Posts

The Three Levels of Awareness

Awareness is the first step towards overcoming all of the Seven Self-Limits

We can practice raising our awareness of:

  • Impact – are we held-back, putting things off, too critical, too aggressive, etc? What happens because of the impact of our Self-Limits?
  • Emotions – are we anxious, angry, frustrated, bored, powerless, etc? What feelings are an indication of our Self-Limits?
  • Self-Talk – what criticisms, doubts, judgements, etc, do we say to ourselves?

Look out for the other posts in this series, which will cover each of the Seven Self-Limits, including:

  • Self-Doubt – When our confidence is too shaky
  • Shame – When we make unhelpful judgements or comparisons about ourselves
  • Self-Criticism – When we think that we have to be or do things in a certain way
  • Self-Sabotage – When our unconscious thoughts can stop us before we’ve even started
  • Guessing – When we unhelpfully guess at what other people think, feel or mean
  • Blaming – When we give away some of our power or authority by declaring that somebody or something else is the cause of something undesirable
  • Exaggerating – When we imagine it will all go wrong or be bad, every time

As well as the four steps to over-coming each of the limits:

  1. Awareness
  2. Analysis
  3. Acceptance; and
  4. Action

The Hierarchy of Soft-Skills

It used to be “technical” skills that were most important. Now though, according to Forbes, soft skills, such as empathy, adaptability, integrity and resilience, have become crucial success factors at work. But did you know that there’s also a hierarchy to soft-skills?

In my view, it goes something like this, starting with self-awareness and self-management:

  1. Understanding about what makes us fulfilled is the gateway skill.
  2. Then comes knowing and influencing the conditions that help us to be motivated.
  3. Followed by managing the fears, doubts and other emotions that can get in the way of being at our best.
  4. Then, because we can never control all of the conditions around us, come soft-skills around being adaptable and responding to change – and being authentic at the same time.

After that, the soft-skills focus shifts to other people:

  1. How well do we understand what makes others tick?
  2. How skilled are we at being authentic and adaptable as we communicate with others?
  3. How good are we at balancing out the needs of the job and the needs of other people to be fulfilled and motivated?
  4. Beyond that, comes inspirational leadership, which I’ll cover in a future post.

What’s your view of the most important soft-skills; and which needs to come first?

 

Self-Accountability not Self-Criticism

Four simple questions that easily help to develop more self-accountability and avoid falling into the trap of self-criticism instead

What do you notice about your own self-accountability? Please leave a comment below if they’re still open at the time of reading, or tweet me @nickrobcoach

The best way to be true to your word is to be more self-accountable, and *less* self-critical. Share on X