An exhausting person with an exhausting personality. Interacting with this person is a ballgame of its own, having them in your life costs you in ways you cannot measure. Talking with this person is often very one-sided, shallow and drains your social battery. Have mercy if you ever face a conflict with them. Who is this person? Your friend, colleague, family member, or just someone you know; Someone who lacks the crucial capability to recognize their own behavior.

We are who we are. We develop a personality and behaviors that determine how we model yourselves to the outside world. They also determine how we perceive the outside world and people around us. Switching our personality and learned ways of behavior is challenging, if not impossible. However, what is not impossible, is molding and slightly changing them over time. Can a person who lacks empathy learn how to read and understand others’ feelings, if now it does not come naturally to them? Can a friend who continuously feeds you little white lies learn their way out of the habit? Can your colleague so used to only talk about themselves learn how to listen?

Being self-aware is like having a ‘little you’ sitting on your shoulder whenever you interact with someone. The ‘little you’ gives an outside objective, for example, of how you react, what you say, how you listen, what is your body language like, how you phrase a sentence and what you think of the person you are interacting with. This little thing does not emerge from nothing: Gaining great self-awareness is a task one needs to work on, taken that they are not absolutely oblivious to why they would need to gain it in the first place. The key is for everyone to understand why recognizing own behavior is important, and how it can be adjusted and modified for the sake of better relationships in the everyday life.

Situations of conflict are the perfect occasion to practice recognizing your own behavior. What did you do? How did you react? Did you raise your voice, say something regretful, get fully silent? Here is an example of what an impulsive person, who in a conflict often gets verbally aggressive, but who is self-aware of their own behavior, does after a fight with their partner: They recognize the initial reason why they got angry and why they said what they said. They are able to apologize to their partner and clearly explain the root of the cause. In the next fight, they remember the last reaction they had and this time, sustain from getting verbally aggressive. They do this because they want to make a conscious effort to change for the better, not only for themselves, but also for a better relationship with their partner. Self-awareness leads to emotional maturity, stronger and longer-lasting relationships and after all, a better life. When people around you enjoy your company, you are also happier.

No one wants to be that exhausting personality in one’s life that keeps getting ignored simply because people around them do not have the energy to deal with their self-absorbed view of the world. The thing is, that we all have that person in our lives: Is this person aware of this? Of course not. Right now, they are incapable of self-awareness and recognizing the consequences of their own actions. The positive side, however, is that they might gain the awareness someday, either on their own or through therapy. Anyways, it is a long process. Hope’s up!

PS. Next time you talk with someone you know, look back to the conversation and analyze it: Did you ask them questions? Were you genuinely interested in what they said? Did you actively listen when they were talking to you? Does interacting with you energize or drain them? If you suspect the latter, I have bad news and good news for you: Bad news is that you might be the exhausting person in their life. Good news, if you suspect this, you are one step closer in gaining awareness of your own behavior!

Sanni S