Research Paper By Irene Lee Lai Kean
(Transformational Coach, SINGAPORE)
What is Self-Awareness?
Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to recognise oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While consciousness is a term given to being aware of one’s environment and body and lifestyle, self-awareness is the recognition of that awareness.(definition on Wikipedia)
Simply put, self-awareness is about understanding your own needs, desires, habits and everything that makes you YOU. The more you know about yourself, the better you are at adapting life changes that suit your needs. Without self-awareness, you are on autopilot driven in your daily lives only by the information that is given to you but not the information that you consciously seek for. Every act, from your business deals to your personal relationships, depends on your understanding of yourself and your awareness of the situation that you are in. It is the ability to formulate a summary of our behaviour based on past and current thoughts and emotions. It allows us to understand what’s going on in our heads and why.
Being self-aware is the ability to see our true selves without blinders. This is the first step in being true to one’s self. It requires empathy, patience, strength, humility and love. One of the hardest things to do is see one’s self as fallible but that is what we are.
Why is Self-Awareness important?
Without adequate self-awareness, we struggle to understand others, to manage ourselves and to develop healthy relationships and because the world around us is continuously changing and because we are forever changing, we never finish developing our own sense of self-awareness.
All major accomplishments occur within a system of cooperation and competition. We learn by action, by making mistakes and by learning from these mistakes. We cannot become self-aware solely through self-reflection.
In order to achieve and boost one’s self-awareness, one may like to give some thoughts to the following :
Learn about yourself
- My strengths?
- My core values?
- My mission and purpose?
- My passions and interests?
- My blind spots?
- My personality?
Practise some form of self-reflection
- Meditate or pray
- Write about your feelings
- Talk to others about your feelings
- Listen, really listen, to their feedback
- Know what you want
- Where you want to go
- Know how others feel
- Feel how others feel
- Seek to understand others
- Learn to read individual differences
- Become sensitive to the feelings of others
- Learn to understand myself in relation to others
- Practise active listening
- Not debating, not defending and not counter-attacking
- Seek first to understand than to be understood
Manage emotions and actions
- How do I handle stress?
- How do I manage anger?
- What do I “say to myself” about difficult situations?
- How do I talk to myself down from getting upset?
- How do I manage my moods?
- How do I get myself out of a bad mood?
- How do I manage my time?
- How well do I take care of myself (mind and body)?
- Be aware of emotional flooding – the moment your emotions trump your ability to think
- Be aware of faulty thinking. Bad ideas can lead to bad action. Example of bad ideas include : I must be right all the time, I must never admit vulnerability, I must be loved and approved by everybody all the time.
- Avoid counter-attacking
- Practise delaying gratification
Display empathy towards others
- How well do I display misunderstanding towards others?
- How well am I able to express my feelings?
- How positive am I with others?
- How well do I exercise good self-restraint?
Deal with challenging situations
- Personal and professional elevator pitch – how do I introduce myself to people I meet?
- How am I at asking good questions of others?
- How well do I actively listen to the other people?
- How am I at sustaining long-term relationships (family, social, personal, professional) ?
- How would I rate my ability to influence others?
- How would I rate my ability to lead others? To manage relationships?
- Know it’s not always about me
- Realise we are all on key personality spectra and may need different amounts of time or rationale for decisions
Becoming a more self-aware person, helps one to become a better leader, even if you are only leading yourself. It makes us better people. Here’s why :
Having the ability to see when we are wrong or when we have made a mistake allows us to see other people’s perspectives and to be empathetic to their situation or their feelings.
Have you noticed when people aren’t self-aware, it is very difficult for them to apologise or admit that they are wrong ? Often, these people can’t even see that they are wrong in the first place. They tend to think that they are always right and if something doesn’t work out as planned, it is always someone else’s fault.
Man in the mirror
If we can acknowledge our flaws, we can make positive change to improve upon them. Knowing is half the battle, and if you can admit to the qualities that are less than stellar about yourself, you can change them or improve upon them.
When you can see your own faults, it is easier to accept others’.
Understanding that we ourselves are not perfect allows us to get off our high horses. Further, know we can always be better and as a result, can be thankful for the good that does come our way.
Let’s face it. No one likes a know-it-all or an individual who thinks they are always right. Having the ability to see other people’s viewpoints, to be open and flexible and acknowledge that you are not the only person who has the answer, makes you a more attractive person.
So, how self-aware are you, especially as a coach?
Here are a few questions to ask :
- Do you listen to others during a conversation? Or, do you tend to do a lot of the talking?
- Do you ask others how they feel about situations? Or, do you make assumptions based on your own feelings?
- Do you think about how your actions affect others ? Or, are you confident that others are fine with how you handle situations?
- Are you aware of people’s social cues? Or, do you mostly focus on your own?
