiness, anger, sadness, guilt, and embarrassment often influence our behavior within ourselves and around others.

Checking in with yourself throughout the day is  one way to be mindful of the emotions you’re experiencing . Ask yourself,  ‘How am I feeling right now?”  Own the feeling instead of trying to bury or push it away. If you’re sad, say,  “I feel sad.”  Next, search your mind to figure out what’s triggering the feeling.

After identifying the trigger, brainstorm what you can do to improve your mood. The remedy might be a walk outdoors,  meditating , journaling, or listening to healing music.

Being in touch with your feelings can also  serve as a guide  on when  to do  or  not do something . Maybe you are scheduled to meet your friend but you’re not feeling enthusiastic about going. It’s okay to reschedule rather than to go and feel miserable throughout the activity.

12. Get to know your strengths and weaknesses

As you continue to discover yourself, take note of your strengths and weaknesses. These include employment skills and personal strengths, such as an ability to influence others. Maybe you’re creative, reliable, punctual, determined, a good listener, or a problem-solver.

Getting to know yourself in these areas  helps you better understand your capabilities and your limitations . The information can guide you in making good decisions or asking for help in situations that are beyond you. You’ll learn where you need to improve, grow to appreciate yourself more, and even feel a lot more confident.

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Here’s a helpful exercise. Consider writing down/listing your strengths and weaknesses in a  bullet journal . Later, you can itemize thoughts, emotions, or events that cause you to give in to your weaknesses. Reflect on what you wrote and determine how you can overcome them.

Another exercise is figuring out how to harness or use your strengths in ways that don’t leave you at a disadvantage. For example, being a detail-oriented person  (employment strength)  could result in submitting projects late  (a disadvantage) .

13. Trust your intuition

Each of us has intuitive abilities or an ability   to know, understand, or discern something  without stopping to reason or having any direct evidence .

It’s almost near psychic as it extends past the rational mind and into areas of sensing and feeling.  People with high empathy , or empaths, appear to know things intuitively such as when someone is confused, upset, or hurt.

Some people trust their intuition or ‘ gut instinct’  to make decisions or decide how to interact with the world more than others do. Those decisions may go against rational or logical thinking.

How often do you rely on your natural ability to figure something out or know what’s about to happen? Do you often dismiss intuitive thoughts or revelations as nonsense? To be in tune with your intuition as you increase  internal self-awareness , start paying attention to the  information coming from your five senses .

What does it tell you to do? As long as it is safe to do, test your hunches and see if your intuition was spot on. Beyond that, embracing and trusting your intuition can  keep you out of harm’s  way or  align you with positive outcomes .

Final Thoughts on Self Awareness Examples 

There are many examples of self awareness that we can discover every day if we are just willing to open our eyes and look. For me, the revelation that I could move out of situations that made me feel strange happened when I looked at my twisted reflection in the fun fair’s mirrors. 

You can literally look at your reflection , see your life laid bare and choose to embrace self awareness… using this almost naked experience to learn and grow. Being self aware is the first step in the journey to being resilient, confident, and successful.  Part of your self awareness journey can include taking a personality test .

You may be surprised at what you discover! You can also read up on apps for mental health , which can be a tremendously helpful tool as well to help keep you centered and focused.

And if you're looking for more resources on self-awareness, be sure to check out these blog posts:

  • 15 Signs Someone Has a Lack of Self-Awareness
  • 11 Steps to Be More Self-Aware Throughout Your Life
  • 12 Self-Awareness Activities for Kids & Young Students

self awareness examples | self awareness examples for students | self awareness examples at work

Self-Awareness Workshop to Develop Your Emotional Intelligence

Through the foundation of self-awareness, teams will understand the five pillars of emotional intelligence and develop an action plan to put these improvements into practice.

Created by  Carrin Robertson – SessionLab

self awareness presentation ideas

  • Time: 3 hours
  • Participants: 3 - 12
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Facilitators: 1
  • Introduce teams to the subject of Emotional Intelligence by identifying Daniel Goleman’s five pillars: self-awareness, self-management, empathy, communication skills and group dynamics.
  • Identify our own emotions in a self-awareness exercise and be able to harness useful feelings throughout the workshop.
  • Identify levels of trust within our teams, and use this information to gauge areas of improvement.
  • Focusing on our own self-awareness, we will create an action plan to improve trust and connection within our teams around the pillars of E.Q. beyond the workshop.
  • Understand the five pillars of emotional intelligence by contextualizing action points.

When should this session be delivered?

This workshop is designed as an opening point for teams to develop their emotional intelligence by becoming more self-aware. We will provide the participants with an understanding of Daniel Goleman’s pillars of emotional intelligence, and work together to spot areas of improvement for better team cohesion.

The workshop can instill new perspectives and develop a proactive approach for change. Learning to identify our emotions, can help us better empathize with others to improve trust and communication techniques for a stronger team dynamic.

This workshop can take place in a live format, or online, and can also work as a hybrid workshop. Online tools can help facilitate this workshop, so long as we ensure the safe space needed when running workshops focused on emotional development. Presentations and an action plan workbook are included in this template, to make it easy for facilitators to use as a package. 

Who can facilitate it?

The workshop is ideally suited to be run by facilitators with a grounding and knowledge of Emotional Intelligence The instructions and exercises provided make it a straightforward workshop to run for improving self-awareness. 

It would be very useful to have studied Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence: Why it Matters more than IQ  and to have experience in emotional development for teams. It’s important to have a facilitator who understands the team and can spot any conflicts, or issues prior to running the workshop. 

Specific anecdotes and creating the opportunity for open discussion can help create a safe space and ensure the best outcomes for the participants.

We have created two downloadable PDFs for this workshop.

An action plan for participants to work through and reflect on throughout. They’ll leave with a future plan of considered action points to improve their self-awareness and develop their emotional intelligence skills beyond the training session.

A presentation for facilitators to explain the five pillars of emotional intelligence and how self-awareness can create a foundation for their emotional development.

About the author

Carrin Robertson

Carrin Robertson is a content marketer at SessionLab and a design thinking facilitator who has worked with community projects to help them solve complex problems, and to further utilize these skills and mindset.

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Develop Good Habits

33 Self-Awareness Activities for Adults and Students

This is a guest post by Niklas Goeke — adapted from his original blog post on 27 self-awareness activities . To learn more, I encourage you to check out his article, which provides detailed explanations for many of  the strategies covered in this following blog post. Also, Nik is a writer, editor, and the owner of Four Minute Books .

Having self-awareness means that you have a clear recognition of your overall personality.

This includes your strengths and weaknesses, thoughts and beliefs, emotions, and sources of motivation. Having self-awareness helps you understand other people and how they view you and your actions.

Many people assume that self-awareness comes easily and naturally , but this sense of heightened awareness can actually be hard to come by.

With practice, however, you can learn to increase your emotional intelligence and self-knowledge and find new ways to interpret your thoughts, actions, feelings, and conversations that you have with other people.

Achieving self-awareness gives you the opportunity to make positive changes in your behavior and increase your self-confidence.

Sidenote : If you don't have the time to read the whole article, take a few minutes to watch this video to learn about five of our favorite self-awareness activities for adults:

Here are 33 self-awareness activities that can help increase self-awareness in adults and students.

( Side note: Another positive ​way to improve your life is to read and learn something new every day. A great tool to do this is to join over 1 million others and start your day with the latest FREE, informative news from this website .)

Table of Contents

​What is Self-Awareness (and Five Ways to Increase It)

​Not sure about how to be more self-aware? ​In this video, we define self-awareness and five proven strategies that ​can help you increase it.   And for more actionable, habit-related videos, be sure to subscribe to our brand new YouTube Channel .  

Self-Awareness Activities – Written Exercises

Written exercises to increase self-awareness

1. Write morning pages.

This exercise comes from Julia Cameron’s An Artist’s Way , which teaches readers techniques to gain self-confidence by harnessing their creative talents and skills.

For this exercise, compose three pages of longhand stream-of-consciousness writing every morning as soon as you wake up. Not only does this help declutter your mind, but it also helps you recognize the things that are in the forefront of your brain that you may need to address that day.

2. Keep a journal.

Keeping a journal creates a permanent record of your thoughts, feelings, and events in your life. This will allow you to look back on important life events and rediscover how you felt at the time.

This can be a learning experience because, as you grow and live through new trials and tribulations, the way that you react to certain situations may change.

By reading about your past experiences, you can see how you have grown or matured, and put things into perspective. It’s also nice to have a written record of your past.

self awareness presentation ideas

3. Use feedback analysis.

When you are faced with an important decision, write down exactly how and why you came up with your decision. What factors motivated you, and what steps did you take to come to your conclusion?

After a set time (usually nine months), go back and reflect on your decision-making process. Assess the outcome of your choice in detail and analyze your ability at the time to make the best decision based on your self-awareness at the time.

4. Create a life vision-mission.

In an organization, vision & mission statements serve three important roles. They state the purpose of the organization, they inform people of strategy development, and they display measurable goals and objectives to gauge the success of the organization.

Creating a vision/mission statement for your life can define your clear direction and rank your priorities. It will help set measurable goals and provide a tactical way to measure success.

5. Write a personal manifesto.

A personal manifesto describes your core values and beliefs, the specific ideas and priorities that you stand for, and how you plan to live your life. This acts as both a statement of personal principles and a call to action.

A personal manifesto can help frame your life, point you in the right direction to help achieve your goals, and act as a tool to remind you of your primary concerns.

To get started, ask yourself questions such as:

  • What things do you stand for?
  • What are your strongest beliefs?
  • How do you want to live your life?
  • How do you want to define yourself?
  • What words do you want to live by?

A personal manifesto can be a powerful tool for bringing about your best life. Refer to your personal manifesto often.

Don't know where to start? The video below explores the two ways you can find your life purpose. Watch to learn about practical strategies you can use for these two options, so you can find more purpose with your daily routine.

