Tools for Self-Awareness and Personal Improvement

This reflective essay discusses the various tools for self-awareness and personal improvement such as Johari Window, MBTI, Transactional Analysis, and DISC. The author shares personal experiences and how these tools have helped in conflict situations. The essay also includes a reflection sheet and a general plan for self-development.

Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Reflective Essay
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1REFLECTIVE ESSAY
As an individual, it is imperative to develop self-awareness and personality, especially
when an individual is placed in a group. Self-reflection is necessary because it helps an
individual to remove the obstacles and becoming conscious about the things that are
important to us. We are more or less engaged with our daily chores of life that make us forget
about the things that make us feel worthy. Self-reflection is the process of reassessing
ourselves as reflection is all about a deeper understanding and thoughts regarding what we
want to achieve in our life. Reflection assists in understanding the course of our life more
efficiently. Self-reflection is not just about studying oneself. There are certain tools that help
us to gain an insight and reflect our own attitude and behavior through conflict and
communication. In this essay, I will be elaborating on the various tools of self-awareness,
personal improvement and developing communication skills.
The ‘Johari’ window model is a personality development tool created by two
American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in 1955. The name ‘Johari’ is derived
by joining the letters of their first two names. The idea was obtained as a conclusion by group
dynamics in University of California and was later corrected by Joseph Luft. The Johari
window model is used as an effective tool for enhancing an individual’s perception of others.
Each individual is characterized by the Johari model through four quadrants. The four
quadrants signify personal information, motivation, feelings and whether or not that
information is known to oneself (Saxena 2015). The concept of conveying and reciprocating
is interpreted through this model. A Johari is a common quadrant that has four quadrants in it.
Two of the quadrants represent self and the other two quadrants that is unknown to self but
known to others. The info passes from one quadrant to the other on gaining mutual trust
through socializing and working on the feedback received from others.
This tool has proved to be very practical for me as well in developing self-awareness.
The tool has helped me to understand my flaws in understanding and enhancing my

2REFLECTIVE ESSAY
communication skills during my internship days when I used to face difficulties in opening
up to my colleagues. By coming across the Johari window model, I was able to assess myself
on the basis of the four quadrants of the model. I have been able to find out my areas of
dispute where I struggled to establish a proper collaboration of the delivered information.
According to Carl Jung’s conceptual theory proposed in the ‘Psychological Types’, an
individual can be categorized on the basis of their preference of general perspective,
perception and judgment abilities. The Myers-Briggs Theory was developed by Katherine
Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers, which is a revised work of Carl Jung’s
theory. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is an introspective tool used for the
purpose of demonstrating psychological preferences of individuals about how an individual
perceives the world around them and take decisions accordingly (Furnham and Crump 2014).
The purpose of the MBTI tool is to identify the basic preferences of an individual in terms of
perception and judgment. According to the MBTI theory, an individual can combine his/her
preferences to arrive at a personality type.
The MBTI tool has assisted me in assessing my strengths and weaknesses to a
significant level. The concept became clearer to me when I was in the first semester of my
university. I can still recall those days when I used to struggle a lot in dealing with the people
around me. I used to face complexities in my own comfort zone and had issues generating
ideas as well. I was lagging behind in my subject of expertise and that resulted in mental
unrest. By coming across the MBTI tool, I felt the need of the tool for self-assessment as I
was having emotional stress. Through the use of this tool, I realized that I possess a
gravitation towards people and a personality trait that is inclined towards helping other
people. The tool has also helped me to gain an insight to find out my strengths and
weaknesses. The first weakness I came across was my inability to take appropriate decisions

