Self Awareness,

One of the most undervalued and under appreciated skillsets one can master.

If you are in business and desire to be an effective leader, CEO, entrepreneur, role model or manager, sharpening your Self Awareness is a mentality we must consistently adopt & practice otherwise, not doing so will be at the detriment to your success & growth.

Self Awareness for me ultimately means knowing thyself, understanding your blind spots/weaknesses & identifying your growth opportunities.

Through my coaching practice, having worked with hundreds of high performers, I have found that ‘understanding ourselves’ is truly one of the least developed skillsets we have or fine tune through our personal & professional lifestyles.

I’m sure now as you read this, you can see that Self Awareness is more than just a fancy statement.

Why is Self Awareness so important?

If you are in a position of leadership (meaning a position where you have the ability to influence, impact or inspire another human being), here is something for you to consider:-

 

• We don’t know what we don’t know…. moving from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence is actually a very powerful move forwards
• The limitations in your leadership, are the limitations in you.

 

 

This is a harsh truth that people don’t like to hear, but the facts are that if you struggle to get the best out of a team or individual both in the office or at home, the first place to look for the challenge is the person you see in the mirror.

It’s very easy to let our ego run the situation as leaders, but how often do we look deep in to a conflict/challenge and ask that magical question ‘How am I co-creating this experience?’

 

• Self Awareness is the first step to a change or breakthrough. Once you see a blindspot and are very aware, you can do something powerful about it.
• Growth feeds who we are, our character, energy, persona, wisdom & the impact we have on others. As they say, if you are not growing you are dying

 

 

How can you bring more Self Awareness in to your work & life?

1. Read & Study. Research today says the average CEO reads 60 books a year. We really don’t know what we don’t know & the more you read/study on any area you want to master, you can only get better.

2. Take 100% Responsibility. If you are faced with a challenge/conflict, start by looking inwards not outwards. Ask yourself ‘how are you co-creating this experience’ even if it feels someone/something else is at fault. Leaders always go first after all. Take responsibility for the situation first, define how you could have done things differently in the moment & you’ll create a very honest and open culture from the people around you that you work with.

3. Invest in constant & never ending improvement. Similar to point 1, the more you focus on masterful deep training, you really become aware of what is missing in your vocation.

4. Contemplate & Reflect. Jack Welch was often famously known to take an hour each day to look out of the window and reflect. Reflect on life/business while allowing himself to be filled to the brim with ideas, creativity, solution & thus be the answer to the challenges in his business & life.

Reflecting on the state of things is truly important as you gather insight & ideas on what is missing and can be done differently.

As Steve Jobs famously said, ‘you can’t connect the dots moving forwards, you can only connect the dots looking backwards’.

5. Hire your own personal Coach. Having a coach is truly a powerful gift & investment in yourself. One of the many benefits of investing in powerful coaching is letting someone peek in to your world & help you identify what is missing, where you are holding yourself back and what it would take to create the results you want both personally & professionally.

Importantly, a coach will say to you what no one else will dare to say. A coach will call you out on your stories, excuses & blindspots that are holding you back. You’re in a high flame environment that fosters exponential growth.

Receiving coaching has created a significant and priceless shift for me in a number of areas, especially business & I pride myself in investing in my own coach each year.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article and were able to gain much value from it. My invitation to you is to take the next step on the path of Self Awareness whatever that would mean to you personally & I have no doubt it will reap many fruits and victories for you.

Here’s to your continued success & if there is anything I can do to serve or support yourself and/or your business or if you have any questions about my latest article then please feel free to reach out to me here or at [email protected].

Live Empowered,

Your friend and coach,

Raghav Parkash