You Can't Change What You Won't See
This is Part 1 of a 2-part series (I'm keeping these short and digestible.)
In this piece, I explore the role of self-awareness in personal growth.
Next time, I’ll share a personal story about how unconscious patterns created conflict—and what taking responsibility has looked like in real life.
When I was in my thirties, I started reading the book You’re Not So Smart. I was only able to read the first few chapters before putting it back on my bookshelf because I found it so disturbing. The book effectively conveys how irrational we humans are. At the time, my ego just wasn’t ready to handle the truth. I preferred to believe that my memory could be relied on, my decisions were rational, and I wasn’t seeing the world through my own biased framework. So I closed the book and stuck my head back in the sand.
The problem is that you can’t work with what you’re not aware of.In fact, all of our growth and capacity to be who we aspire to be in our lives rests on our ability to be self-aware. Being self-aware requires a whole lot of courage and ego strength. Introspection does not come naturally to those who avoid pain—it requires turning toward our scared and dark parts, acknowledging our flaws and hypocrisies, admitting that sometimes we aren’t motivated by our higher parts.
As I see it, the necessary prerequisite of “looking within” requires knowing that you’re not defective—just a normal human with normal human foibles. Unfortunately, many of us, through our early life experiences and societal conditioning, learned to reflexively put ourselves and others into categories of good or bad. Besides all of the external pressures to categorize people (see current political climate), it’s also in our wiring to reduce complexity. Our brains are wired to conserve energy and avoid ambiguity. Dichotomous (black-and-white) thinking is a shortcut preferred by our brains and society at large. It takes intentional effort to look for the nuance that exists in ourselves and those around us. The truth is, we are all flawed—and the more we can embrace that, the more we can grow.
Self-awareness is like having access to your own user manual. The better you understand your own operating system—your needs, motivations, and patterns—the more effectively you can troubleshoot problems, navigate challenges, and make choices that align with who you truly are, rather than reacting on autopilot.
What’s one pattern in your life that might shift if you understood your own “user manual” a little better?