Self-Awareness
“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you — unless, of course, you fail the test?” 2 Corinthians 13:5 (NIV)
The toughest person you’ll ever lead is yourself. You can be great at leading people and be terrible at leading yourself. John Maxwell once said “When we are foolish, we want to conquer the world. When we are wise, we want to conquer ourselves.” I want to lead myself. Part of being a good leader is leading yourself well and to lead yourself you must know yourself. This requires that we have self-awareness. What is self-awareness? Self-awareness is consciousness of oneself. It’s being able to see yourself clearly and objectively. It’s focusing on yourself. It’s knowing your strengths and weakness. It’s knowing your emotions, moods, behaviors, values and drives. It’s being aware of how others perceive us and how we impact them with our actions. It’s knowing who you truly are as a person. Developing a true understanding of you. How do we develop self-awareness?
Developing Self-Awareness…
- Personal reflection
- Receiving feedback
- Prayer
If we want to know things about ourselves, we need to reflect on ourselves. We have to take a look in the mirror and do some deep thinking/searching within. We have to ask ourselves some tough questions and be honest with ourselves. We have to get to the root of why we do what we do. Then we have to ask trusted people around us to point out our blind spots. We can’t be afraid of feedback. Sometimes people see things about us that we can’t see or they see things that we already see but just try to ignore. Self-awareness requires assessment and advice. But if we want to know the truth about ourselves we must have a prayer life. God is our Creator and He knows us inside and out. God knows us better than we know ourselves. The Psalmist prayed in Psalm 139:23–24 for God to search him and to point out anything in him that was wicked/offensive to the Lord and then to lead him in the path of everlasting life. Having self-awareness requires that we go to God and ask Him to reveal anything in us that doesn’t please Him. The Holy Spirit will lovingly convict us and help us to overcome those areas in our lives.
We cannot work on ourselves and make changes if we don’t know what needs to be fixed. There cannot be improvement where there is ignorance. We perish for a lack of knowledge. Growing and becoming a better version of yourself requires a willingness to change but it all starts with Self-Awareness.
