Self Awareness: know yourself first

There is a discussion about self awareness and behaviour preferences under the “About YOU” tab on the NavBar, and how this relates specifically to goal setting. It’s a useful [but not essential] read before continuing with this section.

You and I fit into one of these basic personality types, which define the way we interact with other people, the way we go about life, our personal drivers and how we succeed. We will often relate better to people who have a similar behaviour profile, and find other behaviour patterns annoying and maybe even a little intimidating.

So your behaviour and the behaviour of the people around you, has a major impact on how you form relationships with each other – and birds of a feather tend to flock together!

So what are the 4 behaviour types? In a nutshell they are:

Dove: The compassionate and peaceful dove. The dove is people-orientated, loyal, friendly, hard working and a great team player but tends to avoid change, confrontation, risk-taking and assertiveness.

Owl: The wise owl. The owl is logical, mathematically minded, methodical and sometimes seen as a perfectionist. The owl can be slow to make decisions and inflexible if rules and logic says otherwise – it’s a case of ‘paralysis by analysis’. Owls are not big risk takers but love detail.

Peacock: The showy peacock. The peacock loves talking, being the centre of attention, has passion/ enthusiasm and is happy/ optimistic. Peacocks can be accused of talking too much, and aren’t good with detail or time-control.

Eagle: The bold eagle. Eagles are dominant, stimulated by challenge, decisive and direct. Eagles can be blunt/ stubborn, can lose sight of the big-picture and can be insensitive to other people’s needs. Eagles are natural achievers.

So what bird are you? There’s a DOPE test in the ToolBOX, under the Life Planning Workbook – to help you find out if you’re not sure.

You Inc is a potent and practical approach to gaining everything you want to achieve. Such as asking better questions, establishing what you want to achieve, learn what holds you back, deal with obstacles, change in the moment, avoid the 5 worst business mistakes, build a world class culture, perfect the power of visualisation and activate achievable time-management strategies.

So I’m a bird – now what?

If you know what type of bird you are, you can analyse your characteristics – with particular focus on what this means for your self awareness and your relationships with other people.

For example:

• Doves want time to adjust, stability, appreciation and a schedule but tend to procrastinate and lack a sense of urgency.

  So if you’re a dove, you need to learn to adjust quickly to unexpected changes, be more assertive and less possessive of information/space/things.

• Owls want organisation, rules, standards and explanations, and don’t like taking big risks.

  So if you’re an Owl, you need to learn to make quicker decisions, be more tolerant of foibles and be more flexible.

• Peacocks want popularity, influence, acceptance, persuasion power and to be around people, but tend to have difficulty with time management and organisation.

  So if you’re a Peacock, you need to learn to be aware of your impact on other people and develop more specific plans and actions.

• Eagles want challenges, freedom, power, quick results, authority, action and change, but tend to be blunt and fail to delegate effectively.

  So if you’re an Eagle, you need to learn to be sensitive to other people’s needs, undertake long-range planning and communicate in a more approachable manner.

This is just a small set of examples – and personalities are way more complex than what I can summarise in a couple of paragraphs.

The point of this exercise though is to get you to realise that everyone is different and behaves and reacts differently. And if you can gain some self awareness of how YOU behave and react, then you will have a much clearer idea of how you affect the people around you – and how you can use this to your advantage!

What bird are you? Tell us about it and help other birds understand who they are.

Me-commerce is the mechanism by which you can develop and exploit your assets, skills and character to achieve personal and financial success and balance in your life. We make plans for other people. We make profits for them. We think strategically at work but not at home. This book will put a stop to all this. It is a manual to help you realise your full potential, by putting yourself first for a change.

You’re not just a bird…

Of course, the behaviour profile is a great way to analyse how you interact with other people, but self awareness is also about other stuff that is personal to you, and is a function of your experiences and life to date.

A personal SWOT analysis [Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats] is a great way to do this. See the section on 'Decision Making' under the “Life Skills” tab to find out how to do a SWOT analysis.

And in terms of self awareness for EQ, it’s particularly important to identify your strong and weak traits [the DOPE test will help with this] and more importantly, which strengths you can capitalise on and which weaknesses you need to strengthen in order for you to be a success.

So I strongly recommended that you take this self awareness journey – after all, your success is all about YOU!

Providing simple yet effective strategies for self-improvement, The psychology of winning is based on the idea that building self-esteem, self-confidence and self-responsibility at the start of the student's programme leads to increased retention as well as academic success.