6. Record your ABCs.

This is a good activity to do after you experience an adverse event. It is a helpful way to debrief yourself and get a chance to reflect and discover your beliefs after a big, negative incident occurs in your life.

  • A – Activating event that triggers your inner dialogue
  • B – Belief you formed after the event
  • C – Consequences or how your new belief makes you feel

Doing this can help you understand your response to stress. While many people can experience the same activating adverse event, their thought processes about it can have a great impact on their lives moving forward.

Using the ABC model can help people recognize their automatic thoughts when they're upset or mad, and change those thoughts into positive things.

For example, imagine you are stuck in a long line, but you are in a rush. You may become very anxious at the thought of possibly being late to your next obligation, causing you to complain out loud to the people around you about how long the line is taking to move.

Alternatively, you may decide to relax and put on your headphones to listen to some calming music while you wait. Either way, the “A” remains the same, but the “B” and “C” show how you respond to the stress.

This can help you look at things more positively and lead you to find alternatives to solving problems and staying calm. ( Read this post on more examples of self-awareness. )

7. Write a regret letter.

Write a letter to your younger self. This is a surprisingly cathartic exercise that is more than simply listing what you wish you’d known. Tell your younger self about the regrets you’ve had in your life so far, and apologize for any mistakes that you may have made and opportunities that you let pass by.

Aside from gaining a feeling of empowerment from accepting your vulnerable younger self, your words can also help others who are in similar situations as you faced in the past.

Your newfound wisdom can let readers know that they are not alone in their struggles, and provide them with advice on how to move forward.

Use these self awareness games activities such as writing a regret letter, to discover more about being self aware and why you do what you do.

Writing a letter to your younger self is a surprisingly cathartic exercise that is more than simply listing what you wish you’d known.

8. Do the funeral test.

This exercise was made popular by Stephen Covey in his book,  T he 7 Habits of Highly Effective People .

To do this, write your own eulogy and answer questions such as:

  • How do I want people to speak of me at my funeral
  • What should they remember me for?
  • Which kind of person will people think I was when I’m gone?

Doing this will help you add more purpose to your everyday activities and how you live your life. It may also help you think twice before reacting to a situation harshly or making a decision before thinking about its possible outcomes first.

9. Record your personal narrative.

How would you tell the story of your life to yourself? What would your autobiography look like?

One essential component of our personalities are our life stories, so mapping out what yours is may help you make some positive changes for the future.

10. Write down your most important tasks regularly.

Your most important tasks (MITs) are the things that you need to accomplish each day to help you achieve your long-term goals. Every night, write a to-do list of your three priority tasks for the following day.

This will allow you to start your day with a purpose and keep you aware of where your focus should be. It will help set a precedent for the day if you are able to accomplish your main goals first and get them out of the way to make room for other items on your to-do list.

11. Create a bucket list.

Having a bucket list will help you identify your personal and professional goals. When the daily routines of your life begin to set in, you are likely to let the days pass by without thinking too much about your long-term goals and desires.

Use a bucket list to keep yourself focused, and make an effort every day to accomplish at least one small task that will lead you towards crossing things off of your bucket list.

Self-Awareness Tests You Can Take By Yourself

Self-Awareness Tests You Can Take By Yourself

12. Know and understand your personality type.

Knowing your personality type will help you understand why you're different or similar to other people, help you manage your time and energy better, and help you recognize your emotions.

When you are armed with this information, you will be better equipped to view other people as being different rather than wrong. It will also help you understand what you need to be able to thrive and allow you to structure your days accordingly.

Read this post to learn more about our recommended self awareness tests.

There are many free psychometric tests you can take online, including:

  • 16Personalities
  • Jung Typology Test™
  • Character Strengths Test
  • Entrepreneurial Aptitude Test (E.A.T)
  • Online Psychometric Testing

self awareness presentation ideas

13. Discover your Eulerian Destiny.

Filling out the Eulerian Destiny circles provokes critical thinking and self-reflection.

Doing this requires you to look at four areas of your life by answering the following questions:

  • What did you grow up around?
  • What do strangers say about you?
  • What have you done for the past 5 to 10 years?
  • What can you talk about endlessly and effortlessly for hours?

Take a while to write these things down in four overlapping circles and see where they all meet. This may take time and serious thinking, but it can result in defining and refining your purpose in life. This will provide you with a framework to form your future and a basis of self-awareness.

14. Utilize The Freedom Diagram.

The Freedom diagram is one of the fun self-awareness activities. It is a short and practical guide to help figure out where you should use your energy in life, you can use the Freedom Diagram.

The three components of The Freedom Diagram are talent , fun , and demand . Talent refers to what you just happen to be good at doing. The fun component is what you wish you could do all the time, even if you weren’t paid to do it. Demand is what people in the world actually need or want, and will pay for.

Creating this guide for you will help you decide what skill you should focus on building so you have a higher chance of success.

Self-Awareness Activities – Thought Process Exercises

Self-Awareness Activities - Thought Process Exercises

15. Ask the “Three Whys.”

Many self-awareness activities simply asking yourself difficult questions and trying to answer as honestly as possible. The “three whys” is the perfect example of that.

The “Three Whys” are exactly what they sound like. Before making a big decision, or if you are trying to get to the root of an issue, ask yourself “why?” three times. This will help to reveal deep and specific issues that you may not otherwise consider.

It's not coincidental that “why?” is a rather simple question. It is an important realization that you must go a few layers deeper before making any critical decision.

Whether you are trying to create a new business, hire a new employee, add a new feature to an existing product, or buy something expensive, you always have to dig a bit deeper to reveal the truth behind your motives.

16. Put a name to your feelings and emotions.

Expanding your emotional vocabulary will allow you to articulate yourself better. Once you are able to specifically identify what you are feeling, it will allow you to release stress and resentment that may be building up inside of your mind.

Here is a list of feeling words that are better able to describe your emotions than simply “good” or “bad”. Getting more specific to explain how you feel is a cathartic way to relieve stress and anxiety.

Learn why why is self awareness important and discover more about being self aware and why you do what you do using these self awareness activities.

17. Pay attention to your self-talk.

Have you ever noticed how we are quick to praise other people in the same instances where we often criticize ourselves ?

When we fall just short of achieving a goal or we don’t live up to some high expectations, we tend to judge ourselves and dismiss our efforts.

How you talk to yourself in response to your successes and failures affects how you view yourself, and how you think others view you as well.

Rather than focusing on small things that you are not able to accomplish at a given moment, think about how far you have come, or your successes up to that point. Focus on the positive rather than the negative.

18. Question your assumptions.

Assumptions are a natural thing that people use to help make quick sense of the world. You probably expect people who are in a certain place to look and dress in a particular way. If your expectations do not meet reality, you make assumptions that can be absolutely wrong.

James Altucher suggests putting a question mark instead of a period after each of your opinions. This helps you create an argument with yourself on some of your beliefs and worldviews , which can prevent you from falling prey to irrational thoughts.

19. Ask questions about yourself.

The Proust Questionnaire is a self-exploration questionnaire that is designed to help you uncover your outlook on life and get clarity on how you think. This questionnaire is about one's personality and will make you think about what you want out of life and the things that you appreciate the most.

You can also check out our post about questions to ask yourself to find out who you are .

20. Observe your stream of consciousness.

Your stream of consciousness is unpredictable, and not always influenced by the world around you. For example, you may be at work trying to focus on a project when all of a sudden you start thinking about a memory you made years ago on a family vacation.

Be an observer of your own thoughts and feelings, especially those that are negative. Let these thoughts simply pass you by as you move on.

self awareness presentation ideas

21. Build the Pause-and-Plan Response habit.

We are all well aware of the fight-or-flight mode that we tend to find ourselves in during stressful situations. During these times, it is common to stop thinking rationally and just go with your initial urge. If you act in the moment, you likely will not make the best decision.

How can you overcome your natural fight-or-flight response and reactivate the rational thinking areas of your brain? The key is to engage the pause-and-plan response habit. Here, your brain is able to connect with your body to accomplish your goals and pause your impulses.

The pause-and-plan response is able to lead you in the opposite direction of where the fight-or-flight response takes you. Rather than speeding up, your pulse slows down and your muscles relax. This will help set you up to make positive choices.

Self-Awareness Activities – Physical Exercises

Self-Awareness Activities - Physical Exercises

22. Be aware of your body language.

Sometimes self-awareness activities are not about what you do or say but how you go about doing it. Body language is an example of this.

Not only will your posture and gestures affect how you perceive yourself, they will also have a great impact on how others perceive you . Your body language will also set the tone for how others act around you.

For example, if people feel that your body language is showing that you are uncomfortable, they may try to look for the cause of your discomfort so they can remove it. Alternatively, if someone feels that you are relaxed, they are likely to be able to relax as well and enjoy their interaction with you.

While few people have actually trained themselves to deliberately analyze people's body language, everyone still subconsciously reacts to it.

For instance, if your body language demonstrates that you are bored or disinterested in what is going on around you, others will think twice before engaging in conversation with you.

Evaluate your own body language by studying a video of yourself so you can find ways to improve.

23. Practice grounding techniques.

Grounding techniques can be used to help keep you in the present. People who have anxiety about future events often forget to live in the moment and take things as they come.

Practicing techniques to keep you grounded will help relieve anxiety and make future tasks seem easier to do.

24. Observe other people.

Just as we can use our bodies to communicate how we want other people to perceive us, we can also observe other people to try to figure them out.

Observing other people can be a fun and potentially worthwhile hobby. If you stop to watch the behavior, postures, and mannerisms of the people around you, it can help you learn about how similar or different you are from them.

While you don't want to constantly compare yourself to others, it is something that you will naturally do when you are faced with other people in your environment. 

