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Learning self-awareness can help you break the deep, dark and negative cycle of feeling like you are nothing more than anxiety. With this self-awareness activity, you can ask yourself the risk questions, so you can truly start to know who and what you bring to this world.
Spoiler Alert: You are amazing and have a long list of things to live for. This self awareness activity will help you see that.
What is Self Awareness?
self-a·ware·ness
-
conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires.“the process can be painful but it leads to greater self-awareness”
Despite the dictionary offering a no-nonsense definition of self awareness, the true meaning is actually a little more abstruse. Sure, self awareness is about being conscious of your feelings and emotions, but it’s also about recognizing moments and sensations – yes, even the bad ones.
When you bring awareness to your passions, desires, motives, goals, dreams, mental illness, thoughts, flaws, weaknesses, strengths, etc., you can set off on a journey towards self-discovery which can only result in positive things.
Why is Self Awareness Important for Anxiety Sufferers?
Now, you may be wondering what self awareness has to do with anxiety.
Suffering from anxiety, or any mental illness for that matter, can quickly leave you feeling inadequate. You don’t feel good enough for that person, or smart enough for that job, or pretty enough; funny enough; carefree enough; nice enough or, even simply, enough for yourself, let alone for anyone or something else. It’s a shame because anxiety has nothing to do with who you are as a person or what you have to offer this world. It’s simply an explosion of anxiety to wild extremities, and one that is so powerful that it quickly takes over who you think you are as a person.
We’ve been there.
We get it.
It was only a couple of years ago when the creator of Anxiety Gone sat down and thought,
Wait a minute. I have a pretty damn good life. And what? I hate myself and everything about my life simply because I have extremely sensitive nerves and irrational fears? This has got to end.
And that’s when she sought out to learn how to be more self-aware; how to appreciate the good and positive, instead of letting small moments of anxiety and depression overshadow the hours, days and weeks of great happiness. All we had to do is ask ourself some self awareness questions that made us think long and hard, so our answers could be put into perspective.
Benefits of Self Awareness for Anxiety
Before we jump into the self awareness activity, it’s important to recognize the benefits of doing this exercise. Hopefully, the following advantages with encourage you to complete the activity with as much honestly as possible, to maximize your self awareness moving forward.
- Learn to recognize anxiety triggers before they cause you to panic
- Being more self-aware of your body allows you to be conscious and realistic of any body sensations that would have triggered anxiety previously
- Learn to love and appreciate yourself for who you are
- Understand that you aren’t your anxiety; it’s just something you have
- Discover the many wonderful things you have to offer
- Explore all your dreams, passions and desires that you can achieve (anxiety won’t stop you if you don’t let it)
- Become more accepting of yourself and others
- Learn to love yourself (huge benefit for anxiety sufferers!)
- Study your behaviours, so you can correct them during an anxiety episode or panic attack
- Alleviate emotional burdens
- Learn to communicate with yourself and others in a healthy manner
- Overcome traumatic experiences
- Learn to let go of the past
- Rid your mind, body and spirit of negative energy, emotions and thoughts
The Anxiety Gone Self Awareness Activity
Let’s get into the fun stuff – the Anxiety Gone Self Awareness Activity. In order to complete this activity, all you have to do is answer these questions truthfully. We recommend taking some time to reflect on the self awareness questions before answering them, to ensure a positive experience from start-to-finish, and one that will provide results.
If you would prefer, you can print this self awareness activity and refer back to your answers as needed moving forward.
Self Awareness Questions: You
- Choose 5 words to describe yourself
- Choose 5 words you think other people would use to describe you
- What quality do you love the most about yourself?
- What feature do you love the most about yourself?
- List 3 things that make you unique
- Has your personality changed since you were a child? If so, how and why do you think it has changed?
- What is your biggest weakness?
- What is your biggest strength?
- What is your favourite thing to do?
- What is your biggest fear?
- Do you live your life more by intuition or logical analysis?
- Is your personality like your parent(s)? If so, how?
- What would your ideal “you” be like?
- What type of person do you want to be?
- What do you value?
Self Awareness Questions: Your Goals
- What is your biggest dream?
- What is your biggest goal at this moment?
- What does it mean to you to achieve your goals?
- What defines success?
- What type of hurdles are in the way of you achieve your goals?
- List the things you find most important (family, friends, career, love, money, health, etc.)
- Now, write down how much time to spend on each of the things listed in the prior
- If you notice you spend a lot of time on something you don’t find very important, set three goals to re-prioritize
- What advice would you give to yourself as a child?
- What advice would you give to children today?
- Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
- What’s your biggest success to date?
- What’s your happiest memory?
- What’s your youngest memory?
- List 5 things you can’t live without
- List 5 things you could live without
Self Awareness Questions: Your Relationships
- What is your ideal relationship?
- Rank the importance of your relationships (friends, family, acquaintances, boyfriend/girlfriend, co-workers, strangers, self)
- Do you treat others better than you treat yourself?
- Are you satisfied with your current relationship status?
- Why?
- Name one person you love or have loved the most?
- What is it that you love(d) so much about that person?
- Describe the best moment you’ve ever had in a relationship
- Describe the worst, most devastating moment you’ve ever had in a relationship
- How did you overcome that situation?
- What type of friend do you want to be?
- What type of girlfriend/boyfriend do you want to be?
- Do you give second chances?
Self Awareness Questions: Your Anxiety
- What is your biggest “what if”?
- What relaxes you the most?
- What stresses you out the most?
- What triggers your anxiety?
- What makes you sad?
- What makes you angry?
- What makes you happy?
- Are you more scared of the anxiety attack or the perception of others if you have an attack?
- How do you currently feel about your mental illness?
- Do you feel like you’re missing out on things because of your anxiety? If so, what?
- Do you believe every thought you have?
- How do you cope with anxiety?
- How do you cope with change?
- Are you living for yourself?
- What do you want out of this life?
- What does self-love mean to you?
- What’s the first word you think of when you hear, “anxiety”?
- What’s the first word you think of when you hear, “panic attack”?
- Why do you get out of bed every day?
If you’re able to answer these questions easily, you’re very self-aware.
If you struggle with these self awareness questions, take some time to practice mindfulness to increase your self-awareness moving forward.
Now What Do I Do?
The last part to this self awareness activity is to take a look at your answers. What do they reveal? Are there some changes you think you need to make? Did you notice some patterns about what causes you to experience anxiety or negative emotions? Perhaps you re-discovered what you’re good at or what makes you happy? Think about your answers and let them guide you on a path towards discovery.
