Several weeks ago I was sitting in a large event arena to witness one of my nephews’ high school graduation. The arena had steep stadium seating so I had a really good view of a mom trying to keep her toddler quiet in the row in front of me. What finally did the trick was her pulling up what appeared to be a folder on her phone with videos of the little boy: the little boy at the zoo, the little boy playing in the snow, the little boy with his family at Christmas, the little boy with his dog, etc. He was so enamored watching himself on video that he forgot all about what he had been fussing about. Those videos kept him glued to that phone for a long, long time.
A couple weeks later I noticed Darren doing the same thing with a grandchild who couldn’t be consoled. He pulled up a video and started to show the child himself. That sweet boy was immediately quieted.
This is not a commentary on screen time and toddlers – and, truthfully, I could make some good arguments on either side of that aisle. But it did get me thinking.
One of the positive aspects of kids watching themselves is, according to Quora’s AI, that it can help children develop self-awareness and recognize themselves in different contexts, which is an important aspect of self-identity development.
And, it turns out, self-awareness and self-identity development are things that benefit us far beyond our toddler years.
In an article published in the Harvard Business Review, Tasha Eurich reminds us that “research suggests that when we see ourselves clearly, we are more confident and more creative. We make sounder decisions, build stronger relationships, and communicate more effectively. We’re less likely to lie, cheat, and steal. We are better workers who get more promotions. And we’re more-effective leaders with more-satisfied employees and more-profitable companies.”
She goes on to say that “across the studies we examined, two broad categories of self-awareness kept emerging. The first, which we dubbed internal self-awareness, represents how clearly we see our own values, passions, aspirations, fit with our environment, reactions (including thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses), and impact on others. We’ve found that internal self-awareness is associated with higher job and relationship satisfaction, personal and social control, and happiness; it is negatively [not positively] related to anxiety, stress, and depression.
The second category, external self-awareness, means understanding how other people view us, in terms of those same factors listed above. Our research shows that people who know how others see them are more skilled at showing empathy and taking others’ perspectives. For leaders who see themselves as their employees do, their employees tend to have a better relationship with them, feel more satisfied with them, and see them as more effective in general.”
If you are one of the rare individuals who have high internal self-awareness and high external self-awareness, you are considered “aware” and you know who you are and what you want to accomplish. You also seek out and value others’ opinions.
But honestly, most of us have some work to do on these two categories.
Eurich says there does not appear to be correlation between the two, and, good news, there are opportunities to grow no matter where in all of this we currently fall.
If we have low internal self-awareness and low external self-awareness, we are considered “seekers” who don’t quite know yet who we are and what we stand for and how others see us.
Our journey is to work on both of these areas.
If we have high internal self-awareness but low external self-awareness, we are considered “introspectors” who know ourselves quite well but don’t challenge our own views or blindspots by getting feedback from others who care about our well-being. Our journey is to open ourselves up to this kind of dialogue.
If we have low internal self-awareness but high external self-awareness, we are considered “pleasers” who can be so focused on appearing a certain way to others that we could be overlooking what really matters to us. Our journey is to focus a bit more on what we value and want to accomplish.
So, now what?
If we work on becoming people who “focus on building both internal and external self-awareness, who seek honest feedback from loving critics, and who ask [useful questions] to learn to see ourselves more clearly,” we can “reap the many rewards that increased self-knowledge delivers. And no matter how much progress we make, there’s always more to learn. That’s one of the things that makes the journey to self-awareness so exciting.”
I can’t wait to hear about how you’re doing on your self-awareness journey. And if you need any assistance or coaching along the way, I would love to help.
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