🧐 On a scale of blindfolded to enlightened, how self-aware are you?
Avoid the consequences of not understanding your inner emotions at work.
How many emotions do you feel in a day? Some people will say a number higher than the truth, some will say less. It depends on how in touch you are with your inner self and your understanding of how it could impact others.
Beyond what you might acknowledge, your emotions shape your decision-making—from the tone you choose when speaking to others, to strategizing your company’s next move. Though it can be enhanced through practice, many still turn a blind eye.
Importance at work
When someone has a low level of self-awareness, it can manifest in a lot of ways. At work, it could be someone snapping at their co-worker just because they asked a simple thing. This shows their lack of awareness on what their reference of mental frame is.
As stated by former Ford CEO, Alan Mulally:
Self-awareness is the single greatest opportunity for continued growth, performance, and improvement.
While working towards becoming more self-conscious, you will feel many benefits including being able to:
Understand who you are and what you want
Being aware of your mental state, feelings, and emotions will help you get to know your values more clearly and set your goals accordingly.
Identify your strengths and weaknesses
Once you are aware of your limitations, it will be easier to map out what you’re really good at, what you’re capable of doing, and the areas you need help with.
Control how we present ourselves
People who are self-aware are able to guide their emotions, instead of having their emotions guide them, bringing you to act instead of react.
At work, high self-awareness makes it easy to determine which kind of companies you should work at, which projects you should take on, and who you work best with. Watch the further explanation on the importance of self-awareness at work here.
Your current state
According to the International Neuro-Linguistic Programming Center, you can measure your self-awareness by testing 10 different areas, some of them being:
Inner Self – Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic
Seeing an internal image will inspire feelings about the image and sounds, either related to the image or our own inner commentary.
Stress and Negativity Triggers
When you find yourself in a negative state, there is always a trigger—something that prompted your reaction. How sensitive are you to these triggers?
Self Sabotage
How well do you know the reason you sometimes sabotage your success? Do you know how or understand the intention behind self sabotage?
Your Perceived Future
People are naturally goal-oriented. Are you consciously setting goals to be intentional about the future?
These different areas will determine whether you’re Blindfolded, Living in A Dark Room, Big-Picture Forming, or Enlightened. Take the 2-minute free test here.
Practices to increase
A high level of emotional intelligence is extremely beneficial in the workplace, especially if you manage others or work in a team. Mekari’s People Development Lead, Farah Marintan Maharani, has shared her top three ways to elevate your self-awareness:
Reflect on your behavior daily
Simply sit down without getting distracted for 5 minutes and then ask yourself, “How were you feeling? Why did you act the way you did today?”
Avoid judging
When you experience any emotions while doing your self-reflection practice like guilt, shame, or anger, do not paint yourself as bad person but rather accept.
Seek feedback from others
Ask more than one person for a varied perspective, and remember to ask them to provide you with specific examples.
Read more on Farah’s story and the advantages of practicing your self-awareness here.
STOP! Write down where you think you are in the Self-Awareness scale, take the test, and go back to this Monday Mavens edition to see tips on how you can level up.
Share with your friends to see your colleagues’ self-awareness levels too, and maybe you can work towards a better self-consciousness together.
See you next week with a more Enlightened version of you! 😇✨