Your Perception Is Your Reality
SUMMARY
Do you have people in your world that see things differently to the way that you do? Let's face it. We all do, and it can create a lot of confusion and conflict. Stick with me in today's episode and I'll show you why this is and what to do to solve it.
All throughout my corporate career, I had issues with self-worth, and I wore a mask and pretended that I was someone that I hadn't yet become. Constantly seeking the approval of others, people saw me as confident and competent, but my internal dialogue and what was going on for me was totally different. I was sometimes argumentative and quite often unteachable. Does this sound familiar? Can you relate to this yourself? Well, Accurate Self-Assessment is the competency of Emotional Intelligence that you need so that you can overcome this problem.
There are three key actions that you need to take so that you can accurately assess your current reality as you need to to move forward. That plan will help you to leverage your current strengths and work on the other areas that are holding you back from getting the results that you want right now.
Number one is identify your blind spots.
Number two is to list your strengths and your weaknesses.
Number three is to ask for feedback, getting help from people who want you to succeed is extremely important.
TRANSCRIPT
Do you have people in your world that see things differently to the way that you do? Let's face it. We all do, and it can create a lot of confusion and conflict. Stick with me in today's episode and I'll show you why this is and what to do to solve it.
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Master Coach Trainer, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Emotional Intelligence in the first quadrant of Self-Awareness by helping you to understand that your perception is your reality.
All throughout my corporate career, I had issues with self-worth, and I wore a mask and pretended that I was someone that I hadn't yet become. Constantly seeking the approval of others, people saw me as confident and competent, but my internal dialogue and what was going on for me was totally different. I was sometimes argumentative and quite often unteachable. Does this sound familiar? Can you relate to this yourself? Well, Accurate Self-Assessment is the competency of Emotional Intelligence that you need so that you can overcome this problem. Let's unpack it together.
Accurate Self-Assessment is the second competency in the first quadrant of Self-Awareness. It's all about knowing your strengths and limitations. I mean really knowing them. And it's a critical skill when embarking on any personal/professional development journey. People who are reflective and open to candid feedback know what it is that they need to work on. They know where they are strong, and they know where they need to change and to grow. But when you resist feedback, over competitive or argumentative, you will stagnatex. You must remain teachable to move forward and grow. There are three key actions that you need to take so that you can accurately assess your current reality as you need to to move forward. That plan will help you to leverage your current strengths and work on the other areas that are holding you back from getting the results that you want right now.
Number one is identify your blind spots. We all have things in our behaviour that we either cannot or will not see. Let me unpack that and help you to understand using an amazing tool called the Johari window. There are four areas in this Johari window, two areas that are about self and two areas that are about others. In both those areas, we have things that are known and things that are unknown. Let's go through them individually and see where you have things in each of those zones in the window.
The first area is the open arena. That's what everybody knows. It's known to you, and it's known to others. That's the behaviour that's easily seen and recognisable in your relationships. The second area is the hidden area or the facade. This is where you know this about you, but others don't know this about you. This is where you wear a mask to cover those things that you want to hide based on how based on how you think people would feel about you if they were to know the truth. The third area is the unknown area that's deep in our unconscious, our subconscious behaviour. It's unknown to others and it's unknown to us. And this is where you need an experienced coach to help you to uncover those things based on your conditioning from the experiences and beliefs and meanings in your brain patterning from past experience. And the final area are your blind spots. They're the things that others can clearly see, but you can't, or in a lot of cases, you have enough evidence to know that they're there, but you won't see them because for whatever reason you think owning up to those blind spots is going to make you less than. And I know for me, this was a big area in my corporate career where people would tell me things, but I didn't want to know because if I knew those things and I could overcome them, then I'd have to change, and that was a bit uncomfortable and scary. So, those four areas of the Johari window give you the ability to see into your behaviour. So, the first area is to identify those blind spots, those things that others can see that you can't.
Number two is to list your strengths and your weaknesses. One of the most challenging yet the most empowering things that you can do in your life is be totally and brutally honest with yourself. Starting with your strengths, write out a list of all the things that you excel in. Once you've got that list, have a look at what are your top five, those things that truly are easy and effortless, and that bring you results all the time. Once you've identified your strengths, repeat the process for the areas that aren't getting you the results that you want. They're your areas for development and both those strengths and those areas for development will give you a complete picture of what you need to work on. Now, in the case of our strengths, that would be to leverage them and make sure that we're getting everything out of them that we can. And our areas for development are where we can incrementally grow in our quest for continual improvement.
The third key is to ask for feedback, getting help from people who want you to succeed is extremely important. The ability to ask others for help is a strength and remaining open to insights and feedback from others is the only way that you're going to get a true current reality, which is a start line to enable you to move forward and finally get those results that you want. Remember, perception is reality. So, what other people see is their version of the truth. The key here is to listen without taking it personally, focus on the issues that they're talking about, and thank them for caring enough to tell you these things. So, the third key step is to ask others to get involved, because remember, they can see things that you can't. They see things differently. And when we put those two perspectives together, we've got a picture that we can work with; one that is our current true reality. It's an Accurate Self-Assessment where instead of wanting to be here or thinking that I'm here, you know exactly where you are in the areas that you need to work on right now.
So, there you have it: a proven three-step process to get you up to the start line, ready and able to move forward towards the results that you want right now. Accurate Self-Assessment is the best gift that you can give yourself on this journey of continual improvement. Well, that's it from me for another week. Make sure that you subscribe and share this episode with others and join me again next week, where we continue this journey of Emotional Intelligence, working in the first quadrant of Self-Awareness by helping you to discover the power within you. I'll see you then.
