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Art of Self Awareness

Overview

Before we complete the outward journey of knowing and understanding the world, we need to complete the internal journey of knowing ourselves. The Art of Self Awareness is devised from The Johari Window model of self-awareness, which was developed by American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in 1955. It is an excellent tool for understanding yourself and enhancing your awareness of the quadrants of your personality. It is brilliant for developing Self- Awareness.

The Johari Window has four regions, which are the complete representation of one's self. These are:

Open Area – Known by self and others
Blind Area – Known by others
Hidden Area – Known by self
Unknown Area – Unknown to self and others

The size of the region can change accordingly to reflect the appropriate proportions.

Objectives

Enhance Self-Awareness
Enhance Self-Awareness within a Group
Better Connections and Improved Reliability
Increase the size of the Open Area

The Art of Self-Awareness

The Art of Self-Awareness is the ability to deep dive within oneself with the help of others and improve self-understanding by exploring unchartered territories of your personality. When a person is new within a group, the Open Area of this person would be low, as there is very little information about this person known by the group. However, as time passes, more information is revealed to the group, and the Open Area gradually increases.

An individual can explore their Blind Area, which is known to others, by getting feedback. The feedback can be utilized to enhance understanding of your unrecognized patterns and improve. It can also provide great insight into your subconscious and involuntary actions. While the Hidden Area very rarely gets exposed to others, it is revealed to a very select few even if it is disclosed.

However, getting access to your Unknown Area can provide the key to unlock your latent abilities, aptitudes, feelings, and behaviors. When people know more of their unknown self, they find out the reason and the root cause of their specific actions; then, they can devise tools to rectify the undesired behaviors and facilitate desired behavior.

Open Area

The Quadrants of Self
The Four Quadrants of Self describe the Open Area, Blind Area, Hidden Area, and Unknown Area. These are the composite of all your known and unknown behaviors and traits.

Open Area
This area depicts the information about a person known to others and by them. This is an absolute transparency area and showcases an individual's attitude, knowledge, experience, skills, and opinions. The objective is to increase an individual's open area so that trust and understanding improve within them.

So, it is best to operate in the Open Area of functionality when working in a group, as it improves productivity by minimizing the possibility of misunderstandings and disruptions.

Blind Area

This area depicts the information that a person doesn't know about themselves; however, it is visible to others. An individual can increase their Open Area's size by actively seeking feedback from others and working on enhancing them. The others need to be careful while sharing feedback, as it needs to be delivered appropriately so that the individual doesn't become defensive and increase their Hidden Area. The input needs to be shared constructively and sensitively.

Hidden Area

This area depicts the information that a person knows about themselves; however, it is unknown to the group. By sharing certain hidden secrets, an individual can reduce their Hidden Area. This usually requires an encouraging, comfortable, and supportive environment. The information from the Hidden Area needs to be facilitated out from within an individual. The group around needs to be continuously supportive, as the information could be sensitive, like fears or hidden intentions.

Most of the Hidden Area remains hidden in a professional set-up, as they can be private and have no consequence on the organizational functionality. The objective is to disclose information relevant to the work scenario.

Unknown Area

This area depicts the information that is neither known to the person nor the group. This area of the individual is entirely unexplored and has never been tapped. It is challenging to access this area, as it is almost non-existential. This area contains suppressed experiences and feelings, which unknowingly but strongly affect a person's behavior.

Younger individuals are more likely to have a greater Unknown Area, as with age, individuals become more introspective and begin to explore this area suppressed within them. With experience comes better insight into latent emotions that govern our reactions to situations.

The Unknown areas of individuals within a group may lead to the non-utilization of talents that any individual might possess. Younger individuals cannot recognize these unknown abilities and require guidance to unlocking them. Also, understanding someone's latent fears will help keep them away from such triggers or work on resolving them.

Introspection

The road to self-discovery starts with introspection. We need to keep looking inwards at frequent intervals to know more about ourselves, like what drives us, why we fear certain things or situations, the reason behind that particular aversion, and why we desire something with such great intensity. We also need to understand why we hide certain things from people and present ourselves as someone different than who we are. Finding the answers to these questions is never easy; however, we can begin to unfold and unveil these facets of ourselves with continuous efforts.

It can be a conversation within yourself, or silent contemplation, or meditation. Taking time out for a little while in a day for yourself is good for overall personal development.

Soliciting Feedback

Asking for advice or suggestions for self-improvement from people you work closely with or are closely associated with is always recommended. People who have spent time around you would have observed you and seen certain traits that might not be visible to you. These could be small antics, idiosyncrasies, or reactions to certain situations that happen subconsciously, and you aren't aware of them.

By accepting feedback, we open ourselves up in front of people, which creates trust and belief in them. And presents the opportunity of correcting undesired behavior and facilitating desired behavior to improve group dynamics.

Group Discussions

Talking and sharing and helping other's talk and communicate within a group is highly recommended. This helps create a strong bond between the people and a sense of camaraderie and trust. This also helps uncover many aspects of yourself due to the collective knowledge and experience present within the large group. Someone within the group might have experienced something similar to what you might have experienced and could suggest measures or a solution.

Group discussions are suitable for the team's overall health and improve trust, reliability, belief, cooperation, and coordination. As the personal dynamics within a group improves, so does its productivity, reducing disharmony and conflicts.

In the end, every organization, client, and employee is looking for a conducive and productive work environment that fosters the idea of democracy and equal opportunity.

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