- Can you admit when you are wrong, and have apologised when you are? Or, do you tend to think that things are wrong or go bad because of others?
If you answered YES to most of the FIRST questions in each pair, you are most likely self-aware. If you answered YES to most of the SECOND questions in each pair, you probably could afford to tune into other people’s reactions and do some inner reflecting.
Self-awareness gives you the ability to be open, thoughtful and aware of how you impact others. It is one of the best and most valuable qualities you can have ! Do you think you are self-aware? Have you met others who aren’t? How did they make you feel?
Coaching to help others develop self-awareness
In professional coaching, there are techniques used to help people harness their true potential. Let’s consider first, some of the key takeaways :
- A trait of emotional intelligence, self-awareness is key to understanding ourselves and how we relate to others.
- Understanding the rational and irrational nature of humans (including our own) is essential to being able to work more effectively.
- Strategies employed by professional coaches and help others cultivate a sense of self-awareness.
A common comment given in feedback to people being considered for promotion at work is :
He or she is excellent technically but lacks self-awareness.
And in a troubled relationship, it is often remarked that a couple seems unable to identify the part each plays in the turmoil they experience due to the lack of awareness each has of his or her contribution to what occurs.
Self-awareness involves being aware of different aspects of the self, including traits, behaviours and feelings. It plays a critical role in how we understand ourselves and how we relate to others and the world, be it personally or professionally. But can self-awareness be cultivated ? Business coaches, career coaches, life coaches – all of them believe self-awareness can be cultivated.
Understanding the rational and irrational nature of humans (including our own) is part and parcel of being able to work and lead more effectively.
Here’s how important self-awareness is at the workplace. Self-aware employees and leaders are mostly confident and open-minded. They embrace now thoughts and ideas which helps their co-workers, clients and even bosses to like them better. Employees with self-awareness tend to accept others’ shortcomings and are willing to be involved in projects that can help them develop themselves. They realise that this development will improve their skills and grow their career. As a result, the company will benefit from these employees as leaders within its ranks are produced this way and they do not have to recruit from outside, which would otherwise incur time, money and effort.
What coaching strategies can coaches employ to help improve self-awareness?
Let’s consider a workplace scenario……….
Become more self-aware in the workplace allows one to relate better to his/her colleagues, direct reports and superiors, creating a more harmonious environment. He/she is able to look at issues more objectively and the role he/she may have to play in creating them. He/she is mindful and operates in the here and now. So, how can a person become more self-aware at work when there are so many things vying for attention?
In order for an individual to truly understand their impact on others, they must first be privy to feedback about their approach. In many work settings, receiving feedback from others is rare and may never be voiced, especially in leadership contexts. Given the importance of self-awareness on individual performance, combined with the need for real and tangible feedback to necessitate this awareness, a key to any successful development initiative is to utilise a combination of assessments tools that encourage both. Such combination of assessments may include self-report Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or Psychometrics 360 or Gallup StrengthsFinder, just to name a few. The coach maximizes the opportunity to encourage or elicit more accurate self-reflection and a better understanding of an individual’s impact on the organisation and others.
In the cases of career coaching, often clients come with issues of the following nature :
- I face challenges looking for a job
- I have just recently been retrenched from my last corporate role and am at a loss as to what should I do next
- I am feeling in-secured at my current role as I am witnessing my organisation going through restructuring/downsizing/retrenchments of employees
- I am not finding fulfilment/satisfaction in my current job or I am getting bored with my job
- I don’t see any advancement in the current position or in the current organisation that I am working for
- I have been working very hard but I am getting frustrated as I feel my efforts/accomplishments are not being recognised by my bosses
And the list goes on……………….
It is, then, important to identify the VIPS of the individual :
V – values (career values)
I – interests (motivators)
P – personality (who am I, what am I, what strengths and weaknesses do I have)
S – skills (core and emerging ones)
Helping the client to create self-awareness has always been the key to achieve identification of the client’s VIPS. The coach is likely to recommend these 5 approaches :
Take a personality test
Personality tests give insights into who the client really is and help better understanding as to why client behaves the way he/she does. Test results also provide guidance for changes.
Ask for informal feedback
One of the simplest techniques in coaching is reflection – simply repeating back to the client what they have just said to the coach. In the same way, insights from colleagues, friends, family will help the client gauge how others see of him/her.
Writing a daily diary will help keep track of thoughts, feelings and experiences.
Mindfulness-based meditation will improve awareness at a specific moment in time. It is a way to monitor thoughts and feelings.
At the end of each day, take time to consider how the day went. Reflecting allows course correction if needed.
The South African College of Applied Psychology – Blog – can coaching help you develop self-awareness
Dr Robert Pasick – why is self-awareness important
Adrian Brass – psychometrics practitioner
Brett Blumenthal / Sheer Balance – the importance of self-awareness
GoodTherapy.org – Blog – the art and importance of self-awareness