Self-awareness - A Journey Of Discovery

Self-awareness - conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires, an awareness of one's own personality or individuality (online dictionary).

We spend a lot of time in our own mind but how well do we really know ourselves? Are we cycling in non-productive thoughts and emotions, or are we leveraging our brains to provide better outcomes?

Why is self-awareness important? Let me share an illustration that I hope will give you insight into the value of self-awareness.

This graphic comes out of a presentation on "The Power of Feedback" by TMA Change Partners^©. This is a very good visual to understand self-awareness.

• Arena -the Arena is what you know about yourself and what other people know about you. It is the place where your most productive interactions happen. Enlarging your arena is an important part of growing your self-awareness. To do that, you have to reduce the size of some of the other areas.
• Blind spot - as you might guess, blind spot is what we are not self-aware of. You can also think of this as blind spots. Many times we avoid greater self-awareness, specifically blind spots, because they can be uncomfortable. They can trigger emotions that we prefer not to experience. The consequences of blind spots can be minimal or can be profound. Have you ever know someone who had a blind spot that made it difficult to be around them? Reducing our blind spot by becoming more self-aware allows us to access more of our untapped potential.
• Facade - this is something we know about ourselves that we keep other people from knowing. It may be because we perceive it would hurt a relationship or make us look weak. Keeping up a facade takes effort and energy. This effort reduces the energy we have to grow our self-awareness. How? By limiting how much we choose to open ourselves up to other people. If someone tries to give us feedback, we may become defensive which can lead to less trust and connection. The same thing can happen with our blind spot. How much we are willing to disclose to others has a direct impact on how much of our untapped potential we can access.
• Untapped potential - this is the "gold mine" when it comes to self-awareness. Research tells us that the average person only uses about 10-15% of their total brain power and only gives about 40% of their potential effort on a daily basis. That may not be you, but it is the world we live in. What would it be like if you could reduce your blind spot and facade, increase your arena, and realize more of your untapped potential? Do you have an idea of how much untapped potential you have?

Unlocking EQ

EQ is the key that unlocks your untapped potential. Using the graphic above, let's explore how that can happen.

• Reducing your blind spot - if you have lived into your 20's and beyond, there have probably been people who have attempted to point out your blind spots. Unfortunately, that can easily come across as criticism or fault finding. That is when your emotions get triggered and your defensive walls rise up. The problem with this is that they may be sharing useful information but doing it in a non-productive way. Then we tend to discount that person going forward...or at least their feedback.
• Reducing your facade - this is a little different because the you are the person that triggers your emotions and shuts down a line of thought that is uncomfortable or potentially threatening. Why do we do this? Our society tries to project on us what we should be. When we fall outside of that expectation, then we try to hide that perceived failure. I use the word perceived for a purpose. We are the person criticizing ourselves. We are the one who sets the standards. We fear someone might reject us or make fun of us if they knew what we know about ourselves. This is a powerful roadblock to accessing your untapped potential. There will always be standards someone sets that we will not be able to reach...but how truly important are those?

EQ Competencies

When it come to self-awareness, there are two key competencies of emotional intelligence that we focus on (Six Seconds model).

• Emotional literacy - how much do we understand what an emotion is, can we define it, can we identify what it looks like in us, do we know how it impacts us?
• Recognizing patterns - Can we understand our patterns, what emotions are attached to those patterns, how those patterns impact our decision and actions, can we identify if our patterns are helpful or not?

When we consider these EQ competencies, we can begin to see why self-awareness is so important.

If you want to be the person that shapes your preferred future, then you have to have enough self-awareness to make choices that will give you the outcomes you desire. Research and case studies by the dozens have proven that people who have higher EQ scores and more developed EQ skills have more success and satisfaction in their lives. EQ is 2-4 times more predictive of success than IQ.

Exercise

• Think of something in your life that you keep doing but you wish you could change.
• What is it that puts you into that pattern?
• What are you thinking?
• What are you feeling (be specific and name the emotion(s))?
• When do you become aware that you are in that pattern?
• Think of 1 or 2 things you could do to move away from that pattern into a more productive pattern.
• Now practice using those thoughts, techniques, actions.
• Reflect on how that worked for you. What worked, what did not work? How could you improve?

You have just walked through a scientific (neuroscience) approach to change.

This is what that looks like:

The more self-aware you are, the more change you will be able to embrace and be successful at. Self-awareness is the starting point for building internal resources like agility, resilience, internal motivation, optimism, focus, energy, and navigating your emotions.

"You will only have the internal resources to face the next challenge or take advantage of the next opportunity that you have built to that point." That is something I use all the time when helping people understand the value of EQ. EQ is the key that unlocks your untapped potential. The vast majority of roadblocks are self-imposed. Removing those roadblocks is your choice. Embracing a journey of self-awareness is a great start!

************

For more, check out our other resources:

EQFIT® YouTube Channel

EQFIT® Blog

EQFIT® Podcast

 Copyright © 2023 EQFIT® - Author: Steven Goodner. All rights reserved. No portion of this material may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: [email protected]