Self-awareness: Understanding the Importance of Internal and External Awareness

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Self-awareness
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Self-awareness
Self-awareness is defined as the ability to recognize oneself as an individual operating
separate from the environment and other individuals. It rests in the ability of the individual to be
conscious of himself/herself by knowing the feelings, desires, characters and motives that define
him (Morin 2011, p. 810). This means a clear perception of one’s personality which leads to an
easy understanding of other and the interpretations that people have on their environment.
It exists in two broad categories of internal and external awareness. The internal category
focusses on people see themselves through understanding their own values, aspirations and
passions to determine how they fit in the environment and impact the interaction with others
(Axelrod 2012, p. 349). In the organizational context, this is associated with high job
satisfaction, personal control and happiness. Those who have low internal self-awareness are
characterized by stress, anxiety and depression. The other hand, the external category is the
understanding how people view us using the factors that define the self-awareness of the
individual. This self-awareness in highly influenced by the view that one has about the
definition that others hold on them. For example, people who are aware of their external
characteristics show more empathy and form better relationships with others thus making them
more satisfied.
According to Eurich (2018, pp, 8) suggests that being high in either of the category does
mean that one is high in the other. This leads to four archetypes of self-awareness. Introspectors
understand themselves clearly but lack the ability to challenge their own views or analyse their
self to determinehow they can improve or be more succesful. Awares are those people who
understand who they are and what they seek to accomplish in life (Ugur & Stevens 2015, p. 91).
This is the characteristic that succesfulleaders have since they can handle different situations.