Center for the Advancement of Well-Being

Thriving Together Series: How to Harness Self-Awareness for Well-Being

Thriving Together Series

 

By: Mark R. Leary, Ph.D., Duke University, and Jennifer L. Rogers, Ph.D., Wake Forest University

“We have self-centered minds which get us into plenty of trouble. If we do not come to understand the error in the way we think, our self-awareness, which is our greatest blessing, is also our downfall.” – Author Joko Beck

Humanity’s remarkable capacity for self-awareness is the very trait that propelled us to build civilizations. But it also can lead us to spend far too much time thinking about ourselves. This leads to unnecessary anxiety, negative self-evaluations, and a constant preoccupation with others people’s opinions –all of which can harm our well-being. But there are strategies to dial down the mental chatter and reclaim a more balanced existence. Here is how to harness your self-awareness for well-being.

Homo sapiens is the only species that has extensively modified its environment so that it no longer lives under the same natural conditions under which it evolved. Only human beings have created civilizations that include science, technology, government, education, philosophy, health care, art, and many other amenities that have increased the quality of our lives. But why are we the only ones to have accomplished these things?

One important factor is that only human beings have the ability to think consciously about themselves in complex and abstract ways and far into the future. We can imagine future outcomes in our minds, envision what we will need in the future, and make plans for what we will do later on. We can also reflect on our thoughts and feelings, and even try to change what we think and feel. We use our ability to think about ourselves to make decisions and to consider what other people might be thinking about us, allowing us to manage our interactions with other people in helpful ways.

These mental processes are essential for daily well-being, and their loss would significantly diminish our quality of life. However, these same abilities are also responsible for many of our problems, including unhappiness, difficulties with other people, social conflict, unhealthy behavior, and even certain psychological disorders. Self-awareness is clearly a double-edged sword. For example, while our self-awareness has led to incredible advancements, it also leaves us prone to overthinking, such as endlessly replaying a social interaction or worrying about future “what ifs.”

The biggest problem with self-awareness is that most of us think about ourselves much more than needed to meet the challenges of our daily lives, and we do so in situations in which conscious self-reflection is not helpful or, worse, is distressing or unhealthy. For example, thinking about the future can distract us from situations that need our immediate attention, fuel unnecessary anxiety (as well as unhealthy behaviors to reduce that anxiety), and interfere with our sleep. In addition, our thoughts about ourselves are often inaccurate, leading to unfavorable self-evaluations, negative emotions, and bad decisions. Likewise, our ability to think about ourselves leads to us to be overly concerned with other people’s views of us.

A term sometimes used to summarize this excessive self-focus is egoicism (not to be confused with egoism and egotism, which create different kinds of problems). Egoicism is perfectly normal and usually adaptive. We could not survive if we didn’t think about ourselves. The problem is that we are much more egoic than we need to be to function well, and our unnecessarily high self-preoccupation frequently undermines our well-being.

Over millions of years of human evolution, our prehistoric ancestors didn’t have many choices about what they were going to do each day, much less options for what they were going to do with their lives. They may have occasionally found it useful to introspect when making choices, but reasons to look inward were limited. They also had no reason to look more than a few days ahead, so they didn’t agonize over long-term goals or worry about big life decisions. And, they presumably did not struggle with issues of personal identity and meaning.

Unlike in prehistoric times, most of us today are confronted with a staggering array of options – both moment-to-moment and in life generally – and we think about ourselves to make choices among them. Many of us struggle with our identity as we try to figure out who we are and what we should do with our lives and relationships. And we spend lots of time thinking about the future even when these thoughts aren’t helpful.

Strategies to Harness Self-Awareness for Well-Being

If excessive egoicism undermines human well-being, the solution is to find ways to reduce the degree to which we engage in unnecessary self-thought. Our goal is to reduce our superfluous self-thoughts so that we operate less frequently in an egoic mindset than we typically do. Let’s consider 5 strategies for tackling the problems created by self-awareness.

