Increase Your Self-Perception and Become Aware of Your Blind "Spot" with These Resources

This month, we focus on?SELF-PERCEPTION. Self-awareness is a valuable professional skill, especially for leadership.?In this newsletter, I'll:

• Introduce the Johari Window and talk about how what we know (and don't know) about ourselves intersects with what others know (and don't know) about us to create our self-perception.
• Offer resources to help you gain greater consciousness about your open, hidden, blind, and unknown "areas" so that you'll be empowered to transform your self-perception as you evolve through life.

As a communication expert and coach, I share insights, tips, and resources to help you communicate from the inside out by connecting the heart and the mind. These lessons are concise highlights from the intensive work I do in my Ivy League and top tier collegiate classrooms and with private and corporate clients. I'm happy to share these with you here to help you become a more effective communicator.

How do we perceive ourselves?

Who are you? This question gets to the core of self-perception and the answer is influenced (and limited) by:

1. What you know about yourself, and
2. What others know about you.

As with any relationship, the longer we spend with our own selves, the more we discover about who we are and how we evolve over time and across circumstances. Humans are complex, but we're going to look at a simple model called the Johari Window which gives us an easy starting point to begin processing this lifelong journey to answer the question "Who am I?"

What is the Johari Window?

The Johari Window* is a visual model that shows us how what we know about ourselves intersects with what others know about us. It has four quadrants which are shown in the illustration below. The more aware we are of this information about us from each of these quadrants, the better our ability to more fully perceive ourselves.

1. OPEN. This area is the intersection of what we know about ourselves and what others know about us, too. You're aware of these aspects and openly share them with others. Think of things like your name, your pronouns, your profession, places where you've worked -- the types of things you've publicly listed on your LinkedIn profile. A strong Personal Brand fits into this Open Area.
2. BLIND. This area is the intersection of what we DON'T know about ourselves BUT what others DO know about us. Others can see these aspects but we do not. This could be things like strengths or weaknesses, talents, or biases. What I love about this area is that it highlights how we can learn a lot about ourselves when we are in relationship with other people.
3. HIDDEN. This area is the intersection of what we know about ourselves BUT what others DON'T know about us. You're aware of these aspects but choose not to share them with others. For some professionals it could be things like health-related information, traumas, triggers, or personal aspects like your dating or sex life that you want to keep private from your coworkers and clients. When I coach my clients, it's often the Hidden Area that offers us rich insights -- what we choose to keep hidden tells a story about our values and beliefs. And sometimes those values and beliefs are outdated and not in alignment with who we want to become.
4. UNKNOWN. This area is the intersection of what NO ONE KNOWS about us -- including ourselves. I personally find this the most exciting area to explore because it represents the unconscious mind. When the unconscious mind is out of alignment with our conscious mind, we introduce resistance into our lives which makes things more difficult for us because we end up working against ourselves. The Unknown Area offers huge potential for personal transformation when we can move aspects of this area into our consciousness and create alignment.

Johari Window Illustration

*Information and image recreated from the textbook "Business and Professional Communication Putting People First" by Kory Floyd and Peter W. Cardon (2020, McGraw-Hill Education), p. 112-113.

How can you discover aspects about yourself in the four quadrants of the Johari Window?

Here are some free resources that will help you to explore the Open, Blind, Hidden, and Unknown Areas of the Johari Window.

• This Personal Brand Worksheet Exercise will help you to explore the Open and Blind areas. You'll be asked to think about how you describe yourself (Open area) and gather feedback from several other people (Blind area) for how they describe you.

• This Core Values Discovery Exercise will help you to become conscious (Unknown area) of what you currently value the most. Discover what values resonate with you by completing this 3-step worksheet. Allow 20 to 30 minutes for this exercise.
• One-on-one coaching with me will help you to explore the Hidden areas of your self-perception. We'll take a look at your goals, your values and belief systems, your mindset, and then work to align your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors so that you're moving towards your goals and the life that you want for yourself. If you'd like to work with me, connect with me/send me a message here on LinkedIn.

About this newsletter:

Conscious communication is a tool that connects us to ourselves and to others in meaningful ways. As with any tool, the more skillful we are at using it, the better the results we achieve. Communication is an important tool because when we do it well it leads to better relationships.

For more than 20 years, I’ve worked with thousands of people from all over the world to increase their consciousness and improve their business communication and public speaking skills so that they can get to the good stuff in life, faster.

So, my goal with this monthly newsletter is to share my expertise in the field of interpersonal communication as a leader, award-winning educator, and coach who helps people transform their work and lives through conscious communication.