3REFLECTIVE ESSAY
depending on the situation. I am now doing my best to develop my decision making abilities
as it is necessary to thrive in this competitive world.
The Transactional Analysis (TA) is a psychoanalytic process where the interpersonal
conducts of an individual are studied. TA is basically a psychological model where personal
growth and change are studied to identify the ego states of an individual and amending them
to solve their emotional issues. The concept of TA was developed by Dr. Eric Berne, when he
observed that his patients were behaving differently as they were holding personalities of
other people inside them. This made Berne to study about the personality of the individuals in
analyzing different kinds of behavior that individual possesses in different situations. Berne
has stated that each individual possesses three stages of an ego, the parent, the child and the
adult. In other words, the parent state refers to the ‘taught’ conception of life, the adult state
refers to the ‘thought’ conception of life and the child state refers to the ‘felt’ conception of
life. The parent state represents physical expressions of being annoyed or anxious body
language. The child state represents physical expressions of being depressed or emotional.
The adult state represents physical expressions of being attentive and straight-forward
(Hargaden and Sills 2014). TA is now considered as an entrenched approach as it is widely
used in fields of organizational development, counseling and psychotherapy.
The Transactional Analysis tool has brought an impressive change in shaping my
personality. The application of the TA tool is related to my workplace life. I can relate my
behavioral aspects to three stages of Transactional Analysis that I have suffered in my
workplace. Transactional Analysis has basically worked as a therapy for me as it had helped
me in overcoming the negative effects of either being annoyed or depressed both at my
workplace and home. I have always experienced communication disintegration, as a result of
which I used to have a normal conversation with someone at one point and the next moment I
got indulged in an argument or debate. In both the cases, the communication has failed due to

4REFLECTIVE ESSAY
mental breakdown. By going through the concept of the Transactional Analysis tool, I was
able to understand my mood swings and act accordingly. The tool has helped me to study my
communication pattern and find out the issues in a two-way communication. I have now
developed the ability to manipulate my actions according to the situation and avoid conflict
while communicating.
DISC is a conduct assessment tool that is based on the DISC theory of a Harvard
psychologist named Dr. William Moulton Marston that deals with four specific behavioral
traits- dominance, inducement, submission and compliance. Marston was of the opinion that
these behavioral traits developed from an individual’s self-sense and on interaction with the
world. Marston enclosed two dimensions in the theory by evaluating an individual’s
emotional behavior. The first dimension states whether an individual is able to accommodate
oneself in the existing environment. The second dimension states whether an individual is
capable of having domination over the existing environment (DiSCProfile.com, 2018). Later,
the DISC assessment was reconstructed by an industrial psychologist named Walter Clarke
based on Marston’s DISC theory. The DISC assessment was basically designed for the
organizations needing assistance towards recruiting qualified employees. The leverage of the
DISC assessment lies in the fact that it helps in overcoming leadership issues in terms of job
assignments and problem solving.
The assessment of the DISC tool was best understood by me when I was in the second
semester and we were assigned a group project in which I was made the group leader by our
professor. The objective of our team was to make a social project in which we had to
interview the peasant class and study their standard of living. The time allocated for this task
was very short and my responsibility was to allocate different tasks to the team members
according to the plan chart. When an individual is working in a team, it is very important to
understand the behavior of the team members and work on improving the relationships of the

5REFLECTIVE ESSAY
team members. As a group leader, I felt the urge to compete with other groups and so I had to
motivate my group members accordingly. As this was my first time as a group leader, I
lacked enthusiastic skills. I was failing to collaborate the efforts of my group members. Later,
one of seniors suggested me to analyze my weak points through the DISC tool. The tool
helped me to resolve my drawbacks as a group leader and developed a subtle attitude towards
my group members. My members no more felt being dominated and synchronized all their
efforts in bringing out their best. This was a great achievement from my side and last but not
the least, our project also received an award for being the best project.

6REFLECTIVE ESSAY
References
DiSCProfile.com. 2018. DiSC Profile - What is DiSC®? The DiSC personality profile
explained. [online] Available at: https://www.discprofile.com/what-is-disc/overview/
[Accessed 20 Sep. 2018].
Furnham, A. and Crump, J., 2014. The dark side of the MBTI: Psychological type and
interpersonal derailers. Psychology, 5(02), p.166.
Hargaden, H. and Sills, C., 2014. Transactional analysis: A relational perspective.
Routledge.
Saxena, P., 2015. JOHARI WINDOW: An Effective Model for Improving Interpersonal
Communication and Managerial Effectiveness. SIT Journal of Management, 5(2), pp.134-
146.