  • Be on the lookout for unnecessary egoic thoughts. The first step in promoting a less egoic orientation involves being alert to instances in which we are too self-focused. When we realize that we may be overthinking, a good first step is to ask ourselves: “Is this way of thinking likely to increase or decrease my well-being and the likelihood of achieving my goals? Are these thoughts helpful or harmful?” When people detect that their self-focused thoughts are getting in the way of their goals and well-being, they can employ tactics that steer them in a less egoic direction.
  • Cognitive self-regulation. We can often control excessively egoic thoughts by either stopping them or substituting less egoic ones. Certain psychological treatments – such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and dialectical behavior therapy – have used such approaches for many years by teaching people to monitor and modify problematic thoughts as needed. Of course, most of us don’t need full-blown psychotherapy, but aspects of these approaches can be used to change how we think about ourselves more generally. For example, if, despite studying hard for a test, we find ourselves thinking “I’m going to fail this test” we can change the thought to “I’m prepared for this test”.
  • Meditation and mindfulness. Research suggests that simply trying to stop thinking about something can backfire because suppressed thoughts often rebound and become even harder to ignore. Rather than simply trying to stop our thoughts, we can learn to let our self-thoughts come and go while paying only passing attention to them. If we are familiar with mindfulness and other forms of meditation, we will recognize that many such practices provide a powerful mechanism for reducing egoic thought. Many meditative approaches not only reduce internal self-chatter in general but also focus specifically on maintaining our attention on the present moment and minimizing internal commentary and judgment. Meditation is an effective antidote for excessive self-thought.
  • Change self-beliefs. We can also reduce our egoic thoughts by changing our beliefs, values, or views of ourselves. Beliefs, philosophies, and perspectives that deemphasize the importance of the individual or highlight the importance of people and things beyond ourselves can lower self-preoccupation. For example, the idea that all people are connected or interdependent or that people everywhere share the same fundamental desires and problems may make us less self-absorbed. Similarly, emphasizing values that focus on the well-being of other people, such as benevolence and universalism, may reduce egoicism.
  • Modify our environment. Creating social conditions that resemble the environment in which self-awareness evolved might also lower egoic thoughts and provide psychological benefits. Perhaps that’s one reason why spending time in nature reduces negative emotions, lowers stress, and increases psychological well-being. And it may explain why spending too much time on social media is associated with a host of psychological problems. Our brains evolved to deal with only a certain amount of stimulation and interactions with only a small number of people. Encountering dozens, if not hundreds, of other people each day online leads us to think much more about ourselves and about what others think about us than our evolutionary ancestors ever did. We can help modify our environment by setting time limits for social media use and reducing our overall screen time.

A good deal of research suggests that these kinds of strategies can lower our self-thoughts and improve our well-being. Reducing self-focused thoughts can lower negative emotions, increase equanimity (a state of calmness and composure), improve people’s interactions and relationships with others, improve the quality of our decisions, and increase positive psychological states such as flow (a state of deep absorption and enjoyment in an activity) and awe (an overwhelming feeling of reverence and wonder).

Like a light, self-awareness helps to illuminate many things in our lives. Unfortunately, the off switch often doesn’t work. By recognizing our tendency towards excessive self-focus and practicing these 5 strategies, we can reclaim our mental space and live more fulfilling lives.

Additional Resources

These resources can help you learn more about reducing self-focused, egoic thoughts:

For a deeper dive into the psychological research underlying these ideas, see:

  • Mark Leary (2004), The Curse of the Self. Oxford University Press.
  • Kirk Brown and Mark Leary (Eds.) (2016), Handbook of Hypo-egoic Phenomena. Oxford University Press.
  • Mark Leary and Jennifer Rogers (2025), Self-awareness and hypo-egoicism. In James E. Maddux (Ed.) Subjective Well-Being and Life Satisfaction: Social Psychological Foundations. Taylor & Francis.

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