Didn't See It Coming: Overcoming the Seven Greatest Challenges That No One Expects and Everyone Experiences

by Carey Nieuwhof

if you grow in self-awareness, the other four factors of emotional intelligence (self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills) become so much easier to master.

When you stop using your emotions as the only filter through which you process your attitude and actions, you grow as a person.

Your understanding of and respect for your weaknesses actually make you easier to work with and more valuable to the people around you.

Self-aware people understand their weaknesses and limit their activities in areas where they are not gifted.

While it may take humility to acknowledge your weaknesses, acknowledging your strengths doesn’t mean you’re proud. You have gifts, skills, talents, and abilities, and it’s selfish not to lean into them. If you use your gifts as part of a larger mission and for the benefit of others, you’ll actually avoid the emptiness so many people feel otherwise.

If you regularly do what you were created to do, the likelihood of growing cynical, disconnected, proud, or irrelevant diminishes.

Knowing your limits, rather than being unaware of them, makes you far more effective.

“Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God….Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self.”