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Use These Trustworthy Resources to Build Your Self-Awareness
Picture this: You are standing at a fork in the road. The left turn takes you to safety, but it also passes by familiar places, tends to be predictable in terms of what you see, and generally calm.
The road to the right also takes you to safety, but along the way are rather adventurous road blocks, new places and faces, and unpredictable events.
Which would you choose?
There is no right or wrong answer here – the beauty of this choice is that it depends entirely on you. Do you crave adventure or predictability? What matters most in this scenario is not which direction you choose, but your self-awareness of your internal landscape.
This will help you make the right choice for you, and contribute towards you enjoying the travel, rather than dreading each day or taking extra energy and willpower to regulate yourself to get through what you need to do.
The following are four top tools to help build that self-knowledge needed to make decisions that are right for you, ensuring you have a solid foundation for your self-leadership journey.
1. The Proust Questionnaire
This short-answer based questionnaire encourages you to delve deeply to consider topics such as what you value most in your friends, or what your most marked characteristic is.
This questionnaire has its beginnings with Marcel Proust, French Novelist. It was often used as a ‘parlour game’ and can still be used in a similar way today as a great way to get to know friends on a deeper level. Try answering individually, and then swapping the sheets and guessing who provided which answer as they are read out aloud.
2. The Insight Quiz
Developed by Dr. Tasha Euirch, this short (14 question) quiz has two parts – one to be completed by you, and one that is emailed to a friend you choose to also be completed by them (about you).
Results are required from both questionnaires in order for a report to be compiled – which makes sense, as the purpose is to help identify how self-aware you are! Dr. Eurich has completed years of study and written a book on why self-awareness is so important, and it is high on our recommended reading list.
You can find the Insight quiz here: https://www.insight-book.com/quiz
3. The Self-Consciousness Scale
This is a short (22 question) scale which you can self-score that provides understanding in different domains that can affect how we behave including:
Private self-consciousness (the tendency to be introspective and examine one’s inner world)
Public self-consciousness (awareness of the self as it is viewed by others)
Social Anxiety (fear of judgement and humiliation from others)
Again – no answer on this can be ‘wrong’. It is all about painting a picture of yourself and understanding your unique characteristics, strengths and needs.
You can discover more here: https://positivepsychology.com/wp-content/uploads/Self-Consciousness-Scale.pdf
4. The 5 Love Languages
How we show love to others, and how we feel respected, appreciated and loved ourselves is different for different people and personalities. Dr. Gary Chapman, a marriage counsellor for many decades, developed this tool to help people gain greater insight and awareness for their own preferences, but also of those significant others in their lives to help understanding, connection and growth. There are Five Love Languages discussed: Words of affirmation; quality time; physical touch; acts of service; and receiving gifts.
Knowing the way in which you feel loved - is it your partner making you a coffee in the morning (an act of service), or going for a bushwalk together (a quality time activity) will help you not only express to others your preferences but also become aware of the preferences of others - which can be totally different to your own (they might prefer to receive gifts!).
These tools are not just for those in romantic relationships, either. There are love languages for singles and children, for which Dr. Chapman has written books about. His website also contains quizzes for other aspects that influence our connection with others - including apology languages and an anger management assessment.
Find out your love language and more, here: https://www.5lovelanguages.com/quizzes
Knowing ourselves and having a clear understanding of our unique strengths, preferences and needs can help to foster our wellbeing through making choices and preferences that feel right for us. It can also help us understand and appreciate relationships with those important to us. These free, quick and easy tools help you to discover and understand more about yourself in a variety of ways - an essential part of your own self-leadership.
Which one are you going to give a try?
Maike x
P.S. Have you seen the resources section on our website? Alongside stacks of other valuable content curated to help you on your self-leadership journey, our Self-Discovery Card Deck is the ideal tool to help you develop your insight, awareness and understanding about yourself!
Use these cards as journal prompts, to meditate on or to hone your focus on a particular area/goal for the week. Whichever way you choose to use them, they are bound to help you learn more about yourself, which can only lead to good things – no matter which direction you take when you get to your own fork in the road.
P.P.S.: If you are looking for more tools and tips to help you towards your health and happiness goals and want a cheer squad along the way (who doesn’t!?), join our beautiful community on our socials – we’d love to have you. Don’t forget to sign up to my monthly newsletter too, and get free access to our most recent free self-leadership resource.
And, if you are ready to dive into more wonderful self-knowledge activities and learn how to thrive under your own self-leadership, join the waitlist for our FRESH START Program today! The next intake is starting in January 2022 - just enough time to reflect on the goals you have and what you want the next year of your life to look like, and to start FRESH in the New Year with all the support and change-making tools that you need.