The leaves drained themselves off the water its cavities couldn’t resist holding a few hours after the clouds graced the earth with their tears. It was the first rain in 10 months. As she watched the wonder of nature through her window pane, she couldn’t hold back the chuckle her mind sent to her face.
“Beautiful!” She thought.
Her mind tried pacing with her eyes, a thought flashed its rays through the street of her mind clouding it with sadness and resentment. Losing her last three jobs to ineffectiveness made her lose her glow. She adhered to Halima’s advice and started offering catering services but somehow couldn’t cope with it demands. A week later, here she stands beneath the roof of her room, seeking answers as she feasts her eyes on nature through her window pane.
“What could be wrong with me?” Zoe thought while caressing the cold window pane.
Self-awareness is the thing, with a compass. It helps you navigate through the mountains, seas, valleys, and lands of life. Self-awareness is one key to being effective in life.
What Is Self-Awareness?
Self-awareness is simply reaching the author of your life to discover and understand your reason for existence while uncovering and unleashing your potential to yield productivity, effectiveness, and relevance in life.
Why Is Self-Awareness a Necessity?
From the above story, we saw how Zoe lost three jobs and couldn’t cope with catering. We can have a long list of options to pick from as to why she couldn’t keep up with the jobs in catering. But an in-depth analysis of Zoe’s situation will reveal that whatever we pick from the long list of options we may have in our heads, it all boils down to Zoe’s lack of self-awareness.
Let’s Dive Deeper.
Before Zoe got the three jobs it is assumed she applied for the position she was given. Her ineffectiveness could be a result of a lack of passion or loss of interest at ease. The list goes on. This is typical of some individuals. When you have a sense of self-awareness, effectiveness at your duties won’t be a mountain to climb. You won’t easily be turf off your job or lose passion for it because you are aware of the verse potential you have to be effective at it.
Also, when Halima advised Zoe to start offering catering services, she suggested catering probably because she knew catering pays well. Zoe couldn’t keep up. Self-awareness gives you focus and helps you identify your potential, knowing the areas of life you can best explore. It’s self-awareness that brings you to the point of knowing you will suck at fashion designing but you will be a pro at catering. Self-awareness has the power to take you from being a gatekeeper at a firm to becoming the CEO of a security agency.
Effects Of Lack Of Self-Awareness
1. Easily Confused and Convinced.
Imagine a man who is holding a touch light but has no ounce of idea of what he is holding or what it is used for. He can be easily convinced by someone that he is holding a weapon. He can also be easily confused, upon his past conviction that he is holding a nail driver. This is just the effect of a lack of awareness. Zoe also suffered from that. You will find it hard to make the right choices because you have no clue about your abilities as a person. You will easily be swayed by people’s opinions of your abilities.
2. Losing Passion at Ease And Ineffectiveness.
When you have no knowledge of your inherent abilities, you will settle for just anything that graces your gaze. And because you are settling for just anything, you can easily be opted out or opt out yourself because the passion that fuels your effectiveness isn’t aligned with what you are doing. As a major consideration, passion determines your effectiveness.
3. Abuse of Potentials.
Dr. Myles Munroe stated, “When the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable.” You can’t explore the effectiveness or beauty of using a plastic bowl to cook as much as using it to hold water. In fact, the plastic bowl will melt immediately if you put it on a heat source. That’s equivalent to abusing the potential of the bowl. Hence, when you are unaware of your true self, you are liable to misuse/ignore the verse potentials you have in you.
4. Mediocrity and Complacency.
Mediocrity is simply living below the standard you can, and should live. Complacency is settling for what you have even if you can have much more. These two words are intertwined. When God created you and gave you the potential to be the managing director of a multimillion-dollar firm but you settle for being the secretary, you are being complacent and settling for mediocrity because of a lack of self-awareness. A lot of times, we have settled for mediocrity because we have no idea of the potential we have to achieve greater feats.
5. Negative Self-Opinions.
A lack of self-awareness breeds low self-esteem or negative opinions of oneself. You can easily belittle yourself when you have no idea of how rich in great abilities you are.
In essence, self-awareness is key to effectiveness, growth, and success in life.
As a guide to overcoming low self-esteem, here is an affirmation to practice.
