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When William Sparks was a 27-year-old graduate student in psychology, he wrote an article about his divorce from his high school sweetheart. They had started out as equal partners. But she had become increasingly dependent, he said, and it bothered him that he had to make all the decisions.
His professor, a psychologist known for his blunt honesty, called him into his office. “How did you help create this dysfunction?” he asked.
“I bet you had to have the last word in every argument,” the professor said. “Did you give him unwanted advice? Were you always right, which made her always wrong?
“It felt like a punch to the stomach,” Sparks recalled. Soon, he admitted to himself, “I was right.”
It was “a defining moment,” said Sparks, now an expert in leadership development and a professor at Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina. His teacher had given him the gift of self-awareness.
Psychologists call self-awareness an aspect of emotional intelligence. It’s the ability to reflect on oneself and “accurately assess one’s own strengths and weaknesses,” said Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist in Southern California. “The other half is being aware of how you affect other people.”
Being in tune with how our behavior affects others may cause them to reciprocate in the same way. “By being self-aware, we can actually make people feel more comfortable, which leads to a much more prosocial and healthy social environment,” he said. “In fact, I think self-awareness would change the world overnight if everyone could practice it.”
Self-awareness is key to a life well lived, said Rick Hanson, a psychologist and senior fellow at the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California at Berkeley.
“The more aware you are, the more information you have,” he said. “You can go by that.”
However, in an increasingly distracted and technological world, self-awareness seems to be waning, Durvasula said.
Kara McDuffee realized at the age of 20 that she was not self-aware. Instead, she had followed a script that often went unquestioned. “We don’t even realize the narratives we’re subscribing to,” said McDuffee, now 29 and working in communications at a New Hampshire boarding school. She fought for the perfect relationship, the perfect career and the great mission in life, she said, but she still felt unfulfilled.
In therapy, she began to figure out what would make her truly happy. Seeing a counselor of hers also helped her uncover her blind spots, including in her romantic relationships.
“Instead of getting into those patterns that I used to go from extreme control issues to being hypercritical and argumentative, I stop that negative cycle,” he said, “and instead find a healthier way to express those emotions.”
McDuffee now writes about self-awareness and tries to plant seeds of self-reflection in teens, including those she mentors and coaches in sports. “We have so many distractions with our phones and technology,” she said. “There is never a time when children can pause and daydream.”
Instead, teens are bombarded with images of a supposedly coveted life that is “just fabricated on social media,” McDuffee said. “They’re just taking in all this information without necessarily having the skills to question it.”
In addition to introspection, self-awareness also involves regulating how one thinks and acts in the moment and understanding how one affects others and how one is perceived, Durvasula said.
Self-awareness can be a big part of dating, among other things. Janak Jobanputra, 28, was walking home from him after another disappointing date when he stopped at a donut shop. The man behind the counter engaged him in a friendly little chat. Jobanputra bought a donut and the man handed him another donut for free. “You know what? I like you. You seem like a very nice guy,” Jobanputra recalled telling him.
Jobanputra, a Manhattan resident who works for a medical device company, tried to reconcile the events of the night. Was he the nice guy the owner of the donut shop saw? If so, why couldn’t his dates see that quality? “All those dating interactions make me question my self-worth,” he said. “Am I really a good person? Am I really the person I think I am? ”
The interaction in the store “reinforced my belief in my self-esteem. That mismatch triggered something in me,” she said. “How am I presenting myself in the wrong light in different areas?”
Being self-aware requires self-compassion, Durvasula said. “Self-awareness doesn’t mean you walk around and think you’re cool,” he said. “It’s an accurate self-assessment.” Everyone has areas of strength and weakness, he said.
It’s natural to get defensive, but Sparks had the humility to accept his professor’s criticism. Now, more than 25 years later, he sees a widespread reluctance to discuss any shortcomings. “I think, culturally, we’ve moved away from that and that worries me a lot,” she said. Instead, society overemphasizes finding one’s own strengths.
“I think too much time and attention has been spent on self-esteem,” Durvasula said. Self-awareness is not the same as self-esteem, which describes someone’s subjective sense of personal worth. “Self-esteem may not always be accurate,” Durvasula said. In some, it is exaggerated. In others, it is unrealistically deflated. Both lead to distorted self-awareness, he said.
Self-awareness can bring collective good. “For how many people are out there pushing themselves to get great abs,” she said, “I wish people would make the same effort to develop self-awareness.”
Self-awareness is not a fixed state of being self-aware or not. Rather, “there’s a real dynamic quality,” Durvasula said. It is possible to develop self-awareness, and here are some ways suggested by the experts:
Decelerate: “We are all moving very fast. And in that rapidity, that really drives the stress, the anxiety, the distractions,” Durvasula said. “It’s very difficult to be self-aware when you jump from one thing to another.”
Reflect: Think about how your life is going, Hanson said. “What patterns are not serving you well? What are you afraid of or what do you avoid? What are you failing to develop, perhaps out of fear? What is left out? he said.
Also consider strengths. “Most of the time, people are very aware of their flaws and failings,” Hanson said. “They are not very aware of their firmness, their good intentions, the common kindness in them.”
Spend time with others: Social interactions teach us a lot, Durvasula said, whether we’re hanging out with friends or just going to the grocery store. “Be aware of how you are impacting other people through your behavior, through your words, through your actions,” he said.
Consider therapy: Therapy can help with internal exploration, Durvasula said. Ideas can help blocked clients make progress with major life issues.
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