A lack of self-awareness can be a real stumbling block when building a career. Those who lack self-awareness will often find themselves overlooked for promotions and struggling to cement a strong personal brand in their workplace.
Becoming more self-aware can be a real challenge for many people, that’s usually because our actions are normally driven by habit. This means that we don’t often acknowledge how we behave ourselves, this simply flies under the radar because it’s what we’re used to.Â
Here are 5 things you can do to get the best from your career:
- Keeping a journal
Start by writing down what you appreciate about your life, a little gratitude will allow for a positive mindframe.
 Then think about the areas of your life you want to improve, really dig deep and think about what you want to change and more importantly, how you want them to change.
A journal allows freedom of thought, you are the sole author and reader and writing down your ambitions makes them real. You will find if done habitually, you will begin to get to know yourself on a deeper level.
- Find A Focus
Developing self-awareness requires us to become strict with our thoughts. Most of the time people will think about one hundred aspects of their life they want to change.
They won’t ever work out why they need to change or how they need to change. And guess what? They won’t change anything.Â
You may spend your day thinking about many situations in work that cause frustration for you, only when you consider these things individually will you begin to understand the role you play in keeping the situation as it is.Â
One focus at any given time really allows you to understand how you feel, what you can do to change and then the ideas will start flowing as to how this change can happen.Â
- Your Feelings Matter
Monitoring your feelings might seem like an obvious thing to do. We all know how we feel in the moment, what more is there to do? The answer is a lot.Â
Pay close attention to when you respond positively or negatively to a situation, person or event. Take time to understand what prompted this reaction? Was the feeling justified or was it habitual?
Your feelings will often drive the course of your day and unless you know yourself well enough to know why those feelings are there, you will struggle to change them.
- Take Note
Finding a focus and understanding your own feelings is great but with a million other thoughts each day these will soon end up on the back-burner.Â
Whether it’s a note in your phone or an old school pen and paper, find a tool to capture your thoughts. Make this a habit.Â
- Reflect
We have all been there, you finish work, get home, feed the dog, have a shower, scroll through instagram and before you know it your eyes are glazed over and you’re ready to climb into bed.Â
All of your thoughts for the day are safely locked away somewhere that you may never revisit but hey, tomorrow is a new day.
Reflecting on your thoughts for the day is vital when developing self-awareness. Just like studying for an exam, you need to re-think and re-read before closing the chapter for the day and preparing for the next. New thoughts, rationalisation and ideas will form a second time around that didn’t in the moment.
Self-awareness is a journey and you must be in for the long-haul if you are to succeed in really understanding yourself. If you can master self-awareness you will better understand how and why you behave as you do, sometimes even realising you create your own conflict.