Do we really know ourselves?

Read time : 4 minutes 

“I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion” – Billie Jean King

I came across an empowering story about ‘A grass eating lion’ in the book ‘Effortless Success’ by Michael Neill.

The story goes like this – There was once a baby lion left by its dying mother among some sheep. The sheep fed it and gave it shelter. The lion grew apace and behaved like a sheep (not realizing that he was a lion). He believed the sheep were his family.

One day another lion came by. “What do you do here?” said the second lion in astonishment: for he heard the sheep-lion bleating with the rest. “I am a little sheep, I am frightened said the sheep-lion

 “Nonsense!” roared the first lion, “come with me; I will show you.” And he took him to the side of a smooth stream and showed him that which was reflected therein. “You are a lion; look at me, look at the sheep, look at yourself.” And the sheep-lion looked, and he said, “It is true, I am a lion!” and with that, he roared a roar that shook the hills to their depths.

I loved the story. There are several versions of the same story and each version has its own learning- e.g. overcoming fear, anxiety and moving away from a comfort zone. But for me, it is about identity and the importance of remembering and claiming who we really are–being ‘Self-Aware’ or ‘Knowing Ourselves’

So, what is Self-Awareness exactly? Here are a few definitions:

‘Conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires’ – Oxford Dictionary

‘There are three things extremely hard: Steel, a diamond and to know one’s self.’- Benjamin Franklin

‘Knowing one’s internal states, preference, resources and intuitions’. Psychologist Daniel Goleman in his best-selling book ‘ Emotional Intelligence’ 

To simplify, self-awareness is an ability to watch and understand our thoughts, feelings and actions and calibrate when required. In a nutshell, self-awareness is being aware of our physical and psychological state.

What happens when one lacks self-awareness? Here are 4 signs:

2. Lack of control: We feel like life is happening to us instead of feeling that we are living our life – reminds me of the movie ‘The Truman Show’. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, it is a story about a man named Truman (Jim Carrey) who was born and raised in a movie set. The movie ends with how Truman finally becomes aware and takes control to unearth the truth about his existence.
3. Being defensive: Our inability to take objective feedback and instead of listening calmly to the information offered, we become defensive thus trying to deflect the problem by getting offensive. This is another sign of lack of self-awareness.
4. Inability to calibrate our emotional responses: Our behaviour changes to a point wherein it is noticeable to others especially during a challenging situation in a personal or professional environment. If someone brings it to our notice, we tend to become defensive or are in denial.
5. We feel unhappy and unfulfilled: One of the key signs of lack of self-awareness is feeling unhappy and unfulfilled – there is feeling of emptiness. We think our source of happiness is supposed to be something or someone outside of ourselves and when we are unhappy we blame others for the same.

Why being self-aware so important and what can we do (to be self-aware?)

The famous psychologist and the author Daniel Goleman says “If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.”

We all agree with him, don’t we?

In our professional and personal lives, more we are aware of our own abilities–our strengths and weaknesses, there effects on others and the gaps that we would want to fill, we will be happy and successful.

There are several ways to being self-aware – In-depth literature is available on the internet and there have been several books written about it.

As a Coach, I recommend following practices:

1. Get an awareness buddy: Most of the time, we are unaware as to how we come across to others. Asking one of our trusted friends to be an awareness buddy to play a role of a mirror will help in seeking candid, critical and an objective feedback.
2. Maintain a journal: Writing down our thoughts, emotions and feeling is a great way of tracking our awareness journey. When we read the journal at regular intervals, we may discover something about ourselves.
3. Master our story–separate facts from stories: Sometimes while dealing with challenging situation/ environment our emotions kick in, we often do our worst-and we feel like we are doing the right thing – this is because we tell stories to ourselves that leads us to make judgement and conclusions. One of the ideal ways is to separate facts from stories e.g. In a challenging situation, pause and pay attention to facts – An actual occurrence – something that can be proven through observation or measurement (what we saw vs. what we think about what we saw). Separating facts from stories leads us to a better understanding of the situation and thus a better approach to handle it.
4. Meditation or physical exercise: Lots has been said and written about the importance of the exercise of any form (such as running, walking or any solo-sport) and meditation. We already know that these practices give us an opportunity for ‘me time’ and thus letting our unconscious form observations about ourselves and how we interact with the world.

Though I have mentioned 4 steps here, the fact that we realize that we would want to have a higher awareness of self is the first step.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. I hope you found it useful. It suggests that you are interested in learning about things that create a positive impact on you and others. For more, do read my earlier articles on Coaching and NLP.

References/ Sources:

1. Effortless Success – Michael Neill
2. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda – Wikisource
3. Crucial Conversations- Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler.
4. Blog : www.thequeenlycreative.com