Here is something most articles won’t say about self awareness upfront. The people who most need to read this are the least likely to think it applies to them.
That is not a judgment. It is simply how blind spots work. You cannot see what is missing in yourself if you have never been shown where to look. And yet, something brought you here. A conversation that didn’t go the way you expected. A relationship that quietly fell apart. Feedback that found you again, in different words, from a different person, in a different year.
That something is worth paying attention to.
How do I know if I lack self awareness?
The fact that you are asking is already meaningful.
People who truly lack self awareness rarely wonder about it. They tend to see their problems as things that happen to them, because of other people or bad luck, rather than something they might be part of. Asking this question at all takes a kind of honesty that low self awareness tends to block.
So if you are here with genuine curiosity about your own patterns, that curiosity is already a step forward. What follows is not a list to grade yourself against. It is more like a mirror. Hold it up slowly. There is no rush.
Why do I always feel misunderstood?
You said it clearly and calmly. You chose your words carefully. And somehow they still got it wrong.
If this happens once, it is a misunderstanding. If it happens again and again, with different people, in different situations, over different years, it is worth asking a harder question. Not whether others are listening well enough. But whether something in how you come across, your tone, your timing, the mood you carry into a conversation without realising it, might be changing what they hear.
Priya, a consultant in her mid-thirties, came to therapy carrying years of this feeling. Her colleagues never seemed to understand what she meant. Her closest friendships had quietly grown thin over time. What slowly came out in sessions was that Priya spoke with a sharpness and directness that left very little space for the other person. She felt she was being clear. The people around her felt shut out.
The gap between how we mean to come across and how we actually land is often where self awareness work begins. If you regularly feel misunderstood, it is worth asking not just whether others are listening, but what they might be hearing that you did not intend to say.
Why do I get defensive when people give me feedback?
You know the feeling. Someone says something, and before they have even finished the sentence, something inside you is already preparing a response. Not to understand. To defend.
You are not doing this on purpose. And you are not alone in it.
When feedback feels like an attack rather than information, it is often because what is being said does not match how you see yourself, and that gap is hard to sit with. So the mind does what it has always done. It protects you. It finds reasons why the feedback is wrong, why the person saying it has a problem, why this particular situation is different.
In Transactional Analysis, a framework developed by psychiatrist Dr. Eric Berne, this is connected to what is called the Critical Parent ego state. This is the part of us that turns any form of criticism into a judgment about our whole self, rather than a comment about a specific moment. When that part takes over, feedback stops being something we can use. It becomes something we just need to survive.
A question worth sitting with after a defensive moment is not whether the feedback was fair. It is what it would mean about you if it were true. The answer to that question often tells you more than the feedback itself ever could.
Why do the same problems keep happening to me?
Job changes. City changes. Relationships change. The argument stays the same. The feeling stays the same. So does the ending.
At some point, the most honest thing you can do is notice the one thing all of these situations have in common.
This is not about blaming yourself. Repeated patterns are not proof of failure. They are often the sign of something learned very early, a way of responding to the world that made sense once, maybe even kept you safe once, but that keeps running long after it stopped being useful.
Research by psychologist Tasha Eurich, published in the Harvard Business Review, found that while most people believe they understand their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviour, the evidence suggests the majority of us have significant gaps in that understanding. We are often the last ones to see our own patterns, because they feel so familiar. So much like just who we are.
If you keep finding yourself in the same argument with different people, or the same disappointment in different situations, the thread worth following is not out there. It is here.
Why do I find it hard to sit with other people’s emotions?
Someone you care about is hurting. And instead of staying with them in it, something in you wants to fix it, change the subject, or move the conversation to something lighter. Anything to make the moment pass.
You are not being unkind. You are likely doing exactly what you learned to do with your own difficult feelings.
The way we handle emotion in ourselves tends to be the way we handle it in others. When someone cries and we rush to comfort or change the subject, we are often not responding to them at all. We are responding to our own discomfort with what their pain is stirring up in us.
This shows up in relationships as being hard to reach when it matters most. The person on the other end feels it as distance. The person doing it often has no idea.
A simple way to start noticing this is to pay attention to what happens in your body the next time someone around you is upset. Your chest, your shoulders, your breathing. That physical response carries more information than you might expect about your own relationship with difficult feelings.
Why do people say I am hard to read?
They want to know how you are feeling. You say you are fine. They do not quite believe you. And you are not sure why.
Being described as hard to read often points to a gap between what you feel inside and what you let others see, the inward and outward sides of self awareness that are explored in What is Self Awareness and Why Does it Matter for Personal Growth?
For many people, keeping things in started early. Showing your inner world did not feel safe, or welcome, or useful. The habit of holding back became so natural it stopped feeling like a choice. As an adult, this can leave you feeling invisible inside your own calm, while others experience you as distant or closed off.
The cost is quiet rather than dramatic. Conversations that stay on the surface. Moments of real closeness that feel just out of reach. A sense that people never quite see you, without realising that the door has been kept shut from your side.
What can I do if I recognise myself here?
First, take a breath. Seeing yourself in some of these signs does not mean something is wrong with you. It means you are paying attention. That is exactly where this kind of work begins.
A few things that genuinely help:
- Ask someone you trust a specific question rather than a big open one. Not “am I self aware?” but “is there anything I do in conversations that is hard to respond to?” Specific questions get honest answers.
- Keep a short note of moments when your reaction felt bigger than the situation needed. Patterns become clearer over time in a way they never are in the middle of the moment.
- When feedback comes, try sitting with it a little longer before deciding what to do with it. Not to push down the defensive feeling, but to give it time to settle.
None of this needs to be figured out all at once. Curiosity is enough. You do not have to have it all sorted. You just have to be willing to keep looking.
The Transactional Analysis framework
Self awareness is not a fixed trait some people have and others don’t. It is closer to a muscle; one that gets stronger the more honestly you are willing to look; and the more patiently you are willing to wait for what you see to actually sink in.
The Transactional Analysis framework of Dr. Eric Berne has some remarkable concepts that help with exactly this; understanding your patterns, how you acquired them, and how to work at the root to move beyond them.
InfinumGrowth offers quality support from an experienced team of Counsellors and Psychotherapists trained in the Transactional Analysis framework, for exactly this kind of self discovery.
If you wish to understand yourself better, you can also watch the Self Learning Video on Self Awareness titled “If I don’t know me, who will?” , which explains self awareness through key concepts from Transactional Analysis theory. This video comes with a special discount for a counselling or psychotherapy session at InfinumGrowth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can someone lack self awareness without knowing it?
Yes, and this is actually the most common situation. A blind spot is called that because you cannot see it yourself. Most people who have gaps in self awareness experience their difficulties as something caused by others or by circumstances, not by their own patterns.
Is low self awareness something that can be changed?
Yes. Self awareness can grow at any age and any stage of life. It tends to develop through honest feedback, regular reflection, and often through working with a therapist or coach who can point out what is hard to see on your own.
What is the difference between low self awareness and being an introvert?
Introversion is about where you get your energy from. Self awareness is about how clearly you see your own patterns. An introvert can be highly self aware. Someone who talks a lot can have very little self awareness. The two things are not related.
How is low self awareness different from being arrogant?
Arrogance is when someone knows how they come across and simply does not care. Low self awareness is when someone genuinely does not know. One is a choice. The other is a gap.
Where do I start if I want to work on this?
Start small. One honest conversation. One pattern written down. One piece of feedback held with curiosity instead of defensiveness. Self awareness rarely arrives as a big sudden realisation. It builds slowly, through small moments of honest attention, over time.
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