Self-awareness of your personality can help you navigate your world better by gravitating towards situations that provide you with positive experiences and rewards, and avoid those situations that can be destructive and cause you too much stress. In other words, self-awareness of your personality will help you analyze how you react and feel about things to help you make better choices in life.
For instance, you might be a naturally shy person who wants to become more outgoing. If you’re already a creative person, you could decide to work on applying your creativity in more areas of your life. Don’t work on too many personality traits at once. Choose just one or two at first, so you don’t get overwhelmed.
For instance, if you have a tendency to interrupt people, you might decide you want to break that habit.
For example, you might dislike your habit to disrupt people. This habit aligns with the personality trait of self-centeredness. Such a trait may show up in other habits like throwing tantrums when you don’t get your way or gossiping. Look closely at your habits to find the bigger trait. Then, try to identify other similar habits indicated by that trait.
Make sure your actions are focused around everyday situations you deal with frequently.
For instance, if you’re trying to become more punctual, you could commit to leaving for work every morning five minutes earlier than you currently do.
Becoming aware and attentive to your needs and how they affect your behaviors will help you with understanding how this affects your interpersonal relationships. Your needs drive your motivation. If your needs are not being met, you may experience a decrease in motivation, become more frustrated, and have more conflict and stress in your life.
A positive mindset will attract people to you, while a negative one will repel them. Having a positive mindset doesn’t mean you have to be happy all the time or enjoy bad situations. Rather, it means looking for the silver lining and doing what you can to improve things.
For instance, if you’ve been spending most of your time and energy on work, try taking a cooking class or a dance class to improve your work-life balance. Classes, clubs, and groups are a great way to meet new people while you expand your horizons.
Your life goals don’t have to be big and grand, as long as they’re meaningful to you.
Learning about the world will give you more things to talk about with other people.
If you’re not happy with the way you present yourself, invest in something that will make you feel more confident, such as some flattering clothes or a good haircut. This doesn’t have to be expensive.
Don’t try to smile all the time – that will look unnatural. Focus on smiling when you greet people and during conversations.
Professional support can be in the form of individual counseling or group counseling. The type of therapy usually used in such settings is dialectical behavioral therapy (talk therapy) and mindfulness training. The goal is to teach clients skills that will help with engaging in conversations in a more thoughtful and deliberate way, instead of reacting to their internal stress and emotions in a negative way.
When you’re genuinely interested in people, you’ll have more fulfilling conversations, and others will instinctively like you more.
If your manners need some polishing, look for an etiquette book at your local library, or search for manners tips online.
If other people try to get you to gossip with them, redirect the conversation. Ask a question like, “What are you doing this weekend?”
For instance, take a friend out for lunch when they’re feeling down, or give your coworker a ride to work when their car is in the shop.
