Developing self-awareness is not something that will happen suddenly. It takes time and effort, but when achieved, it comes with many benefits at work and in your personal life.
Do you want to build leadership skills, progress your career or work on your own self-development? There are steps you can take to achieve this. You can learn to understand yourself, gain personal insight and ultimately become self-aware.
Here, you will find 5 strategies that you can implement to help develop your own self-awareness.
1. Set Boundaries
To effectively set boundaries, you need to be conscious of your feelings and in tune with who and what makes you feel uncomfortable. When you are aware of your stressors, it makes it easier to know your limits. In the workplace an example of setting boundaries could be as simple as establishing the set hours you work so that you are not responding to work related matters outside of those hours. This can help to create more work-life balance and reduce work-related stress.
2. Know Your Emotional Triggers
A key step you can take when it comes to knowing what triggers you emotionally can be to pay attention when you feel a situation is causing you to have a strong emotional reaction. Think about what emotion you are feeling. Pause, and take the time to reflect on what happened. Once you have established what your triggers are, you will be able to navigate these situations with thought and consideration rather than acting on emotion alone.
3. Take Time To Reflect
Reflection allows you to slow down and work out what is important to you. When you reflect on your experiences, you are critically assessing how you felt, your thoughts and actions. There is research that shows reflection increases productivity, yet many people do not take the time to reflect. Self-reflection allows you to learn, which can increase your personal and professional development.
4. Listen Attentively & Ask For Feedback
Listening will help you to understand the situation and make the other person feel heard. In turn this will ultimately allow you to make better decisions. Further to this, asking for feedback is important when it comes to self-awareness as it gives you insight as to how you come across to others. Particularly in the workplace it shows that you are dedicated to enhancing your skills and contributing to your team.
5. Recognise Destructive Habits
Are you making excuses for your weaknesses at work? Do you find you don’t have the energy to fully engage, or maybe you consciously or subconsciously damage professional or personal relationships. All these things and more can be detrimental to your work life and personal life. Most of us will be guilty of destructive behaviours at some point, but for others they happen often, which is when it becomes a habit. Knowing when you are being destructive will help bring you self-awareness. It will give you the chance to change the behaviour.
6. Profile Yourself And Your Team
DISC profiling gives you not only an understanding of how you are perceived by others, but it also gives you a language (or set of terms) to discuss your behaviour, communication, style of working and reactions.
DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance) is a complex model made simple by years of research and practice. It identifies behavioural styles that can open your eyes to improving your interactions with others. DISC profiling is used by an estimated 75% of the Fortune 500 because of what it delivers. It continues to be the most popular choice for professional development as well as recruitment and selection.
“DISC is the ultimate ‘mirror on the wall’ that explains what everyone else can see: the surface level of who you are – your behaviour.”
CLICK HER FOR A SAMPLE REPORT
Have you considered whether you are self-aware? Can you or your team implement any of these tips to help achieve self-awareness?
Contact Sparkle Training for customised training for your business and help your team to build on their self-awareness!
Sparkle is part of the HBB Group, and when you engage with us you have complete access to a range of services to grow your business.