How Can Self-Awareness Help Your Career?
When a person is self-aware, they have an accurate perception of their skills, abilities and beliefs. For many, self-awareness is a difficult thing to accomplish and, without guidance, it’s easy to let introspection devolve into unproductive rumination. However, there are numerous rewards when an individual takes the time to learn how to effectively develop greater self-awareness.
In the workplace, a solid sense of self-awareness can have a positive influence not only on daily interactions but also on long-term career plans. Defining the things that are important to you is an important part of developing self-awareness, and that knowledge also is essential to picking a career that suits your specific blend of talent, skills and personality.
Benefits of Self-Awareness
Self-awareness can be either internal or external. Internal self-awareness is knowing yourself – your attitudes, interests and aptitudes. Developing internal self-awareness helps people make choices that are in tune with who they truly are. External self-awareness pertains to understanding how other people view you. There are several benefits to both types of self-awareness:
- Increased job satisfaction
- Better emotional regulation
- Improved work performance
- Decreased stress
- Better time management
- Smoother relationships with colleagues
How to Become More Self-Aware
Fostering self-awareness is a process that involves honestly evaluating your values, beliefs and actions. It’s not an excuse to repeatedly re-play unfortunate past incidents in your mind. Becoming more self-aware requires careful analysis without berating yourself. Some steps you can take include:
- Learning to accept feedback from people you trust
- Spending time on productive introspection
- Completing a self-assessment test
- Taking an internal inventory of your strong and weak points
- Defining your values
Crosworks provides career assessment and counseling services to help you achieve career success and fulfillment. Contact us today to learn more about our individual services.