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Six Traits of Self-Aware People
They might spell life or death for your next relationship
“Our success depends on understanding who we are and how we come across to our bosses, clients, customers, employees, and peers.”
-Tasha Eurich
What is self-awareness? It can be a bit difficult to tie down. In her book Insight: Why We’re Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Self-Awareness Helps Us Succeed At Work and In Life, Psychologist Tasha Eurich defines self-awareness (after admitting that’s it’s a very tricky thing to define).
“While a precise definition is more complex than it seems, 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.”
People who exhibit self-awareness are able to look at their own behavior and tweak it, to produce better outcomes. They accept feedback constructively, rather than foist blame onto the people in their lives. This ability is critical, yet hard to come by. According to Eurich, 95% of people rate themselves as self-aware when surveyed, yet only 10–15% of us actually are.
Eurich likes to joke that on a good day, most of us are lying to ourselves about whether or not we’re lying to ourselves.
