All of us have areas in our lives where we suck and other areas that we do pretty well in. Most of us never really pay attention to these differences until later in life. Age does wonders for common sense and logical thinking!
The sooner we are self aware from paying close attention and identifying our strengths and weaknesses the better off we will be.
If I know I have a problem with procrastinating I can make a mental note to deal with that awful trait. Of course, anyone should know that being able to eliminate this little flaw will go a long ways to help anyone reaching their goals or even just living life better.
But imagine if I just keep going around blaming someone else...
"I didn't set the alarm clock and over slept. I was going to set it but I figured I would do it later and forgot. They shouldn't have made my appointment at 8a.m. anyway. If they would have made it at 11 a.m. I would have been up and made it on time. Now I have to reschedule, miss another day at work and go through all of this again "
You know anyone who thinks like this?
We need to pay attention to our weaknesses so that we can work on correcting them or figure out how to work around them.
We also need to identify our strengths so that we can exploit those! Maybe your good at speaking, or writing, organizing or marketing. How can you use any of those skills to help you with your job. Maybe you could volunteer to write a newsletter to boost your fellow employee morale. This would take advantage of your writing skills and place you at a higher value at your job. If feel that is brown nosing, because I realize that a lot of people don't care about their jobs, you could write a newsletter about eating healthy or the positive effects of getting proper rest.
Why?
Well, suppose you work behind people who are making a lot of mistakes at work. Because of this it could reflect bad on you or your line. Maybe your advice can make a difference in how much you hate or enjoy your job.
Suppose you notice high crime in your neighborhood. Maybe you want to design flyers and organize a meeting with your neighbors to form a community watch to help reduce the level of crime.
So these are just a few thoughts and examples of how to self reflect to become self aware and take advantage of what you learn about yourself. The principles can be applied to so many different situations in your life to make your life and the ones you love better.
