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self-awareness is, at its core, the ability to see ourselves clearly—to understand who we are, how others see us, and how we fit into the world around us.
For millions of years, the ancestors of Homo sapiens evolved almost painfully slowly. But, as Ramachandran explains, about 150,000 years ago, there was a rather explosive development in the human brain—where, among other things, we gained the ability to examine our own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, as well as to see things from others’ points of view
There is strong scientific evidence that people who know themselves and how others see them are happier.
a lack of self-awareness can be risky at best and disastrous at worst. In business, regardless of what we do or what stage we’re at in our careers, our success depends on understanding who we are and how we come across to our bosses, clients, customers, employees, and peers.
un-self-aware professionals don’t just feel less fulfilled in their careers—when they get stuck, they tend to have trouble figuring out what their next phase should even be.
the qualities most critical for success in today’s world—things like emotional intelligence, empathy, influence, persuasion, communication, and collaboration—all stem from self-awareness.
despite the critical role it plays in our success and happiness, self-awareness is a remarkably rare quality.
The truth is that while most of us think we know ourselves pretty well, this confidence is often unfounded.
The least competent people are usually the most confident in their abilities.
Sometimes we lack clarity about our values and goals, causing us to perpetually make choices that aren’t in our best interests.
we fail to grasp the impact we’re having on the people around us, alienating our colleagues, friends, and families without even knowing it.
Internal self-awareness has to do with seeing yourself clearly. It’s an inward understanding of your values, passions, aspirations, ideal environment, patterns, reactions, and impact on others.
External self-awareness is about understanding yourself from the outside in—that is, knowing how other people see you.
The bottom line is that to become truly self-aware, you have to understand yourself and how others see you—and what’s more, the path to get there is very, very different than what most people believe.
self-awareness is a surprisingly developable skill.
If self-awareness is a journey, insights are the “aha” moments along the way.
self-awareness isn’t a one-and-done exercise. It’s a continual process of looking inward, questioning, and discovering the things that have been there all along.
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand. —FRANK HERBERT
Roman philosopher Plotinus believed that happiness was achieved by knowing our true self.
the seven sages of ancient Greece inscribed the phrase “know thyself” at the entry of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, a mantra that Plato later reinforced in the teachings of Socrates.
focusing on ourselves doesn’t mean that we understand ourselves.
one self-evident truth has always been that people who have a clear understanding of themselves enjoy more successful careers and better lives—they’ve developed an intuitive understanding of what matters to them, what they want to accomplish, how they behave, and how others see them.
self-awareness is the will and the skill to understand yourself and how others see you.
the people from our study who dramatically improved their self-awareness as adults—possessed seven distinct types of insight that unaware people didn’t. They understood their values (the principles that guide them), passions (what they love to do), aspirations (what they want to experience and achieve), fit (the environment they require to be happy and engaged), patterns (consistent ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving), reactions (the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that reveal their capabilities), and impact (the effect they have on others).
Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. 2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 3. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. 4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. 5. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing. 6. Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and,
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developing a core set of principles that guide how we want to live our lives is a first and critical step in becoming self-aware.
values define the person we want to be and provide a standard for evaluating our actions.
when we understand our passions—what we love to do—we’re finding a bone we can chew on forever.
far more central question: What did he really want out of life?
Instead of asking, “What do I want to achieve?” the better question is, “What do I really want out of life?” While goals can leave us feeling deflated and disappointed once we’ve achieved them, aspirations are never fully completed; we can get up every morning feeling motivated by them all over again.
This is by far the most important thing to learn!
we can all live better lives by understanding what we want to experience and accomplish while we’re here on this planet.
When we determine where we fit, the type of environment we require to be happy and engaged, we get more done with less effort, and end the day feeling like our time was well spent.
only by knowing what you value, what you’re passionate about, and what you want to experience in life can you start to create a picture of your ideal surroundings.
At the end of the day, is your environment creating energy or taking it away?
Psychologists often use the word “personality” to describe our patterns of behavior. Our patterns are our consistent ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving across situations.
it’s not enough to shine a light on our behavioral patterns across most situations—we must examine our patterns in specific kinds of situations as well.
recognizing our patterns—especially our self-defeating ones—helps us take charge.
The point is to first detect the pattern, then be able to identify it when it’s happening, and then experiment by making different—and better—choices.
her unawareness of her real-time reactions—that is, the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that reveal our capabilities—had come back to bite her.
when we examine our reactions, we don’t just uncover our weaknesses; sometimes we can discover strengths we never knew we had.
how our behavior affects others.
increasing awareness of our impact requires commitment and practice,
The key skill we must develop to read our impact is perspective-taking, or the ability to imagine what others are thinking and feeling
the great irony of perspective-taking is that we are least likely to do it when we need to do it most.
a tool developed by psychologist Richard Weissbourd called “Zoom In, Zoom Out.” To successfully take others’ perspectives in highly charged situations, Weissbourd advises, we should start by “zooming in” on our perspective to better understand it. So I zoomed in: I’m hungry, tired, and furious at the airline for its mechanical ineptitude. Next, we should “zoom out” and consider the perspective of the other person. When I imagined what Bob was experiencing, I thought, Poor Bob. I wonder what his day has been like.
one of the biggest myths about self-awareness is that it’s all about looking inward—that is, insight from the inside out. But armed with only our own observations, even the most dedicated students of self-awareness among us risk missing key pieces of the puzzle.
The bottom line is that self-awareness isn’t one truth. It’s a complex interweaving of information from two distinct, and sometimes even competing, viewpoints.
not only is there little to no relationship between internal and external self-awareness, having one without the other can often do more harm than good.
when we couple a clear perspective on ourselves with the ability to abandon that perspective and see ourselves as others do, this magical combination is a tremendous force for good.
truth is that for all seven pillars, it is critical to gain both an internal and external perspective.
