What is Self Awareness? (And Why We Get It Wrong)

Ask what not why

I used to think that I was self-aware because I did a lot of self-reflection. However, I spent more time ruminating on my own thoughts and feelings than finding answers to them.

When I researched what being self-aware meant, I came across Tasha Eurich’s research on self-awareness and I was surprised.

The Eurich group has done a lot of research on self-awareness and have come to find that most people believe that they are self-aware but only about 10% to 15% of people that they studied were actually self aware. This study involved “nearly 5,000 participants”.

The most interesting finding was that “people who introspect are less self aware and report worse job satisfaction and wellbeing”.

I felt personally targeted by this research so I took Tasha Eurich’s Insight Quiz to find out more about my level of self-awareness. The quiz has two parts so I also asked my partner (the person who knows me best) to rate my level of self-awareness.

To my surprise, I discovered that my self-awareness level was low, and I had been approaching introspection the wrong way.

Therefore to understand self-awareness better, we will talk about what is self-awareness, the two types of self-awareness and how…