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Self Awareness

It is the ability to see ourselves clearly, to understand who we are, how other see us, and how we fit into the world

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. -- Aristotle

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self -- Benjamin Franklin

Blinkist - Insight by Tasha Eurich (21 Jan 2019)​

Why we're not as self-aware as we think, and how seeing ourselves clearly helps us succeed at work and in life

  • Self-awareness is the ability to understand who we are and what others think of us, and it consists of seven insights
    • Internal self-awareness - knowing ourselves, being conscious of our likes and dislikes, our ambitions, our place in the environment and our impact on other people
    • External self-awareness - understanding how other people see us
    • Insights
      • Values
      • Passions
      • Aspirations
      • Fit - which environment will make us happiest, keep us engaged and enable us to thrive
      • Patterns - the consistent behaviors that make up our personality
      • Reactions - emotional and physical behaviors we exhibit in certain circumstances
      • Impact - undestanding how our own behavior affects others
  • Inner and societal roadblocks disrupt the journey to self-awareness
    • knowledge blindness
    • emotional blindness
    • behavior blindness
  • Introspection isn't a sure path to insight, so we need to do it right
    • flexible mindset
    • rumination - introspection's evil twin

Fixation on our anxieties, weaknesses and insecurities

  • Three mindfulness techniques can increase internal self-awareness
    • reframing - looking at the bigger picture of your experiences
    • comparing and contrasting - noticing how our thoughts, feelings and behaviors have remained the same or changed over time
    • daily check-in - daily 5 mins reflect on what went well and what could have been better.
  • Ask for feedback
  • Reacting to feedback
    • receive, reflect and respond (3R model)
  • self-aware team
    • objectives, progress, process, assumptions and individual contributions
    • role model (authentic leadership), psychological safety net, ongoing (growth mind-set)
  • Three kinds of delusional people
    • Lost cause
    • Aware don't care - knows exactly how their behavior impacts, others, but couldn't care less
    • Nudgable
  • Social Media - Rather than a Meformer, become an Informer

Meformer - post information that isn't immediately related to themselves

Ontology​

Ontologyis the philosophicalstudy of being. More broadly, it studies concepts that directly relate to being, in particular becoming, existence, reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology often deals with questions concerning what entities exist or may be said to exist and how such entities may be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology

References​

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGdsOXZpyWE

https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/04/03/fix-weaknesses-focus-strengths