Self-awareness: what is it and why is it important?
Self-awareness is an important theme in coaching, involving many different dimensions relating to intra-personal awareness, focusing on internal resources such as values, beliefs, thoughts, emotions, personality traits, behaviours and motivations; and inter-personal awareness, your interaction with and impact on others.
Self-awareness is an important aspect of emotional intelligence and considered critical for strong leadership. There are other significant benefits of developing your self-awareness: it generally leads to a more stable self-esteem as there is an element of accepting who you are through your increased understanding of what is happening in and around yourself through intra- and inter-personal awareness. It helps you build relationships and manage conflict more effectively, as you are aware of your impact of others and their perception of you. And managing yourself in challenging situations will become easier due to your increased self-awareness, recognising what your “triggers” and default reactions are under stress, and helping you manage your emotions and behaviours.
In short, self-awareness helps you to experience higher self-esteem, become aware of other people’s perspectives, and develop greater self-control.
“We only have a measure of choice and control over what we are aware of and it is those things that we are unaware of that control us”.
Self-awareness: how can I develop it?
Below are some suggestions of things you can do to develop and deepen your self-awareness:
- Psychometric profiles – to help you understand personality traits, types and preference. There are a wide range of profiles available, some of them accessible online at no cost, such as 16Personalities (16Personalities) and Values In Action (VIA Institute)(1). It is important to note that these are great tools to help you reflect and/or discuss with your manager, colleagues or coach, and should be taken as a starting point rather than fact defining you.
- Feedback – to get insights on how others perceive you and perhaps pick up on blind spots. Feedback can be requested through formal assessments or by asking people around you to provide feedback informally.
- Reflecting on values & beliefs – to help you get clarity on the things that are most important to you, that guide your choices and shape how you experience the world around you. Bringing these into your consciousness will help you understand why and how you make certain decisions or behave in certain situations. Think about:
- What are your most important values (top 5 or 10): the things that matter the most to you?
- When and for what reason did they become so important to you?
- How do each of these impact how you are – how do they impact your thoughts, emotions and behaviours?
- How do each of them impact how others see you?
- Thinking about your purpose – to help you get clarity on the vision you have for your life and/or career, taking into account your values and beliefs. Being more aware of what you really want will help you set a clearer direction for yourself and help you make more conscious, purposeful choices.
- Regular self-reflection – to help you track your thoughts, emotions and reactions to things that happen in everyday life. You can keep a record through journalling, voice-recording, calendar notes, or any other preferred tool that will allow you to record and look back on what is going on. Reviewing your self-reflection notes will help you identify themes and patterns that you may otherwise not be conscious of.
- Mindfulness – to make you more aware of what is going on for your by paying attention to self and the present.
- Coaching and/or therapy – to review how past experiences and events have shaped and influenced who you are today through therapy; and to reflect on who you are, identify patterns of behaviour and motivation, and decide and act on how you want to change these through coaching.
Notes:
- These are examples of tools available publicly and free of charge; they are not specifically recommended or endorsed by the author.