Self awareness is the foundation of personal growth and success. Daniel Goleman calls it the 'keystone' of emotional intelligence. Find out how one of the most powerful tools recognised by leading psychologists and change agents can revolutionise your life starting today.

Recognise and understand your emotions and you have the power to control them. This kind of self awareness makes it impossible for your emotions to rule you. Unless you choose to give them the upper hand.

Men and women are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds. Roosevelt's insight, shared by thought leaders around the world, points to an opportunity for the ultimate prison break. You can escape reacting to events and emotions and learn to choose your response to any situation.

In the Prison Break television series Michael Scofield's freedom came as a result of learning the system well. The freedom to choose your response and not be a prisoner to reactions also comes as a result of learning the system well. In this case the system is you. You have to know yourself.

Emotional intelligence consists of four basic capabilities, or domains. These are:

Use the links above to find out about the other domains or get an overview of emotional intelligence here.

Before you can make changes in yourself you have to know what there is to work with. Becoming self-aware is about the process of understanding yourself.

Emotional awareness means being able to recognise emotions that you experience, understand the feelings associated with the emotion, and understand what you think and do as a result.

Professional sportsmen and women get intensive training to help them recognise and overcome emotions during a game.

It's essential they don't allow their performance to be affected by frustration or anger.

To increase your emotional awareness download this audio session to discover your identity and develop a strong sense of who you are using the gentle persuasion of hypnosis.

When you're aware of your strengths and limits you'll be more confident about what you can and cannot do. Self-confident people are more assertive about what they believe to be right.

Being assertive doesn't mean you always get your way but rather that you convey your thoughts and ideas confidently and justify why you believe a particular decision or idea is the right one.

According to Daniel Goleman the competencies associated with self-awareness are:

Awareness of self and emotions can be developed. Spend some time recognising areas you need to develop and intentionally making an effort to develop or strengthen that aspect of yourself.

So, how can you become more aware of your strengths and areas for development?

You could

In reality a combination of all three of these is best.

Emotionally intelligent people plan to put time aside to build self awareness. One way to do this is to meditate or reflect daily.

This means that you plan to create a quiet space for yourself in the day, away from work or other activities, and spend time focusing on doing something that opens your mind to deeper thoughts.

Values, beliefs and assumptions

Values are the principles, standards, morals, ethics and ideals that guide our lives. Knowing your values is an essential part of building awareness of yourself.

Knowing your values is like following a well sign-posted road. You're comfortable and secure because you know where you are, you know where you're heading, and you're confident, relaxed and happy knowing you're on the right road.

Here's a great personal assessment I created to help you discover your values. Complete the other three parts of this assessment for a complete awareness building exercise.

Assumptions

Developing awareness of the assumptions we hold about others is an important aspect of emotional intelligence. Self awareness also means that we shouldn't ignore the assumptions we hold about ourselves.

Assumptions about ourselves can be positive or negative. Negative assumptions include thoughts such as Bad things always happen to me or I dont know enough to start my own business. Positive assumptions might include thoughts such as If I keep trying I will be successful or People are inherently good.

Spend some time thinking about a challenging task you performed recently. Can you think of one? It could be work related, or something you did at home.

The beliefs that we have about ourselves are important as they determine our behaviour.

To have greater self awareness or understanding means to have a better grasp of reality. Dalai Lama

Self awareness is the essential building block for emotional intelligence. Becoming self aware is a journey and we'll probably spend a life time learning about ourselves. But as we improve self awareness we also improve our experience of life, create opportunities for better work life balance , become aware of our emotions, and improve our ability to respond to change.

Take the next step to emotional intelligence - Self Regulation

Original post:
Develop Self Awareness To Build Emotional Intelligence