Teens and Self Awareness: The long estranged couple.
Hello there,
Some of you may have
already heard about this concept called self-awareness while some of you may
have not. This issue is something that I have observed to have posed a lot of
problems to us teenagers. I’ll define self-awareness simply as the awareness,
the knowledge of one’s self. How much do you know who you are? Are you aware of
your emotions, your passions, your goals, your likes, and your dislikes?
Knowing yourself is very crucial to achieving anything that you may in future.
As young men and as young women, we have to start now to understand ourselves
so that we can lead successful lives.
How will I know if I am self-aware?
Ah! It’s pretty simple.
I think today, college application forms are planned in such a manner as to
measure the level of self-awareness the applicant has. Are you able to recognize and understand your
moods, emotions, and drives, as well as their effects on others? Do you exhibit
a high level of self-confidence? Do you regularly carry out realistic, and
objective self-assessments in the form of introspection? If your answer to all
of these is in the affirmative, then congratulations you are self-aware.
However, if your answer to any of these questions is in the negative, you need
to work on your self-awareness.
Why do I need to be self-aware?
You have to be
self-aware to obey the instruction of the Delphic oracle: “Know Thyself”. Just
kidding. Lol. Self-awareness is very important to our development as
individuals. We’ve all heard comments like: “I want to be better than I was
yesterday.” That is very nice, however, you can never become a better person if
you don’t even understand your person. Realization of our strengths and our
foibles is very crucial to achieving self-improvement. You need to be self-aware
if you want to achieve anything remarkable in life. Why did I say this? If you
do not fully understand you passions and your interests, you would keep on
going into things and discovering that you actually never liked that thing…usually
after you’ve failed at it. It seldom occurs to see self-aware people fail at
what they do because they have total knowledge of their power buttons and their
weak points. Lemme give you an example: try to imagine the catastrophe that
would’ve happened if Michael Jackson had become a boxer, or Mohammed Ali had
become a singer. I wouldn’t even want to picture the chaos…hahahahaha. Only if
you understand yourself and your emotions would you be able to be effective at
whatever you do.
At this point, I would
share a portion of an article written by Daniel Goleman titled ‘What makes a Leader’, published in the 2004 edition of Harvard’s Business Review, that shows
that self-awareness is needed even to be successful in business. I came across
this article during my application to the African Leadership University; this
article alongside many others have changed the way I think, I hope you can say
the same by the end of this article:
“Self-awareness extends to a person’s understanding of his or her values
and goals. Someone who is highly self-aware knows where he is headed
and why; so, for example, he will be able to be firm in turning down a job
offer that is tempting financially but does not fit with his principles or
long-term goals. A person who lacks self-awareness is apt to make
decisions that bring on inner turmoil by treading on buried values. “The
money looked good so I signed on,” someone might say two years into a
job, “but the work means so little to me that I’m constantly bored.” The
decisions of self-aware people mesh with their values; consequently, they
often find work to be energizing.
How can one recognize self-awareness? First and foremost, it shows itself
as candor and an ability to assess oneself realistically. People with high
self-awareness are able to speak accurately and openly—although not
necessarily effusively or confessionally—about their emotions and the
impact they have on their work. For instance, one manager I know of was
skeptical about a new personal-shopper service that her company, a
major department-store chain, was about to introduce. Without
prompting from her team or her boss, she offered them an explanation:
“It’s hard for me to get behind the rollout of this service,” she admitted,
“because I really wanted to run the project, but I wasn’t selected. Bear
with me while I deal with that.” The manager did indeed examine her
feelings; a week later, she was supporting the project fully.
Such self-knowledge often shows itself in the hiring process. Ask a
candidate to describe a time he got carried away by his feelings and did
something he later regretted. Self-aware candidates will be frank in
admitting to failure—and will often tell their tales with a smile.”
- Daniel Goleman
(Author of 'What Makes A Leader" in the 2004 Harvard Business Review)
I would’ve loved to
finish the article but I don’t want to bore you more than I already have.
How can I develop self-awareness?
I would help you
with this by giving you a task. Pick up a journal. Write your name at the top.
Then answer the following questions on that journal you’re with. You should
feel different after this.
Know Yourself
- What are your areas of strength?
- What tasks are difficult for you?
- How would you describe your learning and attention issues?
- What do you love to do?
- What kinds of activities do you avoid?
- What would be your ideal job or career?
- What’s important to you?
- Which of your habits help you succeed and which ones don’t help?
Value
Yourself and Others
- How have your learning and attention issues made you a stronger person?
- What are your recent successes, either big or small?
- Who helps you with things that are hard for you?
- What do you do for others?
Plan Ahead
- Do you set long-term goals? What are your goals?
- Do you know how to take a long-term goal and break it down into manageable steps?
- How well are you able to stick to a plan?
- Are you willing to get input from others when you’re making a plan?
- How well are you able to use your strengths to work around weaknesses when you make a plan?
- How well can you predict other people’s reactions to your plans?
Take Action
- What are your communication strengths and weaknesses?
- How well are you able to accept another person’s point of view?
- How do you respond when you get a negative reaction?
- If necessary, are you willing to find another way to reach your goal?
Learn From Experiences
- When your actions pay off and you get what you want, can you figure out what led you to success?
- Can you repeat those steps and be successful again?
- When things don’t work out well, can you figure out what you could have done differently?
So how do you feel? If you carried out this task, you should feel more
conscious of yourself now, that feels good, right? That feeling is called
SELF-AWARENESS!!!!! Congratulations.
Share your experience with me or your questions, drop a comment.
Thank you!
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