Some traits that you are likely to notice are someone's appearance, their self-esteem, their emotional state, their warmth, and their extroversion. Knowing that other people are observing you as well will certainly help you be more self-aware.

25. Take a morning walk.

Taking a walk first thing in the morning can help you connect with your senses and examine your thoughts and feelings. Take this time to meditate about what is going on in your life and your goals for the day. Sort through your feelings and make an action plan to be productive with your time.

  • Best walking shoes for women
  • Best walking shoes for men
  • Hiking boots for men
  • Hiking boots for women

26. Practice Zhan Zhuang.

Zhan Zhuang is a simple yet effective tai chi standing practice that helps you gain mental clarity and energy.

While practicing Zhan Zhuang, you keep your body still and mostly upright, and become aware of your body as it stabilizes itself. Doing this will help you gain control over your health, posture, and muscle stability. Here’s how you can start practicing it .

27. Read more books.

One thing that all successful people have in common is their tendency to read. Reading a variety of materials on a regular basis will help improve your thinking skills and expand your vocabulary. It will keep you up to date with current events and trends, and force you to continue to learn.

Reading various books will also help you identify and narrow down the topics and ideas you are drawn to. You will find yourself going back to read more about the same topic multiple times, which will lead you in the direction of pursuing that topic in some way in your life.

For example, if you find yourself drawn to books about exercising and endurance, it may motivate you to train for a marathon or start a new exercise regimen. Reading is something that will always benefit you, no matter the topic.

Here are lists of some of the books that I highly recommend:

  • 21 Best Personal Development & Self Improvement Books
  • 14 Best Books on Learning and Building Great Study Habits
  • 29 Best Books on Building Good Habits
  • 9 Best Books on Finding Your Purpose in Life
  • 31 Best Motivational Books to Inspire Your Reading

28. Engage in solo exercise and individual sports.

Athletes in individual sports are able to learn how to be self-reliant. When engaging in a solo exercise, your success is entirely dependent on your own efforts, and you don't have anyone else to blame if you fail.

This helps teach people responsibility and decision-making skills. Solo sports and exercises also allow you to become more aware of your body-mind connection, and how you use your physical prowess to achieve a goal.

29. Practice conscious breathing.

Breathing is what connects the body and mind. Conscious breathing is a practice that can be developed to optimize health and wellness and improve overall function. It can relax the mind and spirit while helping you overcome anxiety and negative thoughts.

The goal of conscious breathing is to redirect your focus to your breath instead of your thoughts. It helps you become more aware of your body as you focus on nothing besides the breath entering and leaving your body. Check out this quick guide on conscious breathing.

30. Meditate.

The quest for self-awareness requires you to stop thinking and stop doing for a period of time in order to listen to and understand your inner workings. With the hectic pace of modern life, many people experience stress and tiredness, which leads to frustration. This can have a negative effect on overall health.

Meditation is the perfect practice to help you calm your mind and become more focused. Meditation can also help you understand your mind and learn how to transform your thoughts from negative to positive.

Overcoming negative thoughts and turning them into constructive ideas is the focus of meditation. This practice can help you enjoy your entire day, not just the few minutes that you take to meditate.

Self-Awareness Activities – with Help from Others

Self-Awareness Activities - with Help from Others

31. Ask for constructive feedback at work.

Regularly asking for constructive feedback from people you trust at work, such as mentors and capable colleagues, helps you identify the blind spots in your behavior and thinking at work.

Look at this constructive criticism as an opportunity to see where you have room to grow and improve. Use this feedback to build better habits at work .

32. Ask trusted friends or family for feedback.

To increase your self-awareness, ask people you trust and who know you the best to provide feedback, be it positive or negative, on different aspects of your life.

This could be about the way you dress, how you talk, how you interact with others or even the unconscious body language that you display. This may help you learn something about yourself that you would never otherwise notice.

33. Apologize.

Once you are aware of your flaws and are able to accept accountability for your actions, you can engage in self-reflection. ( Here are self-reflection questions you can use to understand yourself better. )

This will help prevent hypocrisy in the future, and give you the chance to improve. In order to get closure on these issues, take the time to make sincere apologies to people who may deserve them from you, and learn from your mistakes.

As you develop self-awareness, you will be able to make positive changes in your thoughts and actions.

Changing the way that you interpret things will also allow you to change your emotions for the better. Self-awareness is an important attribute of emotional intelligence and a large factor in being successful.

Final Thoughts on Self-Awareness Activities

Developing self-awareness is a huge step in creating the life you want. Where you choose to focus your attention, emotions, behaviors, and personality will determine where you go in life.

Until you are aware of yourself in the moment, you will have a hard time making the necessary changes in your life to be happy and productive.

Please share your thoughts on self-awareness and self-awareness activities in the comments below. Don't forget to share it on your favorite social media channels, like Pinterest!

Finally, if you want another positive ​way to improve your life, then read and learn something new every day. A great tool to do this is to join over 1 million others and start your day with the latest FREE, informative news from this website .

Learn 33 activities that can help increase self-awareness #infographic #psychology #mentalhealth #mindset #conciousness #spirituality #awareness #meditate #meditation

3 thoughts on “33 Self-Awareness Activities for Adults and Students”

Thanks, great tips. The Eulerian Destiny led me to a 8 word statement that summarized what I will do and the direction I am headed. ” Helping People Recover From The Injuries Of Life “. Shared on my Pinterest pin “Individuality”

After some trial and errors while rebuilding my self, finally i can say this one works for me effectively and efficiently. Thank you 🙂

This is such an amazing resource that gives you all the ways we can be more self-aware. We just need to make sure that we get feedback from the outside world and not just do introspection for more self-awareness.

Comments are closed.

Scott Jeffrey

An Integrated Approach to Developing Greater Self-Awareness

OVERVIEW : This in-depth guide provides an integrated framework with over 12 powerful self-awareness activities and exercises to increase your emotional intelligence .

______________

In Ancient Greece, at the front courtyard at Delphi, the former shrine to the oracle Pythia, there was an inscription:

γνῶθι σεαυτόν

It translates to “know thyself,” a famous aphorism often attributed to Socrates or Plato.

What does it mean to know oneself?

At first glance, we might discount this phrase as rhetoric.  Sure, I know myself , you might lament.  I know who I am.  On closer examination, however, we can’t be so sure.

Do we know  why we behave the way we do? What drives our decisions? How do we really feel about ourselves and the people in our lives?

All of these questions relate to our level of self-awareness.

Let’s dive in …

What is Self-Awareness?

Self-awareness is knowing what we’re experiencing while enabling us to monitor and regulate what’s occurring internally .

It is the ability to know what we are doing as we do it and understand why we are doing it. Self-aware individuals are more conscious of their thoughts, feelings, attitudes, behaviors, tendencies, and impulses.

That is, with self-awareness comes an increase in consciousness to perceive what’s happening and more accurately interpret its meaning.

self-awareness activities and exercises emotional intelligence pillars

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is a term coined by psychologist Daniel Goleman in the 1990s. Goleman brought attention to the fact that IQ isn’t the only form of intelligence. In his 1995 bestseller, Emotional Intelligence , he provided a compelling argument for why “EQ” is often more important than IQ.

While IQ mainly measures mathematic and logic skills, emotional intelligence highlights five areas: 1 Daniel Goleman, “What Makes a Leader?” Harvard Business Review , 2004.

  • Self-awareness : the ability to understand one’s internal terrain including thoughts and feelings.
  • Self-regulation : the ability to manage emotions, impulses, and moods.
  • Empathy : the ability to understand the emotional makeup of others and treat them accordingly.
  • Social skills : the ability to find common ground with others, build rapport, and manage relationships.
  • Motivation : the ability to pursue goals for internal reasons (beyond money) with energy and persistence.

Self-awareness is a foundational pillar of emotional intelligence. Self-awareness is the hinge upon which emotional intelligence rests.

What Does it Mean to Lack Self-Awareness?

If we are not conscious of what’s happening inside us, in the language of depth psychology , we are said to be mostly unconscious .

When we are unconscious, we lack self-awareness.

A large body of research shows the extraordinary range of unconscious biases and blind spots humans have. 2 Emma Young, Lifting the lid on the unconscious, NewScientist , 2018.

Behavioral Economist Daniel Kahneman, the author of the bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow , shows that we are usually wrong about our interpretations despite our confidence in our self-knowledge.

As it turns out, we aren’t as self-aware as we might think .

Self-Awareness is a Skill

As we progress through this guide, remember that self-awareness is a skill. Skills can be learned and developed by anyone.

As with developing any skill, learning goes through four primary stages . The first stage is  unconscious incompetence . When we start something new, we aren’t aware of how poor we are at it.

Try to play a melody on an instrument you’ve never played before, and you’ll know how unconscious incompetence feels.

The discomfort of this incompetence often leads us to avoid learning new things. For most of us, doing self-awareness activities to cultivate this skill requires going through the same discomfort.

As such, most people go through life without developing self-awareness. Yet, self-awareness is a foundational skill for anyone interested in authentic self-growth.

The key to developing self-awareness is the same as building any skill: you need the right methods combined with consistent practice. Thankfully, all the self-awareness activities below can help us increase our sensitivity to what’s unfolding within us.

A Very Brief Tour of Our Brain

When most people talk about “knowing thyself” today, they mainly refer to their minds .

Since the Age of Enlightenment (1700s), we collectively have a cultural bias toward reason and logic. But that’s only part of the story.

For simplicity, we can split the brain into three primary parts:

self-awareness activities brain functions

Basal ganglia (left), Limbic System (middle), and Neocortex (right)

1 – The Neocortex

The neocortex is the thinking or learning brain. It controls language, thought, logic, and reason.

Much of the information in the neocortex is  conscious , meaning we can draw on it at will.

2 – The Limbic System

The limbic system is the emotional center. It stores value judgments we make and memories of behaviors that produce positive and negative experiences.

