Continuing Your Self-Awareness Journey
Regular reflection, analysis and engagement with yourself will help you peel back the layers and become even more self aware.
Use the Emotions Wheel from the Junto Institute below to process your feelings, thoughts and actions to increase your self-awareness.
Here’s how:
You have an experience, an issue, a concern, something that just isn’t sitting right. We’ll call it IT. That’s the outer ring.
Describe IT objectively – what is occurring, just the facts.
Now note your thoughts about IT, your feelings about IT, any action you took because of IT. What triggered you and what was your response?
On reflection, did your thoughts, feelings, actions, serve you? Why or why not?
Is there someone else’s perspective that you should consider in this?
What will you do differently next time?
If you do this regularly you will begin to see patterns and start to identify your blind spots, the beliefs that limit you, your triggers and the things that hold you down and hold you back. One note of caution, reflect but don’t ruminate. Brief reflection to seek to understand, look for patterns and change behavior have great value. Wallowing in the depths of your psyche and regrets will only bring you more of the same.
What we have covered has made you dive deep into you. By now you will have peeled back a few layers and be excited about what you’ve learned. Yay! Congratulations on taking these steps to find yourself.
Key Takeaways:
It is actually possible to not know who you really are
Self-awareness can bring self-acceptance
90% of us think that we’re self-aware, less than 15% of us actually are
High self-awareness is a predictor for success
Self-reflection works, rumination sabotages
Blindspots can get in the way of self-awareness
Belonging to the cult of self creates illusions that reduce our success in life
Take Action:
Ask yourself if you’re aligned with your values
Stay in touch with what you feel and how you think and what you do
Journal sometimes, ask yourself whatever you want to know about you
Watch for blind spots and beware the cult of self
Know your social media persona, be the real you
Do a personality test to understand yourself even better, arrange that here
Click here to download the above Key Takeaways and Actions in PDF form.
When you’re ready to go deeper, our next Thinkbook, Self-Awareness 2: How You Show Up, is for you and you’ll find it in your membership portal.
As we mentioned in the actions above, another great way to understand yourself better is with a personality test. I recommend the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). This is one of the most studied and therefore most validated personality inventories available. This will help you identify your preferences – the way you prefer to gather information, get your energy, make decisions, and organize your world. This can really up-level your internal self-awareness and has the bonus of helping you understand how you interact with others and how others may see you.
You can find free tests online but these aren’t as comprehensive or as accurate as the full test. It’s a good start though. If you’d like to do the full test, contact us at hello@soulaia.com to request a test to be emailed to you. Toni is a certified MBTI practitioner and she can facilitate the testing and do the review and interpretation with you. And if you want to go further, help you apply it in your life for your growth and well-being.
Additionally, the iNLP has a quick, free self-awareness test that will surely start you thinking and give you some insight. You can access the test here.
