Lack of Self Awareness: Grow by Knowing 11 Signs & Remedies

Have you ever met someone in your life who has no idea about his/her behavior and action? S/he always appears to be exceptionally unrealistic and rude in terms of expectations. Dealing with such individuals is pretty distressing.

However, staying unaware of your pattern of social behavior, or others’ way of action is barbaric. It separates you from the rest of the world and adversely affects your career and personal life. 

Lack of self awareness expresses your emotional immaturity in almost every arena of life from family to business to politics. Eventually, it leads you to poor decision making and unhappiness. 

Therefore, you should take time to analyze yourself and reevaluate how you react in private and public. 

To help you out with it, in today’s blog, we will unleash the secrets behind your self-unawareness as well as some effective ways to cultivate self-awareness.

If you have any of the signs, it suggests that you lack self-awareness. So, read the full article to have a clear understanding of your own self. 

What is Self Awareness?

According to Wikipedia, 

In the philosophy of self, self-awareness is the experience of one’s own personality or individuality. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While consciousness is being aware of one’s environment and body and lifestyle, self-awareness is the recognition of that awareness. Self-awareness is how an individual consciously knows and understands their own character, feelings, motives, and desires.

11 Signs You Lack Self Awareness

If you lack self-awareness, it will be revealed through your behavior and action. But sometimes, it is difficult to realize. Keeping this in mind, we have enlisted some indicators that will make your problem visible to you. 

1. You Are Defensive While Receiving Feedback

Rejecting feedback is a natural tendency of human beings as they tend to safeguard their pride. We struggle a lot to embrace any information that goes against our opinion.

However, when others tell you something about yourself that you do not know, you at once switch to a defensive mood.

As a result, your behavior changes. You show anger or passive-aggressiveness. Even your brain can stop performing. This vulnerability indicates that you lack self-awareness.

But in the truest sense, feedback is meant to make you better. It gives you a clear understanding of your mistakes and provides a chance to rectify them.

2. Arguing With People If They Question Your Beliefs

We live in such an age where it is really tough to determine whether you lack self-awareness or not. Due to the availability of the internet, you can easily find numerous people who hold the same belief as you do.

This fact stimulates you to stay inclined to your own opinion more rigidly. So, what happens as the consequences? You start wrangling with people who do not agree with you. 

You resist coming out of your cocoon. You are not open to new ideas, and it shows your self unawareness.  

3. Difficulty in Understanding Your Emotions

Emotion and self-awareness are linked to each other. According to The American Psychological Association (APA),

Emotional intelligence is the ability to process emotional information and use it in reasoning.

A study conducted in the United States in 2019 revealed that people show an increase in their emotional intelligence after they have received self-awareness training. 

Now, the point is that if you fail to understand and explain your feelings to others, it is a sign of your lack of self-awareness. 

4. A tendency to Make Excuses to Cover Your Failures

To make it crystal clear, we will draw an example here. Suppose, you are working on a team and struggling hard to make your teamwork a dreamwork. Being pleased, the concerned authority elected you the team leader.

Everything went in the right way until you are assigned to present the project the next day. Suddenly, you noticed that you need a supply for the presentation. You rushed to the local shops, but to your utter surprise, you discovered they were out of stock. 

So, the next day, you had to present the project without it, and you are not satisfied. You are about to burst out with anger not because of your ill-preparation but because of the other aspects. 

Besides, you are blaming your teammates for not reminding you to manage the supply earlier. Again, you are also holding the shops into account for not stocking your preferred goods. 

All these are the key indicators that you are not well-aware of your responsibility. You seek excuses to cover your failure. 

According to Duval, 2002, 

People who lack self-awareness struggle to think critically about their strengths and weaknesses, and may find it difficult to tell the difference between mistakes they make and things that are outside of their control. 

Duval

5. Facing Troubles While Empathizing Others

Showing empathy for others is not as easy as it sounds. First, you need to understand your emotion to feel for others. If you lack self-awareness, you will never feel empathy. 

A post published on April 11, 2018, in the Greater Good Magazine, shows Nathaniel Eckland’s research on emotion and empathy. The study says, 

Emotional clarity and cognitive empathy may be associated because both constructs involve identifying and describing emotional experiences—of oneself for emotional clarity and of others for cognitive empathy.

6. You Can’t Explain the Reasons for Your Actions

There must be a purpose and reason behind every action you take. Have you ever asked yourself, what is the point of living? If you toil hard to discover the motives of your action, self-awareness is absent in you. 

Lack of self awareness leads you to darkness. A study by Dishon et al, 2017, explains,

 Individuals high in trait self-awareness are more likely to reflect on their choices and more likely to find them meaningful than individuals low in trait self-awareness.

