Self-awareness skills, as the term indicates, refer to one’s ability to be aware of or to recognize his emotions, behaviors, beliefs, motivations and other characteristics such as strengths and weaknesses, such that it enables him to identify and understand himself as a separate entity.
Having self-awareness skills not only enables you to understand your own personality but also helps you apprehend other people, their perceptions about you, and your response to their actions. Apart from enabling you to understand, it also helps you to change your own thoughts and interpretations in an effort to alter some unwarranted emotions.
Why is self-awareness important
Developing self-awareness skills is important for learning about yourself and discovering your true capabilities, which may be vital for a successful career. Following are some of the most significant implications of self-awareness skills:
- Improves emotional intelligence. Developing self-awareness skills is the key to developing emotional intelligence as a skill. The self-analysis that you conduct will help you be aware of your own values which, if touched by any event or action, will generate certain emotional responses. When you have a better understanding of the problem, you can take more effective actions to address it.
- Gives a direction to your efforts. Knowing your strengths enables you to utilize them more effectively and in appropriate situations. Whereas, knowing your weakness helps you figure out when you need to draw on the strengths of others. Also, acknowledging our weaknesses prevents us from reacting inappropriately at any point in time and from making disastrous decisions.
How to improve self-awareness skills
Knowing the importance of self-awareness skills for a successful career, you can try to improve them in the following ways:
- Take personality tests. Taking some free or paid online personality tests will give you a deeper insight into the person that you really are and will help you understand your own behaviors better. Some of these may also give you recommendation about the changes you can make in order to improve your performance at work.
- Write a journal. That’s right. Keep a track of all your feelings and thoughts regarding day to day experiences. This process can be very enlightening since it makes you think about your true thoughts and feelings.
- Ask for feedback actively. Always encourage honest suggestions and feedback from your friends, family, colleagues, as well as your boss. It makes you aware of how others perceive you. Listening to all such feedback and correcting yourself is very important. Otherwise, you will be responsible for letting your weaknesses limit how far you can take yourself.
Blog is curated by Vikram Kakri.
Site URL: www.cleverism.com/skills-and-tools/self-awareness/
