Skip to main content

Living with Awareness

Every so often, I come across a pre-university student who already possesses a well-developed sense of emotional intelligence. Unlike most, they don’t need an explanation of why emotions influence academic performance — they have already learnt this through personal experience, observation, or reflection.

Without even realising it, they have grasped an essential skill that will be invaluable in adulthood, helping them navigate personal and professional challenges with greater ease.

However, the reality is that few people develop strong emotional self-awareness. This is not due to a lack of intelligence or capacity but simply because they have never made a habit of observing their own inner world.

Many go through life without paying attention to their emotions or understanding how these feelings shape their thoughts, behaviours, and decisions. As a result, they struggle to recognise how emotions influence their professional success, personal relationships, and ability to interact meaningfully with others.

A fundamental shift occurs when you learn to identify what you are feeling and why. With this awareness, you begin to understand how your emotions affect your actions, sometimes propelling you forward and at other times holding you back.

Whether emotions help or hinder you depends largely on how you respond to them and how you manage your interactions with those around you. Instead of being controlled by your emotions, you develop the ability to use them in a way that serves you.

Beyond self-awareness, there is also a practical dimension to this understanding. When you become attuned to how others perceive you, you gain the ability to refine your self-image in a way that aligns with reality.

This allows for a more accurate and constructive sense of identity:
“They assume I am like this, but in reality, I am quite different.”
“I am not like this now, but I have the capacity to develop this trait.”

This is not about suppressing or ignoring your true self but rather about integrating self-knowledge with external perception to create a more balanced and effective sense of self.

This clarity leads to a deeper understanding of both your strengths and your limitations, which, in turn, fosters a more grounded and realistic self-confidence.

Instead of basing your self-worth on assumptions or external validation, you develop a clear, practical awareness of your abilities:
“I can do this because I have been trained for it.”
“I have encountered a similar situation before; we can analyse how it was handled.”
“I am unfamiliar with this, but I know who to turn to for guidance.”

These insights allow you to approach challenges with a sense of competence and resourcefulness, rather than fear or hesitation.

This level of awareness connects and strengthens three key forms of intelligence: emotional, intrapersonal, and interpersonal.

  • Emotional intelligence helps you regulate and harness your feelings productively.
  • Intrapersonal intelligence enables you to understand yourself deeply.
  • Interpersonal intelligence allows you to navigate social interactions with greater skill.

Together, these three elements bring clarity to your values, reinforce your sense of purpose, and empower you to make more decisive and informed choices.

Moreover, this awareness fosters authenticity. When you understand yourself at this level, you naturally communicate with greater sincerity and conviction.

Your words and actions align with what truly matters to you, making it easier to express your thoughts, set boundaries, and articulate your desires with confidence.

Ultimately, emotional self-awareness is more than just a tool for self-improvement — it is a foundation for a more intentional, fulfilling, and successful life.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

When Shawn Mendes Became a Lifeline

When my father fell ill in his final days, the lyrics of Shawn Mendes’ In My Blood became an unexpected refuge, helping me process the reality unfolding before me. The song’s plea — its raw, urgent cry against the weight of helplessness — resonated in a way that felt almost too personal. “Help me, it’s like the walls are caving in” — those words captured the suffocating dread that gripped me in the small hours, waiting for news, hoping for a miracle I already knew would not come. The song does not offer easy comfort; nor does it deny the pain of endurance. Instead, it acknowledges the struggle — the desperate search for strength when every instinct urges collapse. “I just wanna give up, but I can’t.” That was it, exactly. The exhaustion, the emotional erosion, the moments when hope felt like a cruel joke. And yet, beneath it all, an unspoken defiance: the fight continues, not because it is easy, but because surrender is unthinkable. The grief that followed those long hours ...

The Quiet Battle of Becoming

Sometimes I write selfish pages. Not out of greed, nor vanity — no. I write them as if whispering to myself in the dark, so I don’t forget. Because forgetting is easy. The noise of the world is thick, sticky, clinging to the skin and numbing the senses. And in this blur of days, of duties, of silences swallowed whole, I must remind myself of what truly matters. Life isn’t a straight line, nor a grand revelation. It is a slow unravelling, a peeling away of what isn’t yours until you find what is. Never stop fighting, they say, until you arrive at your destined place. But what is destiny if not the place where you are most yourself? And how do you know when you’ve arrived? You don’t. You just keep moving, sculpting yourself with each step, shedding skins that no longer fit. There must be an aim, a north, a whisper calling you forward. Otherwise, what is effort but exhaustion? With purpose, even suffering holds meaning. The wind scatters those who walk without direction, but t...

The Shape of Thought

Gustav Klimt once said, “Art is a line around your thoughts.” A line — thin as a whisper, trembling yet deliberate — emerges from nothingness. It does not impose itself. It does not command. It is barely there, yet it holds. It is the first breath of form, the fragile boundary between the unsaid and the spoken. Without it, thought is a flicker in the dark, a thing half-lived, dissolving before it can be known. A vision stirs. Not summoned, not controlled. It arrives unbidden — whole yet veiled, elusive yet certain. It lingers at the edge of perception, pressing gently, insistently, against the mind’s quiet. It cannot be seized outright. To reach for it is to risk shattering it; to hesitate is to watch it dissolve. And so, the line must be drawn. But not too soon. Not too rigidly. It must breathe, as thought itself breathes, as meaning unfolds. The hand moves, uncertain yet assured, guided by something beyond logic. An intelligence older than language, something that knows ...