7REFLECTIVE ESSAY
REFLECTION SHEET:
Model MBTI
What do I understand regarding the model and the impact on conflict and my behavior?
Ans: By studying the MBTI tool in detail, I have understood that the tool is an introspective
questionnaire that helps in understanding the various psychological preferences of an
individual.
What I learnt about myself?
Ans: Through the use of the MBTI tool, I have learnt that I face severe issues in generating
new ideas in my workplace and as a result of that I suffer from mental unrest.
What I intend to work on as a behavioral change?
Ans: I intend to engage in versatile jobs that would help me in generating new ideas and
avoid mental anxiety.
Model DISC
What do I understand regarding the model and the impact on conflict and my
communication?
Ans: By studying the DISC model in detail, I have understood that the model helps in
analyzing the working relationships of an individual in terms of responding to conflicts.
What I learnt about myself?
Ans: By going through the DISC model, I have learned about my lack of leadership skills.
What I intend to work on as a behavioral change?

8REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Ans: I intend to work further on my leadership abilities to face any leadership challenges in
future.
Model Johari Window
What do I understand regarding the model and the impact on conflict and building
relationships?
Ans: By studying the Johari window model, I have understood that it is technique of
understanding the relationships of an individual with themselves and with others. The tool
helps in avoiding conflicts and establishing relationships with other people.
What I learnt about myself?
Ans: By using this tool, I have learnt about my flaws in communicating with others.
What I intend to work on as a behavioral change?
Ans: I intend to work on my communication skills to overcome the issues of conflicts during
communication.
Transactional Analysis
What do I understand regarding the model and the impact on conflict?
Ans: By studying the Transactional Analysis model in detail, I have understood that the
model studies the behavioral traits and the ego stages of an individual to avoid possible
conflicts during effective communication.
How can my language enable calmness and perhaps resolution?
Ans: By understanding the Transactional Analysis, one can monitor the ego stages and act
accordingly to avoid controversies while communicating with others.

9REFLECTIVE ESSAY
What I learnt about myself?
Ans: By using this tool, I have learnt about my egoist nature and aggressive attitude while
undergoing mental stress.
What I intend to work on as a behavioral change?
Ans: I intend to resolve issues regarding my aggressive attitude and avoid debatable topics
during verbal communication.
I statements
What do I understand regarding the model and the impact on conflict?
Ans: By studying the I- Statements model, I understood that it states an individual’s
affirmation about feelings, values and beliefs while communicating verbally that includes
sentences mostly starting with ‘I’ in it but is contrasted with a You- Statement.
How can I be assertive and still respect the other party using I statements?
Ans: By using I-statements, I may hurt the statements of the other person. So, it is necessary
to clarify the doubts to avoid any conflicts while communicating verbally and avoid
contrasting the sentences with the listener.
What I learnt about myself?
Ans: By understanding the I- statements model, I have learnt about the conflicts faced during
one to one communication .
What I intend to work on as a behavioral change?
Ans: I intend to work on how to avoid conflicts during communication while using I-
statements and avoid stressing the statements in contrast to the listener.

10REFLECTIVE ESSAY
General plan for development of self in conflict situation
The self-assessment tools are indeed effective in the process of self-development. The
possible ways of tackling a conflict situation is by selecting the most appropriate setting for
communication. The best way to avoid conflicts is by understanding the conflict as it is
endemic to social life. It is important to keep control over emotions as being hyper or over-
reacting leads to nowhere. One should also be a patient listener to understand the messages of
the speaker and reciprocating appropriately. The primary reasons that fire up conflicts such as
misunderstandings must be avoided. There should be transparency while delivering messages
and it is necessary to cross check with the speaker and the listener so that the efficacy in
communication is maintained. Last but not the least, an individual must think before speaking
and accept the mistakes as apologizing can work wonders and avoid possible conflicts and
disruption in communication.