Information from the limbic system is largely  subconscious . That is, this information is just below the surface of our awareness.

3 – The Basal Ganglia

The basal ganglia are at the root of the brain. This is our instinctual center. Information travels from our gut to this primitive region without going through the other brain regions.

Information from the basal ganglia is mostly  unconscious . We generally can’t access this information at will .

Why We Often Lack Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is a foundational attribute of emotional intelligence, self-leadership, and mature adulthood.

Yet, according to developmental research, less than 2% of the population ever reaches mature adulthood. 3 Cook-Greuter, Susanne R.. “Nine Levels Of Increasing Embrace In Ego Development: A Full-Spectrum Theory Of Vertical Growth And Meaning Making.” (2014).

Furthermore, researchers have found that even among people who believe they are “self-aware,” only between 10% to 15% of those surveyed fit their criteria for self-awareness. 4 Tasha Eurich, What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It) . Harvard Business Review , 2018.  (I certainly fell into that 90 percentile who thought they were self-aware in my 20s through my mid-30s.)

So why is self-awareness in short supply?

With self-awareness, we can psychologically develop because we’re constantly getting internal feedback. Without this internal feedback, we are like a leaf riding a wind current.

It’s fair to say that self-awareness should be a trait that all humans possess in abundance. But why don’t we?

Psychiatrist Carl Jung referred to this phenomenon as a “wounded feeling function”—something that plagues the modern world.  More recently, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk points out in The Body Keeps the Score , the answer is trauma .

The Body Does Keep the Score

Trauma from early childhood creates dissociation from our bodies.

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk wasn’t the first medical professional to make this important observation. Dr. John E. Sarno successfully treated thousands of patients with back pain and other chronic illnesses from the 1960s through the 1990s without any surgery.

Instead, he presented them with an explanation of how the source of their pain was repressed emotions .

See Healing Back Pain and The Mindbody Prescription . (Surgeons hated him!)

Back in the 1930s, psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich called this phenomenon body armoring : 5 Wilhelm Reich, Character Analysis , 1980.

“Armoring is the condition that results when energy is bound by muscular contraction and does not flow through the body.”

Interestingly, this is a core principle in Traditional Chinese Medicine and the internal energy arts.

self awareness exercises for trauma

How Trauma Gets Stored in the Body

From this Eastern viewpoint, the vast majority of mental and physical illnesses are psychosomatic. In their understanding, blocked emotions cause energetic stagnation.

Many centuries ago, qigong adepts with high levels of energetic sensitivities mapped out the body’s complex web of meridians (energy channels).

This energy stagnation doesn’t just cause blockage in the muscular system as Reich theorized, it disrupts the natural flow of energy in these meridian channels, the organs, the endocrine system, and more.

Unable to process traumatic childhood events with full consciousness, these experiences and their related sensations are relegated to the unconscious (our bodies).

With this dissociation, we’re essentially cut off from many innate capacities like self-awareness.

When we can’t feel our bodies at a clear and visceral level, how can we receive internal feedback that promotes self-awareness?

An Integrated Approach to Building Self-Awareness

Many attempts to develop self-awareness fail because they only target the neocortex—our thoughts, beliefs, biases, and other mental processes.

To develop greater self-awareness, we seek to become more conscious of what’s driving our behavior (thoughts, feelings, impulses, conditioning, images). That is, we must address what’s currently unconscious .

To begin addressing one’s unconscious, it’s beneficial to first address the trauma stored in the body. This is especially the case if you’re experiencing emotional and/or physical numbness.

Then, it becomes easier to increase our sensitivity to our emotions and instincts —the information we often fail to access with our conscious mind.

“Intelligence” in different areas of our lives translates to sensitivity . When we lack self-awareness, it means we don’t have sensitivity in this arena.

Next, through various self-awareness activities and exercises, we can strengthen our conscious connection to all three “brain” regions. That is, once we increase our sensitivity to information stored in our bodies, we can explore things like our thoughts, beliefs, labels, and biases with greater results.

Different self-awareness activities strengthen connections in various brain regions.

Self-Awareness Activities: Releasing Trauma from the Body

Again, before we can make significant progress in cultivating self-awareness, it’s prudent to first address trauma or stagnation stored in the body.

Therapeutic modalities for addressing stored trauma include:

Trauma Release Exercises (TRE)

Created by Dr. David Berceli, TRE provides a powerful set of deep stretches and exercises designed to produce spontaneous shaking. This shaking helps the body release stored emotional trauma.

Bioenergetic Analysis

Developed by physician Alexander Lowen, bioenergetics is a therapeutic technique designed to help people release chronic muscular tension. The field of bioenergetics is largely inspired by Wilhelm Reich’s work mentioned above.

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s a form of psychotherapy used for individuals with various traumas and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dr. Van Der Kolk highlighted a lot of compelling research related to EMDR in The Body Keeps the Score .

Psychedelic Psychotherapy

Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof conducted pioneering research where psychotherapy patients were administered LSD in the 1960s. These experiments yielded meaningful results. See his LSD Psychotherapy for an interesting read. His results would probably have been amplified if he used a naturally occurring psychedelic substance like psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”) or peyote instead of LSD.

I address each of these modalities in more detail in this guide on repressed emotions which deals more directly with trauma.

self-awareness exercises quote by david richo

The Importance of Strengthening the Mind-Body Connection

Abraham Maslow writes in  Toward a Psychology of Being :

Humans no longer have instincts in the animal sense, powerful, unmistakable inner voices which tell them unequivocally what to do, when, where, how and with whom. Authentic selfhood can be defined in part as being able to hear these impulse-voices within oneself, that is, to know what one really wants or doesn’t want, what one is fit for and what one is not fit for, etc.

Reconnecting with our body/instincts is an integral part of developing self-awareness. Again, trauma stored in the body leads us to divorce ourselves from our feelings and instincts early in life.

To reforge these connections, we must learn how to sink our awareness into the body. Pretty much any integral, body-mind practice can help you accomplish this.

In No Boundary , integral theorist Ken Wilber labeled body-mind integration the Centaur Level —an essential stage of human development.

Four Self-Awareness Activities for the Body-Mind Connection

Here are four self-awareness activities and exercises that can help strengthen one’s body-mind connection:

Conscious Breathing

Conscious breathing is less of a “technique” and more of a process of restoring the body’s natural way of breathing. Once again, emotional trauma from childhood conditions most of us to breathe incorrectly in adulthood. Learning how to “tune the breath” is an essential component of cultivating self-awareness.

See this guide on proper breathing principles .

Grounding Techniques

Grounding techniques offer another simple exercise to bring our awareness back into the body by restoring our connection to the Earth. Grounding methods can initiate a powerful healing process on multiple levels.

See this guide on how to ground yourself .

Conscious Stretching

We all have energetic blockages resulting from unprocessed emotions. Stretching is a key component to many modern approaches like TRE and Bioenergetic Analysis as well as ancient systems like Qigong and Yoga. The key to conscious stretching is to allow your awareness to sink into your body and pay attention to the regions you’re stretching. (That is, pay attention to your body instead of distracting yourself with music or a screen.)

Qigong and/or Yoga

In The Body Keeps the Score , Bessel van der Kolk also highlights the importance of integrative practices as a form of recovery. While I regularly do a select number of classic yoga postures, I have invested a great deal of time training in various forms of qigong and internal martial arts over the last fifteen years. If there was one thing that aided me in body-mind integration the most, it was qigong-related practices.

See this guide on Zhan Zhuang for a brief overview of qigong and step-by-step instructions on how to get started with this ancient standing practice. It truly can help you develop a deeper level of body awareness.

Self-Awareness Activities to Get to Know Your Personality

Your personality is essentially a collection of patterns. These patterns include thoughts, beliefs, worldviews, feelings, tendencies, impulses, and behaviors. 

Our experiences and environments condition these patterns in us.  Many of these patterns lie below the surface of our awareness.  By getting to know our personality, we bring these patterns into consciousness thereby increasing self-awareness.

Self-awareness activities for your personality include:

Personality Assessments

Assessments like the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, and Human Design Engineering provide insights into the dominant patterns of behavior for your personality type.

A personality system like the Enneagram will also highlight your biggest fears and your strongest desires. These systems can be profoundly useful when you start learning about yourself.

Values Discovery

In Emotional Intelligence , Goleman notes that a self-aware person is more likely to know their values.  Core values answer the question:  What’s most important to me?

When you become aware of your personal values, you can evaluate if you’re living in accord with them. Values assist us in emotional self-regulation. They also help us make better decisions. Here’s a list of core values examples . 

Strengths Assessment

Psychologist Martin Seligman and his team developed another interesting assessment tool to determine a person’s character strengths based on the classic virtues from antiquity .

The VIA Institute on Character offers a free survey that highlights your most natural strengths and weaknesses. This is another useful assessment to you gain greater awareness of your personality.  See my guide on authentic happiness as a primer (with links to the survey).

Self-Awareness Activities for Preparing the Mind

As you begin to improve your body-mind awareness through the above exercises, your overall level of self-awareness can potentially improve on its own.

The more you sink your awareness into your body, the more present you become. As your awareness begins to sink into your body, your mind becomes more stable. You experience less mental chatter and patterns of rumination.

With a deeper presence, more conscious attention goes to your emotional and energetic body.

As you initiate this body awareness process, take up introspective practices to support integration. Remember, the idea here is to use self-awareness activities to bring body, heart, and mind online together .

Two Common Ways We Avoid Cultivating Self-Awareness

To avoid embracing our inner landscape, we often follow two predictable patterns:

  • Distracting ourselves, and
  • Moving too quickly.

Both of these patterns are so “normal” that we don’t even think about them. “ Well, everyone does that!” 

Yet, by staying distracted—for example, constantly checking our devices—and moving too quickly from one thing to the next, we ensure that we don’t pay attention to what’s going on inside of us.