Dishon

7. Your Emotions Are Suppressed 

Sometimes, we all hide our emotions and feeling due to the demand of the situation. You may do the same thing and think that today is not your day to express your emotions to others.

But, if you follow the trend repeatedly without any logical reasons, it foretells that you are self-unaware.

However, suppressing your emotions can change your state of mind and begets numerous psychological as well as physical disorders. 

Furthermore, anxiety, stress, depression, etc. will develop in you. You will lose self-esteem and self-confidence. As a result, your future will be uncertain and unproductive. 

8. Shortsightedness in Setting Realistic Goals

How to organize your goals?-is a crucial question in life. Your current activities and future progress depend on the targets you set. Consequently, aim setting holds a significant ground. 

Lack of self-awareness will bar you from determining realistic goals because you will never find your weakness. If you find it difficult to set your goals, you may lack confidence and awareness. 

Here, we have pointed out some effective techniques to help you organize your goals. Lets’ have a look!

9. You Lack a Sense of Identity

How can you know yourself and strive for improvement? The answer is self-awareness. It is such an intellectual skill that enables you to realize who you really are. 

Studies have shown that people with no self-knowledge suffer from a lack of self-identity. If you are one of them, you are more likely copying other people’s lifestyles. You have no uniqueness. 

You always fall into a dilemma about whether to do it or not. You can not choose the right thing and make the proper decision. 

About self-awareness and identity development, William James, a great psychologist says, 

The self is what happens when “I” reflects back upon “Me.” The self is both the “I” and the “Me”—it is the knower, and it is what the knower knows when the knower reflects upon itself.

William James

10. Inability to Keep Yourself On-Task

Sustaining your focus on tasks is really a tough job. It becomes the worst when you lack self-awareness. Scientists have proven that your brain wonders more than your imagination. A study published in 2017 by Adam & Vogel, expressed,

Our minds wander from our current tasks much more frequently than we realize.

Adam & Vogel

You lose concentration after working 30 minutes at a stretch. And it is natural.

But if you get distracted frequently by your fluctuating thoughts, you lack self-awareness. It will also demolish your power of thinking straight.

On the contrary, those who are self-aware can refocus on their tasks to complete them in time. 

11. Inefficiency in Time Management and Self-Control

Your success as well as the balance between your personal and professional life entirely rely on effective time management. Harvard Business Review has shown that time management is more than life hacks. 

If you lack self-awareness, you will not be able to accomplish your tasks before the deadline. It makes you overestimate your time management activity and skills. 

Though you may get instant short-term advantages, you have to suffer in the long run for this. In this respect, we will show you a report conducted by O’Donoghue & Rabin,  in 2003. The report says,

People with lower levels of self-awareness are more likely to make decisions that benefit them in the short-term, trusting that in the future they will be more responsible.

O’Donoghue & Rabin

This misjudgment leads you to poor decision making. You think you can handle time, but in reality, you fail. As a result, your individual and team productivity will be decreased to a great extent. 

Tips to Cultivate Self Awareness

How do you deal with someone with no self awareness?

Dealing with individuals who have not self awareness is very difficult. But you can improve the situation by providing them honest and constructive feedback.You should let them know of their mistakes whether they want to develop themselves or not. Moreover, you should not criticize them harshly. Talk to them privately about their odd behavior that are affecting others also. 

What causes low awareness?

Some of the main reasons behind lack of awareness are inaccessibility, inaccuracy, or absence of information.In some cases, the situation get worsened due to cultural taboos, fear, and myth. All of these things bar people from taking initiatives towards betterment.

What are the benefits of self awareness?

Here, we have enlisted some benefits of self-awareness. Let’s have a look!

How does self awareness lead to success?

According to Harvard Business Review, self-awareness paves the path of career progression because it gives you the opportunity to realize others’ observance about you. It is essential for success. It vividly portrays your strength and weakness and at the same time boosts up your productivity level.

What does the lack of self-awareness cause to your work life?

Lack of self-awareness in the workplace may invite catastrophe both in your personal and professional life. Here are some disadvantages:

What does it mean to lack self awareness?

If you do not understand your way of working and why you do that, then it is a strong indication that you lack self-awareness. You won’t be able to express yourself and will always feel angry and anxious. 

Wrapping Up Lack of Self Awareness

You will be perplexed discovering that you are your worst enemy when it comes to self-awareness. Lack of self awareness will level all of your skills to the ground. 

We hope that our discussion will help you to discover whether you lack self-awareness or not. At the same time, you can improve awareness if you follow our tips. In a word, we tried our level best to bring about a revolution in your way of thinking and action.

Please, do not hesitate to share your opinion with us via the comment section. 

Be self-aware and rule your kingdom!