The key to understanding yourself and others is good old-fashioned self-awareness. If you don’t know how you feel or why you react to certain situations the way you do. If you constantly keep running into a wall over and over again; it's time to analyze some details in your life and possibly make some changes.

It’s all about knowing your character and personality including your strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivations, and emotions. This will allow you to understand yourself and others and could possibly help you with your relationships or even your career.

It seems so simple, but if you never work on recognizing and understanding your emotions, they could blindside you when you least expect them. We are all guilty of pushing our feelings away and hoping for them to never surface again, but lo and behold, they tend to pop up at fairly inconvenient moments. If you know how to handle yourself in tough situations; if you’re not afraid of strong emotions and if you insist on finding solutions to awkward moments; your ability to think rationally and to face and resolve differences will stand you in good stead.

7 Signs you are not as self-aware as you think:

1. You’re a bully: feelings are human and they are important guidance mechanisms to the way you deal with life. You go on the offensive and bully to protect something deep within you... Something you don’t want people to see. These are often feelings of weakness and vulnerability.
2. You’re defensive. Defensive? Since defensive people almost always deflect by going on the offensive.
3. You’re controlling: usually, this means you’re not dealing with a big thing that’s really bugging you.
4. You’re passive aggressive: if you say “sure no prob” and turn around and do the opposite it's a deflection. It means you don’t want to confront others or be confronted by them.
5. Your behaviour changes: if this happens, and others start to notice, then something is affecting you and you need to do some soul-searching.
6. You’re grandiose: this is overcompensating to appear like you’ve got everything under control.
7. You make excuses: these are ways of avoiding or deflecting negative attention. Pointing fingers and blaming others is a sure sign of dysfunctional leadership or management.

So what do you think about some of these points? Did some of these aspects speak to you? Try to search for some answers. They are thought-provoking and challenging. The more you find them difficult, the more you should invest in yourself and get to your own answers.

Take action, be pro-active, live life love life and live from the inside out!