Understanding Self-Awareness & Strategies To Improve It

What self-awareness really is..

Daniel Goleman, the author of the international bestselling book “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ” states that ‘Self-awareness is the ability to read one’s emotions and recognise their impact while using instinctive feelings to guide decisions.’

Although self-awareness has become more popular for good reasons and most people believe they are self-aware, investigations of over 5,000 participants revealed that only 10%–15% of the people actually fit the criteria (Eurich 2018).

According to Eurich (2018), across the studies being examined, self-awareness is classified into two broad categories:

Internal self-awareness

As the name sounds, it is the self-realisation coming from within oneself, how we see our values, passions and aspirations fit with our environment, reactions (including thoughts, feelings, behaviours, strengths & weaknesses) and impacts on others. A person with high internal self-awareness is associated with higher job and relationship satisfaction. 

External self-awareness

Emerge when a person understands how others view themselves. People with high external self-awareness are more skilled at showing empathy and taking others’ perspectives. Thus, they tend to be in a better and more effective relationship with others.

Research has found that being high on internal self-awareness does not mean being high on external self-awareness and vice versa. As a result, the following map of the four self-awareness archetypes illustrates different sets of opportunities a person can improve.

The bottom line is that self-awareness isn’t one truth. Instead, it’s a delicate balance of two distinct, even competing, viewpoints. A person with true self-awareness must actively work on seeing themselves with certainty while getting feedback to understand how others see them.

Factors that hinder self-awareness

Experience and power

Many studies have shown that people tend to overestimate their knowledge, overclaim knowledge of concepts, events and people that do not exist and cannot be known. That’s because people have a number of biases which keep them from using the information that experience provides. Examples of such biases are the tendency to seek confirming evidence, making assumptions about causality and disregarding negative information.

Similarly, the more power and authority a person holds, the more likely they overvalue their skills and capabilities compared with others’ perceptions, their willingness to listen shrinks and thus, they seldom seek constructive feedback from lower levels for improvement.

The introspection trap

Introspection is an act of examining our own thoughts, feelings and behaviours with a hope to improve our self-awareness. The problem with introspection is that most people focus too much of their energy on answering ‘Why’ in an attempt to comprehend their emotions (i.e. Why do I hate that person?) or behaviours (i.e. Why did I behave such in a given situation?).

As we simply do not have access to many of the unconscious minds, feelings and motives we are searching for, we perhaps invent answers that feel true but often we ignore contradictory evidence and force our thoughts to conform our initial explanations. Another negative consequence of asking why – is that it invites unproductive thoughts to explain their fears, shortcomings or insecurities, rather than a rational assessment of their strengths and weaknesses.

A better way to understand ourselves than by reflecting on why we are the way we are is to ask what, not why. For instance, instead of asking ‘Why didn’t I like this job?’, one should ask ‘What could I do to improve the current state?’. This helps one to move to solutions rather than get stuck with the past.

Self-awareness strategies

In the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 co-written by Dr Travis Bradberry & Dr Jean Greaves (2009), the authors introduced 15 strategies to help self-awareness grow, as follows:

Quit treating our feelings as good or bad

Judge our feelings as either good or bad ones will prevent us from understanding our emotions, original causes and adding more emotion names to the pile. Understand, don’t judge.

Observe the ripple effect from our emotions

Emotions which are key drivers of our behaviours can have widespread impacts on all directions in life. Reflecting upon our behaviours and seeking others’ feedback will help us choose the type of ripples we want to create.

Lean into our discomfort

Avoid unpleasant emotions does not make them go away. Instead, our goal should be to move toward the emotion, into it and eventually through it to motivate us to change and manage ourselves effectively.

Feel our emotions physically

Notice the physical sensations that come with our different emotions involving muscle tension, breathing and heart rate changes is a way to pick up the signs of our feelings physically before we’re mentally aware of it.

Know who and what pushes our buttons

Identify specific people, particular situations or conditions in the environment that trigger our emotions. This will then help us develop the ability to take control of these situations, maintain our pose and calm ourselves down.

Watch ourselves like a hawk

Develop a more objective understanding of our own behaviour by taking notice of our emotions, thoughts and behaviours right as the situation unfolds. This will allow our brain to process all available information before we act.

Keep a journal about our emotions

Jotting down our thoughts will help us to see ourselves more clearly, understand what events triggered strong emotions in us, the patterns in our emotions and how we responded to them.

Don’t be fooled by a bad mood

There will be times in life when we face with bad mood, and it overshadows our emotions. Acknowledging its adherence and reminding ourselves that our moods are not permanent. Our emotions change all the time and low moods will pass if we allow them to. It’s also critical not to make any important decisions if we’re stuck in a down mood.

Don’t be fooled by a good mood, either

A good mood can deceive our thinking just as much as a bad one. Stay aware of our good moods and the foolish decisions these moods can lead to if we want to enjoy feeling good without any regret.

Stop and ask ourselves why we do the things we do

Emotions serve an important purpose – they clue into the things we’ll never understand if we don’t take the time to ask ourselves why. Get in the habit of tracing our reactional emotions back to their origins and understand why we do the things we do.

Visit our values

With a great number of tasks and responsibilities on our plates of life, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s really important to us. Take time to check in with ourselves and jot down our core beliefs and values whenever we find ourselves doing and saying things that deep down we don’t feel good about or believe in.

Check ourselves

Self-awareness is generally an internal process, while physical appearance is more straightforward – what we wear and the way we look send a pretty clear, established message about how we feel. Therefore, it’s important to notice our mood and consider its influence on our demeanour as it will set the tone for the rest of our day.  

Spot our emotions in books, movies and music

Finding our emotions in the expressions of artists is a great tool for us to learn about ourselves and discover feelings that are often hard to communicate. Listening to music, reading novels, watching films and even looking at art can act as a gateway into our deepest emotions. Taking a closer look in these moments can teach us a lot about ourselves.

Seek feedback

Self-awareness is the process of getting to know ourselves from the inside out and the outside in. The only way to get the second is to open ourselves up to feedback from others, which can include friends, coworkers, mentors, supervisors and family. Putting the perspectives together helps us see the entire picture, including how our emotions and reactions affect other people.

Get to know ourselves under stress

We will benefit tremendously from learning to recognise our first signs of stress. Given the mountain of stressors in our lives, our human mind and body tell us through emotional and physiological reactions when it’s time to slow down and take a break. Take the time to recognise these signals and recharge our emotional battery before our stress causes permanent damage to our system.

References

Ackerman, C.E 2020, The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), Positive Psychology, available at <https://positivepsychology.com/positive-and-negative-affect-schedule-panas/>.

Delizonna, L 2018, Build Self-Awareness with Help from Your Team, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2018/08/build-self-awareness-with-help-from-your-team>.

Eurich, T 2018, What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It), Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-self-awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it>.

Eurich, T 2019, How to Move from Self-Awareness to Self-Improvement, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2019/06/how-to-move-from-self-awareness-to-self-improvement>.

Watson, D, Clark, L.A & Tellegen, A 1988, Development and Validation of Brief Measures of Positive and Negative Affect: The PANAS Scales, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), pp.1063-1070, available at <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0001691880900347>.