Before you can understand others you must understand yourself.  In basic terms, self-understanding is your own awareness of and ability to understand the rationale for your taking of an action and reasons behind your reaction to actions taken by others.

This is not to imply that others will only act within the realm of your value system and personal motivations.  Being aware of your self provides a framework to map another person’s behaviors against, for understanding, not for judging.

Not Judging

Of course, we all judge ourselves, sometimes to our determent and often this extends to judging others.  Understanding is not about judging, rather it is knowledge.

Knowing the facts, information, and skills applicable to the situation, derived through experience or education, enables us to gain either a theoretical or practical understanding of others.

Your own experience and education are the foundation from which you can assess others behaviors and most importantly respond accordingly.

By not judging, rather, using an informed and therefore highly accurate knowledge-based assessment to understand why others do what they do your response can be measured, reasonable and most likely well received.

More than Seeing Yourself

Self-understanding goes beyond just viewing yourself in a mirror.  The view you see in a  mirror show what you look like only superficially and real understanding is much deeper than that.

How you think and behave is really what matters for ongoing interactions with others.  Understanding yourself at a deep inner level is key to being able to manage your responses to another’s behavior in the most effective way.

That is, to react in a way that will create a positive experience for everyone involved you need to understand why that would be the case.