SELF EVALUATION/ SELF AWARENESS

In today's era, everyone has a fundamental idea of what self-awareness or self-evaluation is, but we don’t know exactly where it comes from, what its precursors are, or why some of us seem to have more or less than others.

Self-awareness is not just a topic to be delineated but that’s a debate that continues to rage throughout the history of philosophy.

So why not first understand, what self-awareness and self-evaluation mean?

*Marcus Aurelia* quoted:

*“Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?”*

Through his quote, we can conclude,

Self-awareness or self-evaluation is the ability to see yourself clearly and objectively through reflection and introspection. It includes the ability of a person to evaluate and introspect his thoughts. It is the feeling of knowing what makes you feel good or what makes you sick.

Through self-evaluation, we can cope up with every obstacle faced in our journey. In this competitive era, it had become paramount to set standards of our values, thoughts, and behaviour.

When we engage in self-evaluation, we can give some thought to whether we are thinking and feeling and acting as we should according to our set standards, and goals. This is referred to as comparing against our standards of correctness. We do this daily, using these standards as a way to judge the rightness of our thoughts and behaviors.

So now the question arises, how does self-awareness lead to goodness?

*1. Self-Awareness and Success*

Self-awareness is spiritual progress and success is a relative concept. No two individuals hold a similar story. Each person goes through different circumstances and different situations. Success is subjective or a relative concept as it varies from individual to individual. Being self-aware makes you have your idea of success in the first place. For some people, being a millionaire is a success while for others having to get a government job or to be more precise, clearing UPSC, CA or CS is the success. Some people dream of being debt-free while others long for health, happiness, or peace.

Success does not fall out of the sky. It requires constant determination, effort, and struggle to achieve goals. We often come across and are inspired by success stories of thousands of entrepreneurs and businessmen and get motivated to achieve the same kind of success as they have but do not focus on the hard work that they have put to achieve their dreams and the fact that our success stories can be different from theirs.

*2. Know your emotions and then react*

We all have different motivations, we differ in our achievements, failures, strengths, and ideas. So, we all react differently to different situations. The more you get exposed to life, the more you adapt yourself to face the difficulties of life. When we truly know about ourselves and our attributes, we become able to analyze, learn, and improve our lives.

*3. Learn from your mistakes*

We often commit a mistake and feel bad about it. But until we commit mistakes, we won't learn many things. The concept of 'E's' i.e., experiment and experience, plays a crucial role in our life. , we do experiments and we gain experience.

*4. Stop judging others*

Walking the path of self-awareness is a journey that comes with its highs and lows. You eventually realize that people have their twists and turn on the road and you cannot judge them for their choices until you walk in their shoes.

*5. Overcome your fears*

Fears are the worst things. They can let you down while achieving your dreams. They stop you from taking new challenges and risks. But the power of self-awareness helps you in facing your fears and overcoming them for your better future.

If we conclude the above discussion, we can understand, Self-awareness is an important key for being successful in any aspect of life, whether we talk about career, relationships, business, or happiness. We do not become conscious of self-awareness in a snap. It is a long process that a person goes through in his life and there is no end to it.