Ten Questions to Help Improve Your Self Awareness

April 7, 2010 by Taylor Studios in Professional & Industry Tips

Great leaders and great people strive for self-knowledge and self awareness. Self awareness is the ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions and drives and how they affect others. Knowing yourself allows you to connect with others in a realistic manner. If you can identify your personal derailing baggage and work to improve it, it may be one of the most important steps in achieving your goals and happiness.

Some of the things you can do to better understand yourself is to take personality or emotional intelligent tests. A wide range of self improvement books from goal setting to thinking more like Leonardo Da Vinci will offer suggestions on self assessment. You can also join groups like Vistage or get a coach.

I joined the Vistage group about two years ago. One of the first things we worked on was my negative self talk. I set very high standards and when I don’t achieve them I am very hard on myself. I would beat myself up for not having perfect conversations, not being a perfect leader, not understanding something fully, etc. Ironically this weakness made me a worse leader and did not help my connections with people. The first step to improving this was to be aware of when it was happening. I would catch myself talking negatively in my head and would stop it. I have improved this tremendously over the last two years.

Another way to understand yourself and what you stand for is to constantly ask yourself questions and take the time to fully think them out. Here is a smattering of ten questions you could begin with:

1. When am I most naturally myself? What people, places, and activities allow me to feel most fully myself?

2. What is the biggest mistake you ever made? What did you learn from it?

3. What have been your happiest moments in life up to now? How could you have more of those moments in the future?

4. What are your three most important goals in your business and career right now?

5. What is your self-ideal? What person do you aspire to be?

6. When do you feel inspired? Who and what contribute to your sense of inspiration? How does it feel when you are inspired?

7. In order, what are your three strongest interests?

8. If you could accomplish only one thing during the rest of your life, what would it be?

9. What would you do if you knew you would not fail?

10. What do you need to do differently to use your time more effectively?

Can you articulate your personal goals and ambitions? Or are you content to merely drift along in life?

“Happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal, or goal.” ~Earl Nightingale