If you’re feeling stuck in your life right now and are craving adventure, something new and exciting to take you away from the dreary boredom of your day-to-day life, then your inner self is calling out for some attention in the form of self-awareness.
Self-awareness is about developing the ability to see yourself clearly and objectively through reflection and introspection. It’s about shedding away our “public self” and how we feel we’re meant to be, so we can get to the core of our inner being and hear what it’s trying to tell us.
When you’re in touch with your authentic self, you’ll find it easier to find fun and fulfilment in your life and personal relationships.
Self-awareness is about reconnecting with the “real you” that’s hiding inside
How we live our lives can pull us away from our values and the path we’re meant to be on. This can be due to living up to the expectations of others, for example following your parents’ wishes to go straight to university and get a suitable career when you really wanted to take a few years out to go travelling first.
Then there’s those unexpected events that can really blindside us. Global pandemics aside, an entire range of experiences can pull us away from where we want to be, like redundancy, illness, trauma and corporate takeovers that can redefine your job role.
These experiences can affect your confidence and self-esteem and may leave you feeling trapped, bored and maybe even disillusioned with life. If this sounds all too familiar to you, using self-awareness to discover your true purpose is a great way to realign your values and have you loving life again.
Life can take many twists and turns, but self-awareness can navigate you home
The problem of ignoring your inner self and what it’s trying to tell you is that it leaves you out of touch with your true purpose. This leaves you feeling bored and frustrated with life and feeling stuck in circumstances you’re not completely happy with.
Straying away from your true purpose comes with a high personal cost to you and your mental and physical wellbeing, but imagine if the opposite were true. You’re actively listening to your inner self and have a clear vision of what you’re meant to be doing and how to get there. You’ll be waking with excitement each day, ready to throw yourself into what fulfils you most.
Getting in touch with your inner self to find your true purpose can be tricky to do alone, it’s hard to be objective about your own self-identity. But coaching makes it easier to discover what’s been buried away over the years, and I use a range of techniques when I coach my clients to steer them toward their true purpose through self-awareness.
One of my favourite coaching methods for self-awareness is to use your personality to help you understand yourself better. Your personality has become established because of your life experiences and beliefs, so it’s a great way to discover how you strayed away from your intended path and how to get back on track again.
One aspect of personality is known as our inner saboteur. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, sometimes our biggest enemies are inside our mind. The parts of our mind that criticise us, that hold deeply unhelpful beliefs and that hold us back are often called inner saboteurs, inner critics or inner gremlins. Our inner saboteurs are a set of mind patterns that automatically influence thoughts and behaviours. They often steer us in unhelpful and unsuccessful directions, causing us to self-sabotage our lives.
You can take this short, free online assessment to identify which of the nine different types your inner saboteur is most present for you. Although short (about 5 minutes), this assessment delves deeper into the core motivations, defence mechanisms and fears that often lie in the unconscious layers of our personality structure.
If you’d like to discover more about my coaching services and how I can help you develop a better understanding of yourself through self-awareness, get in touch!