How’s your self awareness?

I think the first step to massive personal growth in this area is to gain a better understanding of where you stand. Who are you? What makes you tick? What strengths can you double down on? What weaknesses should you seek to lessen?

How’s Your Self-Awareness?

Starting your career is a scary time. In the beginning, we don’t know what we don’t know. We don’t have an understanding of what slows us down, of what we do well, of the kind of people we work best with.

I’d encourage you to change that… quickly.

In business or your career, lacking self-awareness is devastating. To rise above the competition quickly, you need to come to grips with your personality and what exactly makes you tick.

Think you already know who you are? Let’s find out.

Get Tested

In the world post COVID, we are all used to being tested but, have you ever taken a personality test? There are a lot of questionable ones out there, but I’d encourage you to take a look at some of the more reputable, based-on-real-science, worth-your-time tests out on the market. Namely, these four:

• StrengthsFinder 2.0
• 16 Personalities
• Kolbe
• Entrepreneurial Aptitude Test

These are four of the best tests you can take if you want to get an accurate understanding of your psyche. Not only do they have a significant amount of science backing them up, but the insights you can gain from each are also powerful.

Be aware of your weaknesses

If you are anything like me historically, your modus operandi is to default to weaknesses and aim to improve them. It makes sense, my suggestion would be to be aware of your weaknesses but not aim to remove your focus on strengths and aim to improve them. The most effective way to construct best-in-class abilities is by sharpening your existing skills. Strengthening your strengths will have a disproportionately higher impact on you becoming exceptional in your field than working on your weaknesses

To double down on your strengths here are some other steps

1. Ask the people closest to you. Sit down individually with 5 to 10 people who know you and love you. Create an environment for them, to be honest with you and directly ask them what they think you’re good at and what they think your weaknesses are.
2. Ask yourself. What have your accomplishments been so far? What do you think are your natural talents? What skills do you know you possess? (Even if you’re not passionate about them.) You might be able to apply them in ways you’ve never thought of before.
3. Reflect Take time to re-evaluate praise and criticism you’ve received in the past. Refer back to emails, employment reviews, text messages, or even cards. What has you consistently been told you need to improve on? What are you habitually thanked and regarded for?
4. Ask strangers. Find ways to ask strangers similar questions; what do people like about you? Reaching out to people who don’t know you very well might give you the best perspective on talents you naturally portray. Or they might just give you some insight into how you’re perceived.

Don’t waste time making marginal improvements on your weaknesses.

Whom do you want to be?

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”I knew, early in my career, that I would need to lessen the power of my introversion. I had a picture of whom I needed to be and I was able to direct my energy towards that vision.

Do you know whom you want to be? Because to get there, to truly walk the path of self-development, you’ll need to know where you’re going.

Take a moment to map out the “ideal you”.

To make all of the above steps work, you’ll need to commit to regular analysis. If you’re not used to regularly taking time out of your day to evaluate yourself, this might be a bit of a challenge for you. However, it’s essential if you want to become more self-aware.

Set up a routine where you evaluate yourself based on the “ideal you” you defined in step three. I recommend using the personality tests to help you with these evaluations. You’ll want to set goals for yourself, identify weaknesses you’d like to diminish, and changes you’d like to make in the way you interact with others.

To give your evaluations more power, make sure you clearly define what needs to change and how you’ll know when you’ve done so. This is the kind of devotion to self-improvement you’ll need to adopt if you want to become self-aware. As with anything, if it isn’t measured it won’t improve.