Ultimately, these two “ normal habits ” are a sly form of avoidance behavior. An essential part of cultivating self-awareness is learning to slow down with whatever we’re doing.

Then, we can become more receptive to internal information (like feelings and judgments) that we’re currently repressing and suppressing .

Self-Awareness Starts From Your Center

Before we attempt to cultivate self-awareness, it’s important to get acquainted with the concept of the Center.

The Center is that at-home feeling within ourselves. When we’re in the Center, we are calm, lucid, alert, and neutral. That is, in the Center, the ego isn’t reactive or easily triggered.

The Center is our natural home. Trauma draws us out of the Center early in life. As we address our trauma, there’s a natural movement back toward our inner home.

Learning how to center yourself is a vital step because it increases our focus and attention. Attention is essential for learning, understanding, and developing in any area. In the context of using self-awareness activities, the quality of our attention will determine the efficacy of the exercises.

Thankfully, we have many exercises and practices we can use to cultivate attention and many of these activities also help us build self-awareness.

(For a powerful and simple practice, you can use each day to access your Center quickly and consistently, check out The Mastery Method: Activate Your Higher Potential .)

self-awareness activities joseph campbell quote

Developing the Inner Observer for Self-Awareness

The key to many forms of meditation is to develop what’s called the inner observer , observing self, or observing mind .

Here, we’re not so interested in the content of the mind (thoughts, sensory perception); instead, we want to meditate on the meditator.

Archetypally speaking, the observing mind is a primary function of the Magician archetype (also called the Sage ). When we access this Magician energy, we gain a unique perspective on our life experiences and inner world.

The reason we often lack self-awareness of our behavior is that the ego is essentially a collection of archetypal patterns.

Each archetype acts semi-autonomously . That is, we have no one in the Center monitoring our thoughts, feelings, actions, and behavior from moment to moment.

By cultivating the inner observer , we create a space between the doer of actions, the thinker of thoughts, and the feeler of feelings. The  observing self can then monitor our thoughts, feelings, actions, and gut reactions with objectivity.

It’s important to understand that most of us don’t have this observing self to a high degree unless we cultivate it. Without this inner observer , we can’t effectively develop self-awareness.

Also, remember, early trauma makes the Center elusive; only in the Center does the observing mind come alive. If you’re new to meditation, see this in-depth guide on meditation training . It’s a powerful self-awareness activity that anyone can use.

Self-Reflection

As you develop this observing mind and further root yourself in the Center, a kind of internal analysis begins to manifest. You begin to slow down and become more reflective.

For starters, take time in the evening to reflect on your behaviors, attitudes, and emotions from the day.

  • Did I get emotionally triggered at all today? 
  • What happened? What was I feeling? 
  • Why did I say such and such?
  • What can I learn from observing my behavior today?

You can also pause at random intervals during the day, and ask yourself: What am I feeling right now?

Perhaps a conversation you just had at work or with your spouse left you feeling ungrounded. Inquiry as to why that may be.

Active Journaling

Many people find it helpful to keep an active journal where they record their insights and observations from self-reflection.

Capturing our inner thoughts and feelings in a journal helps us objectify them. Sometimes we have a sense of what we’re feeling, but it’s still vague or ambiguous.

In writing your inner observations down, you’re drawing them further into consciousness. It helps to flush out what you’re feeling so you can articulate your emotions more clearly. Plus, you may be able to identify specific patterns that you’re currently unaware of.

Self-Awareness Exercises from Depth Psychology

Personally, I simply don’t see how anyone can develop true self-awareness without investing time in getting to know their “darker half”—what Carl Jung called the Shadow.

The universal archetypes are the home of our emotions, thoughts, and behavioral patterns. They provide a shorthand for understanding our inner lives.

This is a deep topic that I address in detail elsewhere. For reference, see:

How to Get to Know and Integrate Your Shadow

What is an Archetype?

A Practical Guide to Active Imagination

We might say that depth psychology offers more advanced forms of self-awareness activities. The one drawback of these methods is that there is a steeper learning curve.

How to Improve Self-Awareness Through Others

Finally, let’s look at a few self-awareness activities that involve observing and getting feedback from others to learn about ourselves.

Observing Others

Many people who practice shadow work notice (especially in the beginning) how much easier it is to observe other people’s shortcomings than one’s own.

A fundamental insight from humanistic psychology is we are all far more alike than we are different.

In observing other people, we can often learn a great deal about our behaviors, emotions, and attitudes. Sit on a park bench or gaze out the window from a cafe and simply observe. Watch people’s body language, facial expressions, and hand gestures when they communicate.

What do you see? What do you feel?  That is, what are they feeling beneath the surface?

This is a tremendously powerful self-awareness exercise. In the beginning, it’s not about “getting it right”; it’s more about exercising your observational muscles that are essential for cultivating self-awareness.

Getting an External Perspective

As John Whitmore, a pioneer in the coaching industry and author of Coaching for Performance , writes,

“Building awareness, responsibility, and self-belief is the goal of a coach.”

A primary way a coach helps their clients build awareness is by providing effective feedback .

In corporate environments, many organizations use 360-degree feedback, an assessment tool for providing employees with performance feedback from their supervisor and up to eight peers.

Of course, you don’t need a coach or a formal process for this self-awareness exercise. You can ask a trusted friend questions like:

  • What behaviors do you believe are limiting my potential?
  • How do you generally feel when you’re talking to me?
  • What do you think I’m good at? What are some of my weaknesses?
  • If you had to describe me to someone, what would you say?
  • Is there anything you avoid saying to me because you’re afraid of how I’ll react?

You can only ask these types of questions to a trusted confidante and from a place of openness.

Recap: On Developing Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is a skill that helps us monitor our behavior and better understand our motives and ourselves.

The stronger our observing self becomes, the more space we have between us and our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Most people fail to develop emotional self-awareness because they don’t get rooted in their bodies first . Integrating the various regions of our brain that guide our instincts, feelings, and thoughts helps increase our self-awareness.

By practicing a range of self-awareness activities and exercises, we can address our bodies, emotions, and thoughts. This integrated approach is the key to cultivating true self-awareness.

Reading List for Self-Awareness Activities

The following books contain additional self-awareness activities and exercises.

the body keeps the score bessel van der kolk

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk

search inside yourself

Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace) by Chade-Meng Tan

emotional intelligence daniel goleman

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman

how to be an adult david richo

How to Be an Adult by David Richo

5 Transformative Methods to ACTIVATE Your Pineal Gland and Tap Into Your Superhuman Potential

5 Powerful Meditation Tools to Help You Train Your Mind

Do Earthing Sheets Really Help Improve Your Sleep

About the Author

Scott Jeffrey is the founder of CEOsage, a self-leadership resource publishing in-depth guides read by millions of self-actualizing individuals. He writes about self-development, practical psychology, Eastern philosophy, and integrated practices. For 25 years, Scott was a business coach to high-performing entrepreneurs, CEOs, and best-selling authors. He's the author of four books including Creativity Revealed .

Learn more >

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17 self-awareness activities for exploring yourself

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What are self-awareness activities?

The importance of self-awareness, can you measure self-awareness, 8 general self-awareness activities for adults, 4 self-awareness activities at work, 3 self-awareness activities for students, 3 other resources to increase self-awareness skills .

Remember when you were sitting in a college course thinking, “This major isn’t for me?” What about when you knew a relationship or job was no longer serving you, and you knew you needed to move on? 

In those moments, you were self-aware. 

Self-awareness is the art of knowing yourself, your personality, and your aspirations. Sometimes, life will teach you what you do and don’t want, like when you realized you no longer enjoyed your major or a job. But other times, it takes intentional work to understand yourself better. 

That’s where self-awareness activities come in. Through these exercises, you can take a deeper look at what you want in life, how you feel about certain activities and topics, and what your personality traits are. And through that journey, you can become your most authentic self .

Self-awareness activities are exercises you perform to further understand who you are and aspire to be. These activities prompt you to consider your personal values , feelings, and desires, pinpointing things you love about yourself and areas for self-improvement. 

While your reactions to setbacks, achievements, and other positive and negative life events can teach you about your personality, self-awareness exercises push this understanding further.

You may think you love your current job, but when you journal about it , you find that you’d like to improve some aspects of your career. You might believe you find conversations with your partner about financial wellness stressful, but discover upon further introspection that it’s not the subject itself but how you communicate about it. 

Self-awareness activities prompt you to think deeply about your feelings and become more aware of your thoughts, reactions, and experiences. Then, with that knowledge in hand, you can acknowledge your positive traits or adjust your behavior.

You could take steps toward a more enjoyable career once you’ve determined what’s not currently working in your role. And after discovering flaws in how you communicate with your partner, you can learn to change your communication style . 

Being aware of your personality and needs helps you make decisions that align with your personal goals and true self. You can identify your values, seek meaningful activities and relationships, and define your strengths and areas of opportunity , all of which can contribute to personal and professional growth.

Self-knowledge helps you understand the types of experiences and interactions you want in life, but it also promotes better interactions with others. If you know what stresses or hurts you, you can set clear boundaries with those around you, prompting stronger communication and honest relationships.

Here are a few self-awareness examples that show the benefits of knowing yourself : 

  • You’re tired all the time, but aren’t sure why. After speaking to a career coach about it, you discover that you’re working too much. With that knowledge, you say “No” to an extra assignment and start getting the rest you need.
  • After a fight with a friend, journaling about the situation helps you understand that their condescending tone hurts you. You reopen the discussion to tell them how it makes you feel, showing vulnerability and deepening your relationship .
  • You feel lost in life. After making a vision board, you realize that travel is high on your list of priorities. You decide to switch careers and pursue a job that requires travel.

boy-at-school-looking-at-his-classmate-self-awareness-activities

Researchers have developed tools like personality tests, emotional intelligence questionnaires, and self-awareness assessments to help you measure self-knowledge. Some mental health professionals use these alongside other methods to help patients understand themselves better . 

