Self-Awaking: The First Day of the Rest of My life

A Sense of Self is Critical to a Successful Self

"To give value to others, you have to begin by valuing yourself."

It's essential to have clarity of your own self before you can lead and bring value to others. Everything else will suffer if you first don’t understand yourself.

This dimension is about a person's deeper self, apart from a socialized self — in doing, working and thinking. This dimension of self-appreciation is ultimately about someone’s spiritual orientation and the sense of harmony someone feels with all existence. It’s clarity about who I am and where I am at this point in time.

In the behavioral science assessment tools we use, we can measure an individual's clarity of self.

The higher the clarity, the higher sense of self an individual has. In simple terms, they understand themselves at this point in time.

On the other end of the continuum, those with low clarity scores often feel disconnected or alienated. Medium clarity scores often indicate the feeling of potential within that should be developed.

Recently, I was leading a group coaching session and saw firsthand what can happen when someone has a very low sense of self. A young man clearly knew what he wanted to do for a career, but decided it would be too hard to get a position in the industry of his passion.

With his low sense of self, he had already given up before he had even started. I asked him why, and he had no answer. Then one of his colleagues sitting next to him said she had a contact in the industry and would be happy to make an introduction. It was a breakthrough moment for him and his peers.

Basically, when you have a high sense of self, you believe in YOU. This leads to transparency and an enhanced ability to get things done. After all, if you don’t believe in yourself, who will?

I’m not talking about ego here. Having a high sense of self breeds confidence — not cockiness. It doesn’t mean you have everything in your life all figured out. In fact, having a high sense of self helps you understand your weaknesses and leads to a sense of humility — not ego.

When I first learned about the Science of Self™ 14 years ago, it felt like the first day of the rest of my life. I understood the concept of having clarity of self, which then gave me the ability to increase that clarity. You can’t manage and develop something you don’t understand.

I now have a very high sense of self and incredible clarity on my weaknesses and flaws, and I try to be very transparent about them.

A high sense of self can give you clarity on your growth opportunities. When you have clarity of self, you can develop the "soft skills" that relate to self, like self-confidence, self-esteem, self-discipline and self-management. These soft skills are often the difference between an average leader and high-performing leader.

Having a sense of self is critical, because if you believe in yourself, you can accomplish whatever you plan to do. And, most importantly, you can easily increase your sense of self by focusing on it.

Through my personal plan and the strategy and talent plans for our businesses, my sense of self has helped me accomplish things I never dreamed would be possible.

So, how do you increase your sense of self? Here are some suggestions:

• Use behavioral science assessments to understand your level of clarity of self.
• Often a lower sense of self is from a past experience. Unpack and release any past challenges that may have resulted in your lower sense of self.
• Get a coach or counselor to help you talk through things about your sense of self.
• Discover your unique set of gifts and passions and put them to work in your life. People have a greater sense of self when they are excelling at what they love to do.
• If you are a parent, you play a key role in developing your child’s sense of self. Help your children understand who they are by defining their strengths and passions and guide them in determining where their “self” best fits into the world. The greater self-clarity they possess, the greater their self-confidence and self-esteem to accomplish their goals and dreams in life.
• Encourage others by helping them find clarity of self — ask questions that will help them do this.
• Execute a development plan to get more clarity of yourself.

In 2015, I want to inspire you to seek greater clarity of self, which will lead to you accomplishing great things in the new year. Have a profitable new year! Those who plan — profit!