You can’t change what you’re not willing to see.
That’s the lesson that really hit me the hardest.
There were things I didn’t like about my life. Patterns I kept repeating. Emotions I kept avoiding. But I realized that until I chose to understand myself more clearly, nothing was going to shift.
In this article, we dive into what self awareness really means, how your internal self and external self can create blind spots, and practical ways you can increase self awareness to finally change your life.
Most people throw around the word self awareness without really unpacking it.
Yes, it’s about seeing yourself more objectively and understanding yourself better. But it’s also about having the courage to confront those uncomfortable truths you discover.
When I started this journey, I asked myself a tough question: If I don’t like parts about my current state, why am I still choosing it?
Because that’s the thing. If you’re not actively changing, you are still making a choice to stay the same.
Self awareness means recognizing that truth. It’s being both the subject (the observer) and the object (the observed) in your own life. You’re the one experiencing, feeling, and reacting, while you’re also the one observing yourself. Just think of it like watching yourself in a movie, where you’re the main character.
And once you can see yourself from that third-person view, you can start to ask better questions:
When it comes to the word “self”, i’m referring to your sense of identity, which includes your thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and experiences (both conscious and unconscious).
The self isn’t just one thing. You have an internal self and an external self.
When these two don’t match up, that’s where blind spots arise.
Think of it this way: if you’re presenting yourself as confident but internally feel insecure, that gap creates friction. And eventually, that misalignment shows up as negative emotions, like shame, anger, and fear that can lead to anxiety or burnout.
To close the gap, you’ve got to become more self aware. One way I’ve found helpful is asking for honest feedback from people I trust. It’s not always easy to hear, but it opens your eyes to how you’re really showing up in everyday life.
And you have to listen to this feedback without defensiveness. Because what they’re telling you might be exactly what you’ve been blind to.
Another part of increasing self awareness is examining the story you’ve been living out.
Most of us carry beliefs from our past that we continue to hold on to.
Beliefs like: I’m not capable, life is unfair, I’ll never be successful.
These stories shape how we interpret everything. They influence how we see ourselves, how we relate to others, and what we believe is possible.
What I've come to realize is: if your expectations don’t match your current reality, that gap becomes your pain.
You start living with constant disappointment and unfulfillment.
To make a change, you have to shift the story you are telling yourself. That’s what an identity shift is. You stop telling yourself the old script and start embodying a new one.
Want to become happy? You can’t just want it. You have to be it.
That word “want” comes from a place of lack, because it means you don’t have it.
So this mindset shift is the difference between staying stuck and moving forward.
One of the greatest breakthroughs I’ve made in my own life is realizing: You are not your thoughts.
A person can have up to 70,000 thoughts in a day, with many of them being negative, repetitive, which creates a lot of noise.
The key is deciphering the signal from the noise. Awareness is what helps you realize that you don’t have to believe or attach to all your thoughts.
And when you build self awareness, you learn to observe your thoughts instead of getting swept up by them. You start to recognize the patterns of negative thinking and make conscious choices to replace them with positive thoughts.
It’s not about being fake positive. It’s about choosing what you focus on.
Just remember: Where your attention goes, your energy flows.
Additional questions I like to ask myself:
Becoming more self aware means checking the fuel source behind your actions. Sometimes negative fuel can be useful in driving us, but it can become unsustainable over a longer timeline. That’s where self awareness imparts wisdom to choose our fuel source.
If you want to change your life, you have to choose a better energy.
And this isn’t just about “good vibes only.” It’s about emotional control, choosing how to respond, and breaking free from being emotionally reactive.
This is how you start to live intentionally.
The moment everything shifted for me was when I stopped just wanting to be different and started becoming different.
Self awareness isn’t about introspection alone. It’s also about application.
It’s about seeing your current state, defining your ideal state, and closing that gap through aligned action.
You can change your personality. You can change your mindset. And you absolutely can change your life.
When you’re willing to see the blind spots that have been right in front of you, then you can start rewriting your own narrative.
It starts with believing it, and then deciding to become it.
So if you’re ready to make a change, build self awareness, and move into the next version of your life, begin by asking yourself:
Five short emails on what's actually keeping the loop alive. The mechanism, not the motivation. Free.
Start the ResetSelf awareness is seeing yourself more objectively and understanding yourself better, but it's also having the courage to confront the uncomfortable truths you find. You're both the observer and the observed in your own life, like watching yourself as the main character in a movie. From that third-person view, you can start asking better questions about who you're becoming.
You can't change what you're not willing to see. That's the mechanism. Self awareness shows you your current state clearly, lets you define your ideal state, and reveals the gap between them. Once you see the patterns you keep repeating and the emotions you keep avoiding, you can close that gap through aligned action instead of staying stuck.
Your internal self is your thoughts, emotions, and values, the private stuff only you know. Your external self is how others perceive you: your personality, behavior, and presence. When the two don't match, blind spots arise. Presenting confidence while feeling insecure creates friction, and that misalignment eventually shows up as shame, anger, fear, anxiety, or burnout.
Ask for honest feedback from people you trust, then listen without defensiveness. What they tell you might be exactly what you've been blind to. It's not always easy to hear, but it shows you how you're really showing up in everyday life, and it starts closing the gap between how you see yourself and how others experience you.
If your expectations don't match your current reality, that gap becomes your pain. You end up living with constant disappointment and unfulfillment. The stories you carry from your past, like I'm not capable or life is unfair, shape how you interpret everything. Shifting that story is how you close the gap instead of living inside it.
A person can have up to 70,000 thoughts a day, many of them negative and repetitive. That's a lot of noise. Awareness helps you realize you don't have to believe or attach to every thought that passes through. You learn to observe your thoughts instead of getting swept up by them, then separate the signal from the noise.
First, observe the pattern instead of fighting it. When you build self awareness, you start recognizing negative thinking as it happens, which gives you the chance to consciously replace it with positive thoughts. It's not about being fake positive, it's about choosing what you focus on. Where your attention goes, your energy flows.
An identity shift is when you stop telling yourself the old script and start embodying a new one. Wanting to be happy isn't enough, because want comes from a place of lack. You have to be it. That mindset shift, from wanting to becoming, is the difference between staying stuck and actually moving forward in your life.
A few I use: Who am I now and who am I becoming? What's working for me and what's not? What's fueling me, fear and scarcity, or vision, purpose, and love? Checking your fuel source matters, because negative fuel can drive you in the short term but it becomes unsustainable over a longer timeline.
Yes. You can change your personality, your mindset, and your life. Self awareness isn't introspection alone, it's application: seeing your current state, defining your ideal state, and closing the gap through aligned action. When you're willing to see the blind spots that have been right in front of you, you can start rewriting your own narrative.
