Dealing with Common Self-Awareness Blocks
What might get in the way of your internal self-awareness and how to deal.
There are a few things that can get in the way of your self awareness and this section will give you some insights and some ideas that will help you get out of your own way.
The two main saboteurs of self-awareness are blind spots and the cult of self and we’ll work through those in this lesson
Blind Spots
What are they? Blind spots are aspects of our personality that are hidden from our view (notice, I said “our” view, not the view of others). These might be annoyances like never letting anyone else get a word in or acting aggressively. They can also be major fears or limiting beliefs that we aren’t even aware of enough to acknowledge.
There are two types of blind spots to consider when working on self-awareness, these are emotional blindness and behavior blindness.
Emotion Blindness – when we aren’t in touch with how we really feel or how our emotions impact our judgement.
Behavior Blindness – when we are unaware of our effect on others and especially how much.
Click here to download the fillable self-reflection PDF before moving on.
The “Cult of Self”
Okay friends, this one might hurt a bit!
Another concept that might be getting in the way of your own self awareness is called the cult of self. Cults tend to place a misplaced admiration on an individual and it’s largely unearned. The cult of self is a kind of extreme individualism that has been growing in recent generations. It tells us that we are unique, special and superior and makes us more self-absorbed but less self-aware. As increasing self esteem in children has been a major focus in society in recent decades, it’s meant that there is no relationship between self esteem and success or self esteem and happiness. We’re all meant to stand out and to feel very very special.
This phenomenon impacts our interactions, relationships, expectations and happiness. Our feeling of specialness and our self-awareness are actually inversely related. This affects our resilience if we expect to get everything we want but are not necessarily willing to make the effort to get it. Like we expect to eat the cake and get the silver platter too.
Our social media habits contribute hugely to this. When we assume that our audience cares what we ate for breakfast or about the new shoes we just bought or how we are feeling today, we are engaging in the cult of self. This use of social media actually creates the outward appearance of being self-absorbed but is linked to self-loathing. Huh.
Let’s be clear, self esteem is a good thing. Loving ourselves is really our ultimate goal. But you know what they say about too much of a good thing. When our self esteem morphs into superiority, it is a major detriment. Being self-aware and therefore realistic, is the antidote to this.
Are you dabbling in the cult of self?
Click here to download the fillable self-reflection PDF before moving on.
How to resist the cult of self? Know and understand our weaknesses, keep our successes in perspective, acknowledge the contributions of others, be real, practice compassion.
After all this self-reflection, you may be struggling to accept the shortcomings you’ve found. Or put another way, the opportunities for improvement. The most important thing to remember is not to beat yourself up for these things. There is a reason for them. They didn’t just come to you out of nowhere. But, now you know, you’ve got some real insight. And you can let it go, forgive yourself, and move on.
Click here to download the fillable self-reflection PDF before moving on to the next lesson.
