How To Become Self-Aware And How Your Business Can Benefit

At the heart of every business lies the business owner, a person, holding it all together. As the owner of your fitness club, you’re the captain of a ship, leading your crew and guiding them through rough seas and dire straits. The way you handle every problem and opportunity you encounter is defined by how good a leader you are.

That leadership personality of yours cannot be developed without a certain sense of self-awareness. This self-awareness defines how your character is cultivated by your experiences, and how you respond to any learning event that you come across.

How does one become self-aware?

Meditate

First, you should meditate. Meditation is far more than some mystical act — a large body of science has shown that it can be highly beneficial for business, as it can improve your cognitive abilities, improve your mood, and make you more productive. Being a practitioner and purveyor of the martial arts, you should also know that meditation opens your mind to be more aware of things that you may not otherwise notice. Through the clarity of mind offered by meditation, you’ll be able to look inward to find your personal goals, see what is and isn’t working in your business life, and shed the deadweight that may be hindering further progress.

Get feedback

Next, you should be listening to 360-degree feedback from all possible sources, whether it’s from your subordinates, your clients, or even your friends and prospects. When you’re starting small, it’s OK to have simple, informal feedback methodologies such as asking your friends what they think of your business, or having simple off-hand chats with students.

When the ball really gets rolling, though, you will definitely need to have feedback-gathering mechanisms that are more structured. Consider weekly or monthly reports for your instructors, and surveying your students on a regular basis. Create an efficient process that will allow you, and everyone else, to see their strengths and weaknesses. This will bring about an invaluable self-awareness about the nitty-gritty details of your club, which will greatly help you in making decisions to shape the future of your business.

List progress

Self-awareness also comes from seeing your own progress written down. Create a journal of your plans, priorities, and progress, and record everything religiously. By staying consistent with your recordkeeping, you’ll have an effective history of everything you have ever planned, and you’ll be able to take notes on whether you’ve accomplished things. You can also write down your own personal traits and points for improvement, as well as the traits of other people who you want to emulate or adopt, so that you can keep track of your personal development. It’s understandably difficult to reliably codify the human spirit, but it helps in assessing where and how you can improve.

Ask for help

Finally, when in doubt, ask for help from those you trust. Note-taking and meditation can build self-awareness, but friends and trusted peers can also provide a new perspective and healthy criticism to help you advance as a person. You’ll need to be able to take a hit from the ones you trust and care about, of course, but good friends know that such criticism, passed between each other, is only for each other’s benefit.

Self-awareness is power over your own being, and the path your development takes. It will allow you to see your progress at every turn, and revise yourself whenever necessary in order to advance further. This leads to an adaptability that is the mark of any good business owner.