Thoughts From Outside The Paddock- Self-Awareness

Self- Awareness

"To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom" Socrates

I'm feeling a bit philosophical today, and I figured what better topic to cover than the wise words of Socrates "Know thyself". As coaches, it is our job to give clients the tools needed to find success (whatever that may mean) in their own lives. The logical first step is, as coaches, that we understand our own strengths, values, and how to pull the best performances from ourselves. The very essence of coaching begins with self-awareness. While important cornerstones of coaching include guiding clients to understanding strengths and weaknesses, establishing core values, and understanding their purpose, self-awareness still holds the priority. To put simply, helping others find their true selves when the coach has already undertaken the same journey allows for leadership that understands the process. 

According to Daniel Goleman, an internationally known psychologist for his work on Emotional Intelligence, “Self-awareness is indispensable in leadership, allowing leaders to harness their competencies for the greatest positive impact on others.” Self-awareness and emotional intelligence are two sides of the same coin because you can’t have one without the other. With self-awareness and emotional intelligence comes the ability to manage one’s thoughts, behaviors, and emotions proactively as opposed to reactively leading to better positive workplace culture and relationships.

‍As a new coach, you may be on your own journey of self-awareness, and keeping a thought diary is a great way to keep track of your thoughts. Keep track of thoughts that pop up in the form of an automatic reaction. Track what was occurring at the time. Track your level of emotion to the stimulus. If time allows, analyze the underlying reason for the emotion experienced. If time does not allow, the diary will enable you to track common threads. At the heart of any journaling practice for self-awareness is honesty. Allowing ourselves to recognize and redirect the self-serving bias enables journaling to increase accuracy in subjective emotional experience. Tracking triggers is quite powerful in decreasing the automated reactions to them. With a good understanding of how we relate to others, we can adjust our behavior so that we deal with them positively. By understanding what upsets us, we can improve our self-control. And by understanding our weaknesses, we can learn how to manage them, and reach our goals despite them