What is self awareness ?
Self-awareness is the ability to understand one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, as well as the ability to recognize how they fit into the environment and affect others. It is a fundamental building block of emotional intelligence, allowing individuals to observe, understand, and take action on their own emotions and how they impact their lives.
In the workplace, self-awareness is an invaluable asset. Many studies associate self awareness with leadership abilities.
For one, it enables people to understand the skills and qualities they possess, as well as those they lack, and to use that knowledge to grow in their professional lives.
Secondly, it also helps them maintain healthy relationships with colleagues and supervisors, while developing the skills they need to succeed.
Self-awareness is a great tool to help you understand your strengths, weaknesses, and identify your values. It can help you make better career decisions in multiple ways. With an increased self awareness, you can:
- Set better goals that will increase your fulfilment in the short and long term
- Set boundaries and define better frameworks for your success
- Choose jobs and learn skills that will boost your happiness
Most people think that some individuals are generally more self aware. While it may be true, it is also a skill that can be developed and honed over time.
If you’re interested in growing your career, it is important to become self-aware.
6 Tips to increase your self awareness
Here are six tips to help you develop a better understanding of yourself and your strengths and weaknesses:
1. Know Your Values
Understanding your values is the foundation of self-awareness. It will provide you with clarity on what you stand for, what you are passionate about, and what your goals are. Spend some time reflecting on the things you value and the goals that you want to achieve.
For one person, achieving a certain amount of wealth may be important, while for another, getting a certain designation may be more valuable.
Asking yourself questions about what you value more will help you understand your inner ambitions clearly.
2. Identify Strengths and Weaknesses
Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is essential to developing self-awareness. Make a list of your strengths and weaknesses and use them to help you set realistic goals for yourself.
You need to play on your strengths for most of the time. While weaknesses can be bridged by multiple methods, including delegating to experts, some of them which have become obstacles to your success need to be worked upon immediately and directly.
Another advantage of understanding your strengths and weaknesses is that it allows you to have honest and compelling discussions in job interviews.
3. Ask for Feedback
Ask for feedback from your colleagues, supervisors, and mentors. This will help you recognize areas you need to work on and build on the strengths you already possess.
Feedback from superiors and colleagues can help you gain perspective on how others see you and your strengths and weaknesses. It is an extremely powerful tool and can help you achieve fast growth as a professional.
4. Reflect on Your Experiences
Take some time to reflect on your experiences and think about how they have shaped who you are today. Ask yourself questions like “What have I learned from this experience?”, “How can I use this experience to grow in my career?” and “What can I do differently in the future?”
Answering these questions helps you make better decisions in life. Also, you can course correct quickly if you see some misalignment between your actions and your goals.
My wife and I discuss and reflect upon our professional choices every quarter. You can do it at an interval that suits you.
5. Set Goals
Having specific goals will help you stay focused and motivated to reach them. Make sure your goals are achievable, measurable, and realistic.
If the goals make you uncomfortable, you can break them down into small chunks and evolve daily habits and systems out of them.
6. Challenge Yourself
Challenge yourself to think outside the box and try something new. Learning new skills and taking on new tasks can help you gain a better understanding of yourself and your abilities.
While it is good to play on your strengths, it is important to keep challenging yourself to determine your capacity and find your hidden potential.
Speaking from my experience I understood a lot more about my self when I left corporate jobs for startups and entrepreneurship.
Self-awareness is an important skill to have in order to be successful in your career. Spend some time reflecting on who you are and what you want to achieve. Make use of the tips above to better understand yourself, and you’ll be on the path to achieving your career goals.
