Intro to Self-Awareness 2: How You Show Up

Welcome! Wow, I’m so happy that you graduated to our second Self-Awareness Thinkbook. And so proud of you for showing up to do the work. 

I know that you learned a lot about yourself in the internal self-awareness Thinkbook and that this next step is going to really take your knowledge of self to the next level. For this work, you will continue to analyze and reflect but you’re going to shift to focusing on how you show up in the world. You’re also going to go outside yourself for perceptions and feedback. So exciting, right? And not scary at all, 😉. But so worth it!

Do you recall that 95 percent of people believe that they are self-aware, but the truth is that only 12 to 15 percent actually are? Research psychologist Dr. Tasha Eurich explains “That means, on a good day, about 80 percent of people are lying about themselves—to themselves.”

Since there is a direct correlation between self-awareness and success, this is a very big deal. According to the Harvard Business Review “research suggests that when we see ourselves clearly, we are more confident and more creative. We make sounder decisions, build stronger relationships, and communicate more effectively. We’re less likely to lie, cheat, and steal. We are better workers who get more promotions. And we’re more-effective leaders with more-satisfied employees and more-profitable companies.” Wow!

That’s why we consider self-awareness to be the foundation of personal growth. Internal self-awareness was your “Start Here”. Congratulations on working through that. Let’s move on 😊.

What is external self-awareness exactly? External self-awareness is clearly seeing how others see us. It’s how we present ourselves and how we show up in the world. When you know that, it really shifts the power and the influence in your life to you.

But most importantly, the purpose of self-awareness is self-acceptance. Knowing yourself, and understanding yourself and accepting yourself, is the ultimate goal.

Let’s get started. 

To be truly self-aware, it’s not enough to be clear on who you are and how you see yourself. You need to understand how others see you so that you can see clearly how you show you up in the world and how this impacts your life.

We’re going to begin with an external view, a timeline of your life. 

What are the events, circumstances, milestones that have shaped your life from the outside in. What’s the external view? And what’s the reality of it? 

Click here to download the self-awareness PDF for this lesson. (I recommend actually printing this lesson out, so you can fill in the timeline on the second page. But if you aren’t able to print it out, no worries, just type up your version of a timeline in a word document instead!)

Okay, so that’s how you think people should see you based on what you know of how you are and how you feel on the inside. But guess what, chances are you are only partly right!

Let’s find out more.