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The One Skill Nobody Taught You (But Everyone Needs)

The One Skill Nobody Taught You (But Everyone Needs)

Learn how to observe your thoughts, identify your triggers, and become more emotionally intelligent with these simple tips.

Sol TV
October 03, 2024

🧠 TL/DR: Benefits of Improving Self-Awareness

🌟 Sol Bites: How to Observe Your Thoughts

📋 This Checklist Will Make You Emotionally Intelligent (Seriously!)

📹 Video Bite: Neil Seligman on Self-Awareness

💬 Words of Wisdom

Self-awareness may be a vague concept, but its importance can’t be overstated. Fortunately, it's a skill anyone can develop—it just takes some practice. Self-awareness means noticing:

How You Think: What do you say to yourself in different situations? What do you expect in different places or with other people? What are the central beliefs that shape your thoughts?

How You Feel: Do you understand your moods and feelings? Do you try to make sense of your emotions, or do you react without thinking? Do you see hard feelings as problems to avoid or as signs telling you something important?

How You Act: Do you know why you behave or react similarly in certain situations? Do you notice what events trigger you? Do you understand what drives your actions or causes you to sabotage yourself?

TL/DR: Benefits of Improving Self-Awareness

Better Relationships: Understanding how you operate can make it easier to ask for what you need or set healthy boundaries in a relationship. Knowing your values can also help you become more self-aware and improve your relationships.

Equanimity (balanced moods): Your thoughts affect how you feel. If you worry a lot, you’re likely to feel anxious. By becoming more self-aware, you’ll have a clearer picture of how your thoughts shape your mood, making it easier to keep your emotions steady.

Smarter Decisions: Poor choices often result from muddled thinking and unchecked emotions. When you’re more aware of your thoughts and feelings, it will be easier to see the differences between short-term impulses and long-term goals.

Increased productivity: Poor productivity often occurs not because of a lack of effort but because our thoughts, emotions, or habits get in our way. Improving self-awareness can help clear these roadblocks to getting things done.

Sol Bites: How to Observe Your Thoughts

Here are four easy techniques for becoming more self-aware:

1) Read a good book.

The best writers focus on understanding people. They catch tiny thoughts, feelings, desires, and actions you may not have time to notice. Even if you’re not a professional writer, you can learn about yourself (and other people!) by paying attention like one. Good fiction can teach us to think with care and compassion. Start a list of books you’ve wanted to read or ask a friend for recommendations.

2) Create a life timeline.

Grab a blank sheet of paper and a pencil, and draw a long across it. Use the left end as your starting point—your birth—then move across the line, marking major events in your life in order as you go. Include anything you considered a significant moment when it happened—it could be big or small, positive or negative. You might be amazed at how much you learn about yourself. Understanding your life in a developmental context is crucial for self-awareness.

3) Ask yourself: What bothers you about other people?

Often, the things that bother us most about others are traits we don't like in ourselves. We all have parts of ourselves we're not proud of—maybe it’s lying too much, avoiding conflicts, or struggling to set boundaries. If you don't know how to change your habits (or believe it’s impossible), you might push them aside or live in denial about who you are. It might feel comforting, but it’s not a real solution. Next time someone annoys you, ask yourself: Do I do that thing, too?

4) Identify your emotional triggers.

We all have things that set us off and bring up big feelings. I used to worry about people thinking I’m not smart, so I would overcompensate by constantly raising my hand in class. Usually, we try hard to avoid emotions we don’t like to have, but the problem is that dodging them can lead to harmful long-term consequences, like substance abuse. There’s another problem, too: Avoiding painful emotions means we miss out on what they’re trying to tell us. We hurt because our mind wants to alert us to something important. Learning to handle the discomfort of emotional kryptonite—the feeling you fear the most—can give you valuable insights into yourself and your world. You just need to be willing to pay attention.

This Checklist Will Make You Emotionally Intelligent (Seriously!)

Think you're self-aware? This checklist might surprise you.

Video Bite

Sol TV Creator Neil Seligman, shares that if you don't learn to be self-aware, your mind will totally run the show. You'll just be stuck with whatever it throws at you! But if you take some time to just observe your thoughts, you'll start to see things more clearly.