British psychologist Anna Sutton analyzed the development of the Self-Awareness Outcomes Questionnaire (SAOQ) , an evaluation aiming to measure the impact of self-awareness on people’s lives.

She found that the SAOQ could adequately measure work-based outcomes based on performance, but more research is needed to outline the impacts of self-awareness on different cultures and lifestyles. 

It’s possible to quantify the impacts of self-awareness in some cases, but there’s no concrete scale on which every person can measure themselves.

Rather than comparing yourself to a singular standard or to other peoples’ progress, the goal is to use quizzes, exercises, and activities to know yourself better. You can measure the impacts by applying revelations to your life, like switching jobs when you learn your current position doesn’t serve you or reaching out to a friend after realizing you were in the wrong.

man-working-in-an-office-dressed-in-white-self-awareness-activities

Understanding yourself better can show you what you want (and don’t) in all aspects of your life and how these needs intersect. To get a clearer view of who you are in a broad sense, use the following self-awareness worksheets, activities, and ideas:

1. Journaling

Journaling is the act of writing down your thoughts. You can write about your day, process anxiety , or use a self-discovery prompt to get the ink flowing. Be as honest and unbounded as possible as you write, pouring out a stream of consciousness. Make observations later and reflect on what you wrote. Tracking trends and themes over time can make you more aware of your triggers , insecurities, and abilities. 

2. Mindfulness

Practicing mindfulness means centering yourself in the present moment. And doing so on a regular basis can improve your self-awareness and help you manage stress.

Scan your body for feelings, tension, and relaxation. Attune to your surroundings, activating your senses —- listening to your environment or how the breeze feels on your skin. You’ll discover where you hold stress in the body and how you return to a more relaxed, aware state when stress recedes.

3. Self-awareness questions 

Use self-discovery questions to explore yourself, whether you prefer to write them down or ponder them in quiet moments. Try “What motivates me?” or “How would I describe myself to others?” The answers to these questions likely already live inside of you, and you can quickly gain some self-awareness by extracting them. 

4. Grounding techniques

Grounding yourself brings you into the present moment during moments of stress or anxiety . Try using a grounding sheet to write down the things you feel when you need to escape ruminating thoughts. You could also visualize your thoughts floating away, directing your attention to a feeling, or focusing on an object. This practice can make you more aware of your feelings and help you manage stress . 

5. Therapy or coaching 

Working with a mental health professional or coach is an excellent way to learn more about yourself. In therapy, a trained psychologist will help you unpack past experiences and understand your behaviors. Some will provide tools for regulating emotions and shifting reactions. 

In coaching, you’ll tap into your inner motivations and receive pointed support in creating a plan to make changes. You’ll set goals for self-awareness and outline a clear path toward self-improvement , focusing on the future rather than the past.

6. Vision boards

Vision boards are virtual or physical spaces that you fill with inspiring images or phrases. These tools can help you visualize an ideal future in every aspect — from professional pursuits to places you hope to travel. Making a vision board puts you in touch with your desires and can help you decide what your goals are .

7. “The 3 whys”

“ The 3 whys ” is an activity that encourages you to push deeper into what you already know or feel . When you encounter a situation you’re unsure how you feel about, ask “why” three times or until you reach the root cause of your feelings. 

If you have an interaction that felt off with your boss and are unsure how to interpret your reaction, ask yourself why you think you felt that way. Suppose your response is that your boss’ feedback felt too harsh. Ask yourself why you felt it was. Perhaps it highlighted an insecurity you already have. With that self-knowledge, you can approach future conversations with more clarity.

8. “Who am I?” worksheets

A “Who am I?” exercise is a tool therapists use to help their clients self-evaluate, and you can download a worksheet version to explore on your own. In this activity, you’ll first determine the critical parts of your identity, like being a software developer, a compassionate person, or an amateur painter. You’ll then write what each of these aspects of your personality means to you, learning to value who you already are. 

man-working-hard-on-report-self-awareness-activities

It’s normal to feel like your work life needs a boost. You might want to improve your professional relationships, get a raise or promotion, or even shift careers . Practicing self-awareness at uncertain times can help you understand your dissatisfactions and desires. Here are four work-specific exercises:

9. Workplace personality tests

Workplace personality tests like CliftonStrengths or the Whole Person Assessment help you understand how you prefer to work and what assignments you thrive in. If you’re considering making a move in your career, whether up the ladder or to a different role, becoming more aware of your abilities can help you choose a route you’ll succeed in.

10. Goal-setting

Professional goal-setting allows you to identify changes you hope to make and routes to achieve them, making this activity an incredibly effective tool for someone feeling burnt out or lost. You can set daily , monthly , or even yearly goals to tackle development opportunities and get to know yourself better.

11. Performance reviews

Performance reviews are constructive feedback sessions that can help you understand strengths and areas for self-improvement. Take your next performance review conversation as an opportunity to gain awareness about yourself with help from an outside perspective. You could also use the Johari window model to help others identify your character traits.

If you’re getting a master’s degree or considering furthering your education, self-awareness exercises can help you pick a major or school. These self-discovery activities can help you explore future pathways and recognize your strengths in an educational setting: 

12. “Sparks”

This activity refers to your interests, skills, and talents — in other words, your “spark.” If you’re feeling lost and need a reminder of what your personal strengths are, you can download a guide to try this exercise. Questions include, “What would you do for the rest of your life if you could only do one thing?” or “When do you feel happiest?”

13. Self-compliments

When you’re starting self-discovery , you might feel self-conscious or experience a lack of self-esteem . Just like how the “sparks” activity can help you acknowledge your talents, giving yourself compliments can remind you what you love about yourself. Examples of self-awareness affirmations you might write include “I’m great at math,” “I’m kind to my friends,” or “I like my sense of style.”

14. Thoughts-actions-feelings circles

A thoughts-actions-feelings circle encourages you to consider how what you think leads to behaviors, which lead to emotional reactions and, finally, more thoughts. When thoughts are negative, the resulting actions and feelings are, too. 

Outlining your behavioral patterns in this circle teaches you to be more aware of the impacts of your thoughts. With practice, it can help you intentionally think positively. 

woman-dressed-as-dia-de-los-muertos-self-awareness-activities

You don’t always have to look inward to perform self-discovery . Others’ stories and insights can also help you learn about yourself. When you empathize and identify with others’ narratives, you locate the similarities in yours, learning more about yourself in the process. Here are three outward-looking tools for fostering personal development:

15. TED Talks

TED Talks , which are engaging short-form lectures from experts on everything from leadership to creativity, inspire conversation, ideas, and change. You can find talks on nearly every topic, so you can choose to watch a few on something you want to learn about yourself. 

If you’re an entrepreneur struggling to launch a business, listen to an inspiring TED talk from an innovator. It could remind you to take lessons from an unexpected aspect of your life, like parenting, or lean into your vulnerability . 

16. Podcasts

There’s a podcast on virtually every topic, making them an excellent resource if you wish to explore new interests and learn more about yourself. Listen to a mental-health-focused show to better understand the inner workings of your negative thoughts, or find one about self-confidence and how to love your future self. Insights from self-aware people can give you the problem-solving skills you need to curb biases and check in with yourself.

17. BetterUp articles

BetterUp’s blog contains a wealth of articles on well-being and the workplace. These articles can address questions like how to establish a better work-life balance , improve your inner dialogue, or develop an intentional self-care routine . They’re your guide as you explore yourself. 

Make self-awareness a habit

When you reach roadblocks in your life, self-awareness activities can help you explore the problem and learn how to use your strengths to overcome it. But you can, and should, make self-reflection a regular practice, even when things are going well. 

Ask yourself what’s working and acknowledge the value of the positive aspects of your life. You’ll improve emotional intelligence and decision-making skills — fostering a lifestyle and interactions that align with your desires and needs. 

Understand Yourself Better:

Big 5 Personality Test

Elizabeth Perry, ACC

Elizabeth Perry is a Coach Community Manager at BetterUp. She uses strategic engagement strategies to cultivate a learning community across a global network of Coaches through in-person and virtual experiences, technology-enabled platforms, and strategic coaching industry partnerships. With over 3 years of coaching experience and a certification in transformative leadership and life coaching from Sofia University, Elizabeth leverages transpersonal psychology expertise to help coaches and clients gain awareness of their behavioral and thought patterns, discover their purpose and passions, and elevate their potential. She is a lifelong student of psychology, personal growth, and human potential as well as an ICF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach.

Tune in to the self discovery channel with 10 tips for finding yourself

Self-awareness in leadership: how it will make you a better boss, how to change your perspective and change your life, the importance of knowing yourself: your key to fulfillment, what is self-awareness and how to develop it, learn how to be alone with your thoughts to gain peace, how self-knowledge builds success: self-awareness in the workplace, what are metacognitive skills examples in everyday life, discover how the johari window model sparks self-discovery, from self-awareness to self-control: a powerful leadership technique, the benefits of knowing yourself: why you should become your own best friend, 100 self-reflection questions to explore yourself, get to know yourself through the act of self-reflection, stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

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Reflecting for self-awareness

A collection of reflective activities and questions for developing self-awareness .

This page covers:

Self-awareness: learning about yourself to improve

  • Some traits are stable, others change frequently
  • Challenging your answers to remain reflective
  • Links to example activities and approaches for self-awareness

The purpose of reflection is to improve practice and become informed in our decisions. Generally, we want to become more able and effective in what we are doing. A lot of reflection is done to make more sense of particular experiences – critical experiences, disorienting dilemmas – however reflection can also start with the want to develop better understanding of ourselves.

This doesn’t necessarily have to start with an experience, but rather a reflective question. To answer this type of question, we will often use experiences as evidence or support.

