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Self-awareness is one of those traits and skills that most of us believe we have, but few of us actually do. The ability to take a step back, self-reflect, and recognize your own personality, strengths, weaknesses, habits, and unconscious tendencies is absolutely key to understanding our relationships with ourselves, others, and our workplaces. It’s also a vital trait when it comes to embodying the FISH! Philosophy. So how can we practice building self-awareness, and how can we use that to further our practice of the 4 pillars of FISH!?

Listen to Others

A key to self-awareness is checking in to make sure that our self-perceptions and our perceptions of our own actions match the perceptions of others. After all, awareness of self means very little in the real world if it consistently conflicts with how others perceive us!

When others offer you feedback, or respond to your actions or behavior in particular ways, take a note of that and file it away for future use so you can catalog exactly how your life is impacting others. Sometimes, it can even help to ask for this feedback directly, so long as you’re really willing to listen with an open mind and internalize what others have to say.

Look at Yourself from the Outside In

Self-awareness grows when we’re able to separate ourselves from our feelings and actions and view them as objectively as possible. Far too often, we get into our own heads and assume that all our feelings are fact and that all our actions are rational, without taking a step back and examining if that’s really true.

While this can be difficult, it’s crucial to be able to acknowledge a particular emotion, thought, or behavior in ourselves and ask “does this make sense?” followed by “are the results of these feelings helping me achieve my goals?” Once we can do that consistently, we’ll be better set up to influence how we behave in the future.

Turn Self-Reflection into Action

Self-reflection is a major component of self-awareness, and being able to ask yourself “why do I feel this way?” or “why did I respond the way I did in this situation?” is an important first step towards gaining self-awareness and using it to better direct your interactions and your life.

However, we can’t just stop at “why.” Whenever we ask ourselves a self-reflective “why?” question, we have to follow it up with questions that force us to take action going forward: For example, rather than asking “why did I miss that deadline?” and leaving it at that, ask yourself “what can I do to avoid missing deadlines in the future” and “how can I start taking those steps today?”

Predict Your Reactions 

Building self-awareness is not just about reflection; it’s also about practice. Self-awareness is not an inherent trait, but rather a skill that can be learned over time, so long as we keep putting that skill to use. One of the best ways to do this is to start predicting your reactions to difficult situations. If you’re about to go into a meeting with a long-winded coworker, recognize how you might feel annoyed if they start going on and on, and be ready to push back against that feeling of annoyance.

Our brains love recognizing patterns, so the more you can practice predicting your own behavior and finding ways to guide your emotions or counteract them to create the outcomes you want to achieve, the easier it’ll be to manage life’s frustrating, annoying, and challenging obstacles in the future.

How Self-Awareness Supports the FISH! Philosophy: 

So how does practicing self-awareness help us internalize and practice the FISH! Philosophy? There are so many ways! By recognizing patterns in your own emotional and behavioral responses, you’re better equipped to manage our feelings and Choose Your Attitude in a way that helps you achieve your goals. By acknowledging how we judge and perceive ourselves and others, we can more effectively Be There for others and understand exactly what we need to do to Make Their Day. And taking a step back to reflect on our own thought processes means we have a more intuitive perception of how to push boundaries, tackle new ideas, and Play in a way that’s appropriate for our workplace. Each core pillar of the FISH! Philosophy harnesses the power of self-awareness to improve the way we engage with others!

Ideas to Reflect On:

• Do you consider yourself a self-aware person? Why or why not?
• Are there times, events, or people in your workplace that lead you to act without self-awareness? What can you do to be more reflective in these situations?
• Pick one of the core pillars of the FISH! Philosophy to practice this week. How can greater self-awareness help you tackle this practice more effectively?

Want to Implement FISH! in your organization?

Are you a leader?  Do you train others?  Do you want others to be leaders?

Charthouse Learning, the creator of the world-famous, award-winning, FISH! film is offering an in-person, 2-day workshop, interactive Train-the-Trainer lead by our Senior Trainer this April in Minneapolis, MN.

During our time together you’ll learn how to:

• Share the motivation and foundation of FISH!
• Introduce the FISH! film with the four practices.
• Present the invitation to apply the practices in everyday interaction with others.
• Build a sustainability and reinforcement program to transform the culture.
• Pick up tips from other FISH! Philosophers and develop a strategy to embed the practices into the DNA of your culture.
• Create an energized organization that is the “first choice” for employees, faculty, staff, leaders, and customers.

Plus, you will learn how to create a workplace where people choose to “be and bring” their best self everywhere, every day.

At the FISH! Train the Trainer you will:

• Dive Deep: Discover The FISH! Philosophy – full of “A-ha!” takeaways and perspective-shifting realizations.
• Transform: Make the four FISH! practices – Play, Be There, Make Their Day and Choose Your Attitude – an essential part of your professional and personal skill set.
• Discover: Learn practical ways to apply the FISH! practices to improve teamwork, service, leadership, retention and performance.
• Develop: Brainstorm strategies to embed The FISH! Philosophy into the DNA of your culture, strengthening your mission, vision and values.
• Collaborate: Learn and laugh with like-minded folks from across the globe.

Click Here for More FISH! Train the Trainer Information

Whether you work in business, education, or healthcare, FISH! offers accessible, intuitive solutions to empower your workers, bring your team together, and introduce Play into your organization. We invite you to contact us today at 800.695.4534 or info@charthouse.com to speak with our cultural specialists, who will help you find the right FISH! Philosophy solutions that will nurture your organizational culture and motivate your team!

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