Blindspots & Self-Awareness
How well do you know yourself? On a scale from 1 to 10?
Most people who answer this question give a number between 5 and 10. What does that tell you? If indeed it is the way of most, then it means either that everyone knows themselves quite well or we are all deceiving ourselves.
In my line of work, the most interesting theme that I encounter time and time again is the theme of “blindspots.” We have all experienced them. Out driving you want to change lanes and you check all your mirrors. Then you head over to that oh-so-desirable lane and what happens? Some invisible car out of nowhere honks their horn at you! Out of nowhere! Where in the world did they come from? They must have been speeding, you think, because I know they weren’t there a second ago.
But what if they actually were there. Going the same speed as you and listening to their Lady Gaga just like you? Well that means you simply couldn’t see them there. They were in your blindspot.
Blindspots aren’t just a phenomenon of driving. They are an everyday experience. Sometimes we can’t see that we are coming across as impatient or cold, or shy. Sometimes we can’t see that we are not listening deeply to others but thinking of what we are going to say next. And sometimes we can’t see that what is normal in our culture, say, being quick and to the point in order to not waste time, is not the best way to behave in a culture that works differently (something I have learned many times when in new cultures).
Without realizing that people operate differently it can be very difficult to improve how you work with others. Acknowledging this prevalence of difference is only the first step. The next step is to start the long journey to self-awareness. It is one thing to know that there are different ways that people deal with conflict, but it is another thing and even more important to know what your tendency is when a conflict arises. Knowing that some people at your workplace do best by talking their tasks through is one thing but knowing how you work best can bring to light aspects of your personality that are strong for certain types of work and weak for others. The more you know, the more you can look at, think about, and improve.
At the end of the day the best ways to learn about ourselves are not alone far away from others, but right in their midst. We can ask others about how they see us and see if how they see us matches how we see us. We can also take assessments, many of which are online or available at the Hissah Enrichment Center. These ask you about yourself and can often lead to uncovering surprising truths about yourself, especially when they are presented alongside how other people score. You can start to see how you are unique.
These assessments take you out of your head, out of “your own little world” and pull you into the world that we all live in. A world that is complex and quite messy at times but still pretty fun and full of possibility. So the next time someone honks their horn at you either in the car or at work or at home, ask yourself, “is there a ‘blindspot’ here that I didn’t know about until this very moment?” As the saying goes, You learn something new everyday. Some days what you learn about just happens to be YOU!