By learning about ourselves, our motives, and our assumptions, we can develop a toolkit of knowledge and abilities that we can draw on to help ourselves preform to the best of our ability.

Some traits remain stable, others change frequently

Aspects of ourselves like strengths, weaknesses, and values often tend to be fairly consistent over time. That said, they do change naturally and, of course, with awareness we can start consciously targeting these elements, for example by building reflective habits and goals. However, sometimes we might also want to be aware of things that vary faster such as our mood, or how we feel about something particular.

The questions and activities you can access from this page will help with awareness of both more stable traits such as strengths and weaknesses, and traits that vary more rapidly.  They include simple check-in questions we can ask ourselves in the moment, and get us to think slightly differently about a problem.

Challenge your answers to remain reflective

One very important aspect of these types of activities and questions is that they lend themselves well to reflection, but don’t necessarily require a reflective approach. Therefore, to remain reflective it is important that you challenge your initial instincts and look for evidence – ask yourself ‘How do I know?’ and ‘Why?’ regularly.

Example activities and approaches for self-awareness

There are many ways to build self-awareness.  The activities and questions available below are not exhaustive, but give you a place to start when trying to increase your self-awareness.

Strengths and weaknesses

Increasing your self-awareness of your strengths and weaknesses.

Increasing your self-awareness of your values.

Goal setting

Using a reflective approach to set effective goals.

Writing letters to your future and past selves

Increasing your self-awareness through writing letters to your future and past selves.

Items for self-awareness

Using items to increase your self-awareness

This article was published on 2024-10-15

Nick Wignall

  • Post date November 4, 2021

10 Simple Ways to Improve Your Self-Awareness [With Examples]

  • Tags emotional intelligence

self-awareness Wignall

Improving your self-awareness can seem daunting, partly because feels like such an abstract concept.

But here’s the thing:

Self-awareness is a skill anyone can improve with the right tools and a little practice.

In this guide, I’ll briefly explain what self-awareness is, why it’s important, and then walk you step-by-step through a handful of my favorite exercises and techniques for becoming more self-aware.

In fact, these are the same techniques I use with my clients as a psychologist.

Let’s get to it!

Table of Contents

Feel free to jump straight to any section using the following links:

What is self-awareness?

What are the benefits of self-awareness.

Pay attention to what bothers you about other people

  • Meditate on your mind
  • Read high-quality fiction
  • Identify your emotional kryptonite
  • Draw a timeline of your life
  • Ask for feedback (and take it well)
  • Do some micro-travel
  • Learn a new skill
  • Identify cognitive distortions
  • Make time to clarify your values
  • Summary & Key Takeaways

what is self-awareness wignall

Self-awareness is the habit of paying attention to the way you think, feel, and behave.

More specifically, self-awareness is about observing:

  • Patterns of thought. How do you  tend to think about and explain what happens to you? What’s your self-talk like? What expectations do you hold in certain settings or with certain people? What are your core beliefs that influence your thinking?
  • Patterns of emotion. How well do you understand your own moods and emotions? Do you observe and try to understand your emotions or do your react to them impulsively? Do you view difficult emotions as enemies to be avoided or gotten rid of or messengers trying to tell you something?
  • Patterns of behavior. Do you understand why you tend to act in the same way in certain situations? Do you have a sense for what types of events are triggering for you? To you understand what motivates your beahviors or leads to self-sabotage?

Put another way, self-awareness means learning to be curious about your own mind.

self-awareness benefits wignall

It’s hard to overstate the benefits of self-awareness, so I’ll just list a few of the most common positive effects that come from increasing your self-awareness:

  • Better relationships. It’s difficult to ask for what you want and need in a relationship—or set healthy boundaries —when you’re not very clear about it yourself. For example, how well do you know your personal values ? Often the best way to improve any relationship is by trying to become more self-aware.
  • Calmer moods. How you consistently feel emotionally depends on how you think. If you have a habit of chronic worry, for example, you’re very likely to feel anxious all the time . But when you imporve your self-awareness, you learn to understand the relationship between your thinking and your moods. This makes it much easier to regulate your emotions effectively and balance your moods.
  • Clearer thinking and better decision-making. Poor decision-making often comes from muddled thinking and uncheked emotional reactions. When you become more aware of your habits of thought and feeling, we can more easily distinguish between short-term impulses or desires and long-term values and goals.
  • Increased productivity. The most common cause of procrastination and poor productivity isn’t a lack of effort or commitment… It’s interference from ourselves. When we struggle to get to work, it’s usually because on some level our own thoughts, emotions, or habits are getting in the way. Improving self-awareness can help eliminate many of these hidden obstacles to productivity.

10 examples of how to improve your self-awareness

As a psychologist, I work with clients all the time to increase self-awareness in many areas of life. Here are 10 of my favorite techniques and strategies for becoming more self-aware.

1. Pay attention to what bothers you about other people

self-awareness exercise 1 wignall

Often the things that irritate us the most in other people are a reflection of some quality we dislike in ourselves.

We all have aspects of ourselves that we’re not proud of:

  • A tendency to lie or bend the truth a little too often, for example.
  • Or maybe you avoid conflict like the plague, and struggle to set boundaries .

But if you don’t know how to change these things (or don’t believe it’s possible), its easy to end up ignoring them or living in denial. And while ignorance can feel like bliss, it isn’t really. Not in the long-term.

So, whenever someone does something that seems to particularly annoy or irritate you, ask yourself:

Could this be a reflection of something in me that I dislike? Do I do some version of that?

2. Meditate on your mind

self-awareness exercise 2 wignall

You’ve probably heard of mindfulness meditation . It’s the simple practice of keeping your attention focused on your breath or some other physics sensation. Then, if you notice your mind wandering to other thoughts, gently returning your attention to your point of focus.

While mindfulness meditation has been shown to be beneficial for everything from weight loss to depression relief , it can actually be a powerful way to increase your level of self-awareness.

Specifically, mindfulness meditation is one of the best ways to learn more about how your thoughts and emotions work. When you practice watching and observing our thoughts without attaching to them or thinking about them, you begin to internalize a powerful idea:

You are not your thoughts .

All too often we lack self-awareness because we’re actually thinking too much— overthinking . We easily become lost in our thoughts, assuming they’re true or worth engaging with simply because our minds decided to throw them at us.

A regular mindfulness practice will open your eyes to how the thinking mind works and how much more there is to you than the mere content of your thoughts.

Learn More: How to Start a Mindfulness Practice: A Quick Guide for Complete Beginners

3. Read high-quality fiction

self-awareness exercise 3 wignall

It’s often said that great writers are great observers of the world around them. And it’s this capacity to notice subtle details and features of life that allow them to recreate it so movingly in their work.

But the very best writers are expert observers of human nature in particular. It’s their job to notice the tiny details of thought, emotion, desire, and action that most of us miss amid the frantic business of daily life.

And even though most of us probably aren’t called to be authors and astute observers of human nature professionally, we can all learn a thing or two about ourselves by learning to pay attention like an author.

By describing people carefully, good fiction teaches us how to think about people carefully and with compassion. And the better we get at observing others, the more likely we are to look at ourselves the same way.

So spend 30 minutes sometime and come up with a list of good fiction you’ve been meaning to read or ask a friend to recommend a few of their favorites.

Learn More: How to Become a Prolific Reader

4. Identify your emotional kryptonite

self-awareness exercise 4 wignall

Nobody likes to feel sad, anxious, ashamed, or any other kind of difficult emotion. This is understandable since they feel bad—sometimes painfully so!

And while we all recoil from painful emotions, each of us tends to have one particular emotion that we especially dislike and try to avoid.

A common pattern I see in my clinical practice is for people to do anything to avoid feeling sad. They’ll go to extraordinary—sometimes harmful—lengths to distract themselves or numb out that specific feeling of sadness, even if it means intensifying other painful emotions like anxiety, shame, and guilt.

For example:

  • I had a client just recently who discovered that part of the reason she struggled with social anxiety was that she worried constantly that people were judging her. Specifically, she worried that they could tell she drank too much and were judging her for that.
  • When I asked her about her drinking, we eventually discovered that even though drinking was causing her a lot of shame and anxiety, to her it was worth it because it was the only way she knew how to distract from the sadness in her life.
  • So even though anxiety was the obvious emotion she was struggling with, she eventually became self-aware enough to realize that sadness was the emotion at the root of her struggle.

We all have certain emotions that we especially dislike—our emotional kryptonite . And more often than not, that means we try very hard to avoid that emotion.

The problem is, being so afraid of an emotion that we’re willing to do just about anything to avoid it can lead to some pretty negative consequences in the long-term (substance abuse, for instance).

But more importantly, by avoiding the emotion, we’re avoiding listening to what the emotion has to say to us. Painful emotions are painful because our mind is trying to get our attention—often for a very good reason.

Learning to tolerate the discomfort of our emotional kryptonite—the feeling your most afraid to feel—can unlock a wealth of insight about ourselves and our world if we’re willing to listen.

Learn More: Emotional Kryptonite: The Feeling You’re Most Afraid to Feel

5. Draw a timeline of your life

self-awareness exercise 5 wignall

One of the most eye-opening “tricks” I perform as a psychologist often happens in the second session with my clients.

At the end of our first meeting, I sometimes ask them to spend 20 minutes drawing a timeline of their life as a homework assignment.

The isntructions are simple enough:

  • Sit down with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil.
  • Starting with your birth, mark the major events in your life along the timeline.
  • Be sure to think about events that were espcially impactful whether they appear big or small, positive or negative.

Inevitably, people come back and say some version of the same thing:

That sounded like the dumbest exercise ever but I was shocked at how much I realized about myself.

In particular, many people are able to make sense of or get a new perspective on an especially distressing or difficult time by seeing that specific period in context.

Being able to think developmentally and in context is key to self-awareness.

