The 8 habits to enhance self-knowledge

Surely it happens to more than one of you that it costs you a lot when you try to talk about yourself. It is not because he does not want to or because of shyness, but because he really has a hard time describing himself, defining himself, saying who he is.

It is comfortable to use labels such as our profession, our nationality, political ideology... Identifications that do not stop being that, labels, like the ones we put on products on a supermarket shelf. They are useful to us to identify ourselves quickly, but they do not acquire a true psychological depth.

If we want to describe ourselves well, first we have to know each other well, to know who we are, what we want and where we are going. First you have to reflect on yourself and have reached a high level of self-knowledge.

And that is precisely what this article is about, how to improve our knowledge about ourselves. Next we will discover various habits to enhance self-knowledge. Do not miss them!

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The importance of knowing yourself

Many times we ask ourselves the question "who am I?", A question as transcendental as it is difficult to answer. Not being clear about who we are is usually accompanied by deep discomfort, a feeling that is linked to uncertainty and the fear that our lives have no meaning.

The thing can go to more, plunging us into an existential crisis because not knowing oneself deprives us of knowing what it is we want, where we are going and what we offer to society.

One of the keys to personal development is self-knowledge, a knowledge that also gives us psychological well-being, since we are clear about who we are also we end with the uncertainty of looking for a meaning to our lives, what is our value as people and, also, we acquire stability. Get to know each other in depth helps us regulate our emotions, interact in a healthier way with others and focus on achieving our goals.

Throughout this article we are going to know a few habits to enhance our self-knowledge, in addition to reflecting on the importance of knowing ourselves very well.

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Recommended habits to boost self-awareness

As we said, self-knowledge is key to psychological well-being. People who know themselves in depth know what they want in life, and not only in big projects but also in the most everyday things. Having great knowledge is linked to knowing how to better manage our emotions, even in times of greatest difficulty. They know how to adapt to adversity, because their psychological world is very well stabilized.

It is inevitable to talk about self-knowledge without mentioning Emotional Intelligence, a construct that has been resonating for some time in the field of Psychology and that has an increasing impact. Self-knowledge can be considered the starting point to become an emotionally intelligent individual. Knowing your own emotions and knowing what they mean is an act of self-reflection that improves our mental health.

Self-knowledge is essential for personal development, helping us to set realistic goals and find where we are in our life trajectory. For this reason, personal development strategies help people to connect with themselves and find out what motivates them, what are their desires and goals with which they believe they will achieve the happiness.

Understanding the importance of self-knowledge in our mental health and also in how it helps us to our personal development it is time to see some habits that can help us to empower it.

1. Write an emotional journal

A classic that helps us to know ourselves is to write a diary, an autobiography constructed day by day in which we expose how we feel, our beliefs, desires and other constituents of our personality.

Writing an emotional journal is essential to enhance self-knowledge because it makes us think about what we have done during the day and It can help us how we have felt and, if we reread it, it offers us feedback on our emotions and what causes them.

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2. Write down your strengths and weaknesses

This habit that seems a simple task is, paradoxically, one of the most complicated. Few people know 100% what their strengths and weaknesses are, since they have never reflected on them. And, of course, if you've never thought about them, you won't know what they are.

Proof of how little we usually know about our strengths and weaknesses is that, when we go to a job interview, if the interviewer asks us about them, we are left blank, without knowing what to answer, despite the fact that they have asked us about something of what we are supposedly experts that is in us themselves.

The best way to avoid this and get to know each other better is to find out what our strengths and weaknesses are. For this we can take a piece of paper and write them down, a task that will take us a long time but that will certainly make us reflect on who we are and, also, realize what to improve.

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3. Make the wheel of life

A well-known tool to improve our knowledge of ourselves is the so-called wheel of life. This is a personal development technique, which consists of draw a circle and choose between 8 and 10 areas of our life that we want to change or improve, such as studies, friendships, family, work, leisure ...

The good thing about this technique is that it allows us to reflect on our priorities since, once the areas have been chosen of the life that we consider the most important, we have to assign them a number based on our order of preference. Then we must begin to write the actions that we consider that we must carry out in order to change our lives.

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4. Ask someone to describe you

On many occasions we believe that we see ourselves the same as how others see us, but this is rarely the case. On many occasions, people perceive us in such a different way from ours that it could be said that there are two “me”, the one that we believe and the one that others believe. With this in mind, it can be helpful to ask someone if they can give us an honest description of who she thinks we are.

Naturally, the person who is going to know us best is going to be ourselves, but sometimes others see things in us who escape us, traits and manias that we do not realize but that constitute our personality. With what others tell us we can build a more realistic image of who we are.

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5. Don't let anyone tell you what you are or what your goal is

Many people take the liberty of telling us what is “good” for us, without our having asked them or that they are right. These individuals often advise us, try to guide us, direct us, and decide for us who we are, despite that the only people who have the true ability to discover it to its full extent are us themselves.

Only you can decide who you are and what is your purpose in life. If you achieve this, you will start a process of deep self-knowledge in which you will free yourself from what you think you are and you will start to form a new personality, more related to what is really going to make you happy and not to those appearances that you have been building over the years to satisfy the the rest.

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6. The line of life

An interesting habit to enhance our knowledge is to use the life line technique, which consists of drawing a horizontal line that, as its name suggests, represents our life. In it we will mark a midpoint that represents the now and then we will begin to include those situations and experiences that we have lived in the past.

The second part consists of fill in part of the future, pointing out our closest and furthest goals in time. When we finish putting everything on the life line, the next step is to reflect on what we have lived and how we propose to achieve and achieve the objectives that we have set for ourselves future.

7. Practice yoga

Many yogis claim that the greatest benefit that yoga brings is the opportunity to get to know each other better. This traditional spiritual discipline helps us calm our mind and perform a deep introspection, seeing how we really are and acting from there.

Yoga practice does not only involve the body, but also addresses the mind and emotions. Yoga has been seen to improve attention, motivation, decision-making, emotion management, and memory. The regular practice of this discipline offers us a space of connection with ourselves that, taking into account the stressful world in which we live, it is often difficult for us to find anywhere else.

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8. Psychological therapy

All the habits that we have seen at this point can serve as support to enhance your self-knowledge, improve your mental health, your self-esteem and promote your personal development. Nevertheless, the habit that undoubtedly enhances our self-knowledge the most is psychological therapy.

The psychotherapy It gives us the necessary tools so that we become aware of aspects that go unnoticed to our conscience but that may be evident to the therapist. The psychologist will help us to see those characteristics that define us and, in case they are harmful, will help us to obtain the necessary tools to improve them.

In addition, psychological therapy can help us work on other problems that we may be going through that may be taking a toll on our personal development.