It is hard for you to grow if dont have “Self Awareness”

Recently we done some study and research, I found one very interesting pattern.

High Performer have very low rating for them-self.

Low Performer, have very high rating of them-self.

I feel that this pattern is very weird. I ask myself, how can this happen? I share this finding with my mentor and other Entrepreneur. After few discussion, I understand why.

“High Performer” usually are hungry for knowledge, hungry for success. They are ambitious, and they want to see how far they can go in their career, life. Some times they think they are not good enough at certain job (which explain why they rate them-self low), yet they don’t afraid to take up the challenge(it explain why they ambitious).

When given a chance, they not hesitate to take up new role that they not familiar with, but they will continuous improve them-self so they can take on this new role. They work harder than their peers. They know currently they are not good enough for the new role, but they also know their will be master of it soon.

Over the time, their skill improve, their experience improve and they grow faster than their peers. This make them stand out from their peers in term of performance.

“Low Performer” usually think them-self are great. They feel they know a lot, or they not as hungry as the High Performer peers. This make them less keen in learning, or improving because they feel they are in good shape already. This is like when the cup is full of water, it is very hard to fill in any more water (knowledge) to the cup.

Over the time, this make the low performer growth slower than peers that have more knowledge, more experience and more hardworking.

But what make “Low Performer” behave in such way?

Lack of Self Awareness

When you do not have self awareness, you will not know who you are actually. You may think you are Lion, not the cat, as shown in picture above.

Those who lack of self awareness, do not see the problem in them-self. Instead, they always think problem is at other people side, not their side. When problem arise, they will have 101 reason for the problem and all the 101 reason are other people fault, not theirs. This kind of excuse finding mindset make them hard to see the actual problem, and the actual of them-self.

On contrary those with self awareness, usually do not shy to admit their fault. They eager to learn and want to improve them-self. This humble attitude are the one make them stronger day by day

Recently i met with Endeavor (https://endeavor.org ) and we discuss why some entrepreneur are so successful and some not. For your information, Endeavor is a non profit organization that believe successful entrepreneur should help new entrepreneur. One of the criteria they look into every entrepreneur is whether the entrepreneur coach-able?. They share that this is very important element for them because if the entrepreneur too full of them-self, it is very hard for them to coach him/her. Whatever you share with them, they will feel they know it already. Basically non coach-able entrepreneur only like to hear what they want to hear; and they don’t want to hear, what they don’t like to hear.

So is kind of waste of time to coach them, since they know the non coach-able entrepreneur won’t appreciate it.

From company hiring perspective, dear manager, do not hire people that is not coach-able! Regardless how experience the person are, or how good is their skill, IF they are not coach-able, it will cause problem to you and your team. Someone that is not coach-able tend to think they are superior than others, it won’t make them a good team members in your team. In fact you as manager should very worry if someone think them-self know everything.

In summary

If you want to know whether you are actually Cat or Lion, first you need to remove the habit of finding excuse for every problem that you face. Once you get rid of “finding excuse” behavior, prepare yourself to listen to the people feedback.

Next you need to look for peers or boss that willing to be your true mirror. Someone that willing to be honest with you. Don’t look for people that only say good thing about you because you don’t want to hear only good thing, you also want to know your weakness so you can improve.

Be open mind and ready to listen. I am not asking you to agree, or disagree. But at least listen first, and you can slowly analyse it whether it is valid or not. Do not turn on your defensive mode when the peers share the true with you, and do no even need to find 101 reason. Just listen, clarify and understand more why people say so about you.

The true could be ugly. Yes, is will be ugly but it at least it is true. Good news is, it is not the end of the world. It means, you still can learn and improve from here, once you know your weak spot.

Once you able to do above, please give yourself a big clap. Because you are on the way to build a better of yourself, and on the right path to be the next High Performer, in your company, your family and your life :)