It is no surprise that we have lost the art of introspection given the rush that we seem to be in. Life has become busy. In addition to that, the definition of productive work has changed in society to mean ‘work that produces money’. In fact, a lot of people admonish themselves if they spend (read waste) time doing something that does not lead to more money!

Needless to say, a society that believes this is likely to stay away from the concept of ‘nothingness’, ‘meditation’, or ‘introspection’. In her talk, Tasha Eurich mentions how they studied self-awareness to understand the best way of achieving higher levels. She described two kinds of people – those who think they are self-aware and those who are actually self-aware. Interestingly, 90% of the thousands of people interviewed considered themselves to be self-aware, and yet there were about 10% who got classified as self-aware based on stringent, reliable, and validated criteria. This means that 80% of us are lying to ourselves at any given point in time!

Why Introspection?

Introspection is defined as ‘the examination or observation of one’s mental and emotional processes.’ It is the one act that leads you towards self-awareness and self-awareness gives us power over ourselves. The process of gaining higher levels of self-awareness may not be comforting and you may not initially like what you see, but it allows you to accept yourself for what you are genuinely and with compassion.

Higher levels of self-awareness have also been linked to stronger relationships, higher levels of creativity, better communication skills, and lower stress levels. At work it allows for better performance, more effective leadership skills, leading to more profitable companies.

Studies conducted by Learning in Action Technologies showed that the top performer in complex jobs is 127% more productive than the average. It was found that 2/3^rd (that is ~67%) of the difference in performance could be explained by emotional competence. In complex jobs (read white-collar jobs and higher-level positions), emotional competence decides whether you could be a top performer or an average one. And we know that emotional intelligence can be acquired.

How to Increase Self-Awareness?

Self-awareness is the key and often first step towards higher levels of emotional intelligence (a type of intelligence that can be acquired and increased as opposed to IQ which remains the same throughout life).

There is a lot of work that needs to be done in order to create higher levels of emotional intelligence, the scope of which is difficult to cover in a blog post. It requires perseverance, consistency, and a tenacious approach to its pursuit. (If you are interested in knowing more, contact me and we can discuss this further).

However, it is best to make a start and self-awareness is the best place to start. To start this process, you must have your stress levels under control. An overly stressed mind is a chaotic mind and it becomes almost impossible to introspect. It is also good to have good sleep hygiene. (Again, contact me if you want to work on your stress levels or enhance your sleep hygiene)

This is what you can do to start the process:

1. Pay Attention to what you are Doing

We live our lives on autopilot most of the time, going through the motions of the day. Living like this is easy because we do not have to question every action of ours. As you become more aware, you can consciously choose to allow some things to happen in your life on auto-pilot. However, it is important to first become aware of what you are doing and your own personal reasons for doing so.

• Engage with the world without the distractions that have become so part of us. Find time to be with nature, other people, or yourself without your ADHD mobile phone.
• Find silence in your life and choose to walk without music or podcasts.
• Delete social media apps for a week

2. Pay attention to what you are feeling

Confronting your feelings, thoughts, and emotions can be scary. You may realize that the auto-pilot mode is a way of staying away from these uncomfortable realizations.

• As you look at yourself as a third person or as you witness your own thoughts and feelings, make sure not to judge yourself in anyway. You are just the observer.
• Take note of things like what makes you happy, what makes you sad, what infuriates you, wat makes you weepy, and what makes you scared.

3. Figure out what you do not know about yourself

This is the hard part because once we become aware of what we are doing and what we are feeling, we start to ask questions. Most of us tend to ask the ‘why’ question. Why am I feeling angry? Why do I worry so much? Why did this happen to me?

Do not ask the WHY question!

Answering the ‘why’ question is tough and sometimes there are no ready answers. It is also almost impossible to reach into our own unconscious mind and pry out answers from there. When we are unable to find answers, we tend to invent our own imaginary explanations (which later can turn into beliefs).

There is an interesting study by Timothy Wilson and Richard Nesbitt that shows how we do exactly this. These psychologists set up a table outside a shop and lay down 4 identical pantyhose. They asked people to pick their favorite. Research suggests that people tend to pick the one on the extreme right 4 times more than the others. When asked why they picked the one that they did, the customers had specific and often elaborate explanation (it is softer, definitely better quality, different design etc). Even after they were told that the 4 pieces were identical, they refused to give up their belief.

Asking the why question often leads us away from our true nature as we start to rationalize and analyse the information we have collated by being aware and conscious of our thoughts. A lot of biases like the recency effect, conformist bias, and more tend to color our judgment at a specific point in time.

Alternately, ask the WHAT question!

The what question leads to solutions and provides answers to you about what you can do about a thought, emotion or situation that you may want to change. If you find yourself disagreeing with someone over and over again ask what you can do to reduce the level of discord. If you are suffering from a chronic ailment, ask what you can do to enhance the quality of your life. If you recognize that you get angry very often, ask what makes you angry and what you can do to calm yourself.

What questions come from observing your thoughts, emotions, and actions and then accepting them as they are. You will be able to ask these questions to yourself easily if you accept the situation as it is in the ‘NOW’ and then work towards what you can ‘DO’ in this moment.

P.S. If you want to test your emotional intelligence, this is a good test.