What Is Self Awareness?
What is self awareness?
Taken quite literally, 'self awareness' means to be aware of our selves. It is having a clear understanding of our personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions.
Self awareness also allows us to understand other people, how they perceive us, our attitude and our responses to them in the moment.
We are all different and so too is the way we react to things, learn and put together information. In order for us to gain a better understanding of ourselves we need to spend time in self-reflection.
Examples of self awareness include our:
Values (i.e. ethical, moral, with integrity)
Beliefs (i.e. religious, political)
Learning styles
Personality traits (i.e. introvert, extrovert, sensitive, judgemental)
Why is self awareness important?
In a general sense, self awareness is important because as we develop a better understanding of ourselves we are empowered to make necessary changes in our lives. We can build on our strengths and identify areas where we would like to make improvements.
Self-awareness is often the first step in setting goals!
Self-awareness and the helping relationship
Self-awareness is at the core of developing as a helper or counsellor. However, becoming self-aware as a counsellor is an ongoing process, not a final state of being. Counsellors must therefore be engaged in an ongoing 'process of improvement' (Sanders, 2011)
Self-awareness is necessary in counselling/helping work for three main reasons:
1. to check whether the view we have of ourselves is the one received by others
2. to discover if we have hidden agendas that are influencing us and may affect the helping relationship
3. new self-awareness makes it possible for us to change if necessary.
By engaging in self-reflection as a counsellor/helper we come to understand how vulnerable people seeking our help might feel. The conditions which we need as a counsellor/helper to feel
Taken quite literally, 'self awareness' means to be aware of our selves. It is having a clear understanding of our personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions.
Self awareness also allows us to understand other people, how they perceive us, our attitude and our responses to them in the moment.
We are all different and so too is the way we react to things, learn and put together information. In order for us to gain a better understanding of ourselves we need to spend time in self-reflection.
Examples of self awareness include our:
Values (i.e. ethical, moral, with integrity)
Beliefs (i.e. religious, political)
Learning styles
Personality traits (i.e. introvert, extrovert, sensitive, judgemental)
Why is self awareness important?
In a general sense, self awareness is important because as we develop a better understanding of ourselves we are empowered to make necessary changes in our lives. We can build on our strengths and identify areas where we would like to make improvements.
Self-awareness is often the first step in setting goals!
Self-awareness and the helping relationship
Self-awareness is at the core of developing as a helper or counsellor. However, becoming self-aware as a counsellor is an ongoing process, not a final state of being. Counsellors must therefore be engaged in an ongoing 'process of improvement' (Sanders, 2011)
Self-awareness is necessary in counselling/helping work for three main reasons:
1. to check whether the view we have of ourselves is the one received by others
2. to discover if we have hidden agendas that are influencing us and may affect the helping relationship
3. new self-awareness makes it possible for us to change if necessary.
By engaging in self-reflection as a counsellor/helper we come to understand how vulnerable people seeking our help might feel. The conditions which we need as a counsellor/helper to feel