6. Discover your blind spots by asking for feedback (and taking it well)

self-awareness exercise 6 wignall

Here’s a question:

How often do you deliberately seek out feedback about yourself?

If you’re anything like me—or most people, I bet—probably not often. Which is a shame because good feedback is one of the fastest and most effective ways to grow and improve ourselves.

In particular, while there are many aspects of ourselves that probably need improvement, it’s the parts of ourselves we can’t see—our blind spots —that are the real problem.

And other people are uniquely positioned to notice these and help us see them. If we ask…

So, how exactly should we go about asking for feedback about ourselves?

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

  • Choose a solid relationship in your life: parent, spouse, best friend, etc. Someone with whom you have enough relationship credit that they would be willing to point out something negative.
  • Start small. At fiorst, ask about something that’s not too big or threatening. This is about building up the other person’s confidence that you can take criticism well. They’ll be more likely to tell you about a major personality issue if you’ve shown them that you can take criticism about household chores well.
  • Take the criticism well. Avoid defensiveness at all costs. Anticipate that you’re not going to feel wonderful at the moment someone points out a flaw. And that’s okay. It’s normal to feel that way. Try your best to simply acknowledge their feedback and thank them for giving it.

7. Do some micro-travel

self-awareness exercise 7 wignall

New places and strange environments get us out of our routines and force us to be more self-aware.

When I lived in Italy, I remember being appalled initially by how much time people “wasted” on long, extravagant meals— dinner for 3 hours, are you kidding!

But after spending time in Italian culture and being forced into the experience of these long, relaxed meals, I began to appreciate this alternative attitude toward meals that was more than simply a refueling process.

And while I don’t regularly eat 3-hour dinners, my perspective on meals and their function has changed as a result of my travel and time spent in a new environment.

Of course, even though regularly jet-setting to exotic countries probably isn’t a viable strategy for most of us, we can get the self-awareness benefits of travel without having to go very far.

Micro-travel is the simple idea that we can still engage in travel but on a local scale.

For example, if you live in a large city or urban area, you’re likely familiar with your own neighborhood, downtown, and maybe a couple other spots. But there are probably whole neighborhoods you haven’t spent much if any time in. This is an opportunity for micro-travel.

Similarly, while two weeks in Thailand might not be feasible for you at the moment, two days at a local state park that you’ve never been to might be.

If you can expand your idea of what travel means to include local or nearby locations that are still unfamiliar, you can get many of the benefits of travel—including a boost to our self-awareness—at a fraction of the cost in time or money.

8. Learn a new skill

self-awareness exercise 8 wignall

Just like traveling forces us to become more self-aware by throwing us into novel situations, learning something new increases self-awareness by forcing us to think and act in novel ways .

As adults, we all get pretty set in our ways, in large part,  because we end up doing the same things over and over again.

And while this leads to a certain kind of comfort, it also fosters a narrowness of mind…

When the only things you’re doing are things you’re already good at, it’s easy to be lulled into a false sense of security that you know how things work.

The antidote is what’s sometimes called Beginner’s Mind . The idea behind beginners mind is that in order to learn new things, the mind has to be flexible and see things fresh—like a child.

This means that if you want to cultivate flexibility and freshness within yourself and the way you see things (i.e. self-awareness), you should go out of your way to be a beginner. And one of the best ways to do this is to learn a new skill.

Whether it’s speaking Mandarin or learning how to juggle, committing to learning a new skill is a powerful exercise in mental flexibility and self-awareness.

9. Identify cognitive distortions

self-awareness exercise 9 wignall

Cognitive distortions are inaccurate thoughts and beliefs that warp how we see things—including ourselves—and usually lead to overly painful emotions and moods.

Think about it like this: Just like we all can get into unhelpful physical habits (e.g.: nail-biting, snacking late at night, etc.), we all have certain mental habits that aren’t doing us any favors.

For example: Whenever something upsetting happens while I’m driving—getting cut off, someone taking a parking spot I wanted—a default script that runs through my mind is, What a jerk!  For whatever reason, I’ve developed a mental habit of name-calling other drivers anytime I get upset on the road.

This is a problem because even though other drivers do make mistakes sometimes I do too. But if my default reaction is to always externalize and blame other people, I miss the opportunity to see my own behavior and self-correct.

If every time I get cut off, I tell myself that the person cutting me off is a jerk and should be a more considerate driver, I may miss the fact that I chronically drive too slow in the passing lane because I’m talking to my wife and not very aware of how I’m driving.

The point is, a major source of a lack of self-awareness is inaccurate mental habits and self-talk . If you can learn to identify these patterns of inaccurate thinking, you can become more self-aware—and probably end up feeling better too.

Learn More: Cognitive Restructuring: The Complete Guide to Changing Negative Thinking

10. Make time to clarify your values

self-awareness exercise 10 wignall

Here’s a somewhat intimidating question:

How often do you make time to deliberately consider your values and ideals?

If you’re like most of us, the busyness of daily life tends to sweep you up in a constant stream of activity without much time for reflection, especially reflection on your personal values .

So is it any surprise then that you have a difficult time reaching your goals and finding satisfaction when you don’t spend any time contemplating what that would even look like?

What’s more, it’s probably not surprising that we end up chasing artificial goals that culture and society tell us are important (nice car, big house, trim waistline, Ivy League schools for our kids, etc.) but that we don’t necessarily find genuinely meaningful and important.

A special form of self-awareness involves becoming aware of and clear about the things that really matter to us:

  • Why am I here?
  • What am I called to do?
  • What makes for a fulfilling life that I can be truly proud of?

These are big questions. And while they sound intimidating, that’s probably because we just don’t spend much quality time actually considering them.

Here’s a simple way to get started:

  • Pull out your calendar and find a 30-minute time slot once a month (I like 4:30 pm on the last Friday of every month).
  • Set up a recurring monthly calendar appointment for this time and call it Values Clarification .
  • Each month at this time, take out a sheet of paper and simply brainstorm ideas and thoughts related to this question of personal values and what you really want.

There’s no right or wrong way to do it. What’s important is that you give yourself the opportunity to think about it.

You’ll be amazed at what comes up!

Learn More: 7 Ways to Discover and Clarify Your Personal Values

The term self-awareness can come across as a bit magical and esoteric—complicated psychological jargon for a mysterious process deep within human nature.

But it’s not.

Self-awareness is simply the habit of paying attention to our own minds—our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. And like any habit, it can be improved with time and a little practice.

To review, here are 10 ways to practice being more self-aware:

  • Uncover your blindspots by asking for feedback (and taking it well)

More articles on self-awareness and how to become more self-aware:

  • 5 Habits of Highly Self-Aware People

Self-Sabotage: Why You Do It and How to Stop for Good

  • 6 Signs of Low Self-Awareness

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  1. 17 Self-Awareness Activities and Exercises (+Test)

    There are many techniques you can practice to develop self-awareness. Some common techniques include: Mindfulness Meditation. Grounding techniques, and reconnecting to the Earth. Tai Chi, Qigong, or Yoga. Strength Assessments, such as the Values in Action Strength Test, from the University of Pennsylvania. Journaling.

  2. How to Increase Self-Awareness: 16 Activities & Tools (+PDF)

    4 Ways to Increase Self-Awareness. A thought diary is a foundational place to begin increasing self-awareness. Keep track of thoughts that pop up in the form of an automatic reaction. Track what was occurring at the time. Track your level of emotion to the stimulus.

  3. Top 10 Self Awareness PowerPoint Presentation Templates in 2024

    Presenting our security awareness PowerPoint presentation slides. This PowerPoint design contains fifty slides in it which can be completely customized and edited. It is available for both standard as well as for widescreen formats. This PowerPoint template is compatible with all the presentation software like Microsoft Office, Google Slides, etc.

  4. 13 Self-Awareness Examples You See Throughout Life

    Self awareness can create an example of living by letting you see yourself, accept yourself for who you are, and show empathy to yourself. When you see and feel yourself, you can show empathy and understanding with others. Action: Have a mirror conversation. Sit by a mirror, staring deeply into your own eyes.

  5. Self-Awareness Workshop to Develop Your Emotional Intelligence

    Objectives. Introduce teams to the subject of Emotional Intelligence by identifying Daniel Goleman’s five pillars: self-awareness, self-management, empathy, communication skills and group dynamics. Identify our own emotions in a self-awareness exercise and be able to harness useful feelings throughout the workshop.

  6. 33 Self-Awareness Activities for Adults and Students

    33. Apologize. Once you are aware of your flaws and are able to accept accountability for your actions, you can engage in self-reflection. (Here are self-reflection questions you can use to understand yourself better.) This will help prevent hypocrisy in the future, and give you the chance to improve.

  7. 17 Dynamic Self-Awareness Activities: An Integrated Approach

    Self-regulation: the ability to manage emotions, impulses, and moods. Empathy: the ability to understand the emotional makeup of others and treat them accordingly. Social skills: the ability to find common ground with others, build rapport, and manage relationships.

  8. 17 Self-Awareness Activities for Adults - BetterUp

    To get a clearer view of who you are in a broad sense, use the following self-awareness worksheets, activities, and ideas: 1. Journaling. Journaling is the act of writing down your thoughts. You can write about your day, process anxiety, or use a self-discovery prompt to get the ink flowing.

  9. Reflecting for self-awareness | Reflection Toolkit

    Self-awareness: learning about yourself to improve. The purpose of reflection is to improve practice and become informed in our decisions. Generally, we want to become more able and effective in what we are doing. A lot of reflection is done to make more sense of particular experiences – critical experiences, disorienting dilemmas – however ...

  10. 10 Simple Ways to Improve Your Self-Awareness [With Examples]

    10 examples of how to improve your self-awareness. Pay attention to what bothers you about other people. Meditate on your mind. Read high-quality fiction. Identify your emotional kryptonite. Draw a timeline of your life. Ask for feedback (and take it well) Do some micro-travel. Learn a new skill.