Chapter 6
Self-AWARENESS
Construction Stage 1.3: Acquiring and Allotting Financial Resources
SAL Model Stage 1.3: Self-Awareness
"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."
—Carl Jung
Acquiring self-awareness is a metaphorical analogue to acquiring the workers, materials, and most importantly—the cash (or credit)—required to build a skyscraper.
Likewise, earning Existential Growth and freedom are contingent upon acquiring extensive amounts of self-awareness over time. Just as you will not make any tangible construction progress without cash (or credit), you will not make any significant progress as a self-action leader without a keen awareness of self.
This awareness includes a clear comprehension of your strengths and weaknesses, assets and liabilities, needs and desires, mission and vision, objectives and goals, and a host of other relevant variables involving yourself and the rest of the world as it relates to you.
"Know Thyself."
—Socrates
Truly knowing oneself is a tough, tricky, and time-consuming business!
But it is possible; and for those who consistently and persistently pursue it, self-awareness can be an incredibly enriching journey.
It certainly has been for me!
Honest self-awareness is the only authentic antidote to self-deception. It is an absolutely indispensable ingredient in Existential Growth and freedom.
SAL revolves around self-awareness in both principle and practice. Self-awareness is obtained through a brutally honest and ongoing assessment of REALITY as it relates to YOU and other people and things.
Self-awareness also involves recognizing, acknowledging, and then humbly accepting the existence and incontrovertibility of True Principles, Universal Laws, and other objective realities.
Self-awareness is achieved through self-observation, self-examination, and obtaining feedback from others (1). Let's address these three items in course.
Self-observation involves noticing and then carefully observing your own thoughts, words, and actions to discover what you are doing, when you are doing it, and most importantly: why you are doing it. The goal of self-observation is to obtain the self-awareness necessary to effectively direct and manage your behavior, and when necessary, to alter or change it. (2)
Self-examination incorporates various goal-setting and other SAL strategies aimed at discovering your life's purpose. (3) Self-examination helps you obtain greater clarity about who you are and what your purpose in life is. It also involves discovering your authentic, original, and unique voice within a framework of your life's true calling.
Specific methods of self-examination will be provided in a later chapter.
Self-observation and self-examination should be ongoing pursuits of self-action leaders on all levels of Existential Growth.
Getting feedback from others is among the most important habits and skills a self-action leader can ever practice and develop. However, doing so is not always easy. To open yourself to feedback, you must be willing to listen to and accept constructive feedback or even criticism.
That can be hard!
But there is no way around it if you want to progress to the highest levels of the SAL Hierarchy.
Simply stated, no one person will ever be smarter or wiser than all of the People. No matter how innately self-aware your or I may be, we all have blind spots. Moreover, all of us are also stuck inside our own head and body. As such, we simply cannot see and hear everything that others can see and hear. Therefore, we can always benefit from obtaining feedback from others.
My Story
During my freshman year of college, I experienced a heartbreaking romantic rejection.
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| JJ during his college years Delicate Arch in southeastern Utah Circa 2001 |
Despite the relatively shallow nature of our relationship, this rejection was extremely painful and traumatic for me. It interrupted my life's emotional balance so severely that I decided to enter extended psychotherapy for the first time in my life.
In hindsight, this "rejection" was most likely the result of personality incompatibilities and the absence of physical chemistry on the part of the woman. Nevertheless, for better or for worse, I always assumed that all romantic rejections were at least partially—if not mostly—my fault.
This partially skewed perception of reality wreaked havoc with my thoughts, emotions, and inner security.
Nevertheless, the situation had a silver lining.
As bad as it hurt to think that this failed relationship signaled a personal failure on my part, I deeply desired to know how my Existential Standing at the time—as well as my approach to the relationship—might have contributed to my failure.
In other words, I was prepared to authentically engage self-observation, self-examination, and obtain feedback from others in an effort to dissect the situation and then make necessary adjustments to grow personally and avoid similar pain and trauma in the future.
At this point in my life, it was clear to me that I had some glaring SAL deficiencies. Moreover, my mental hygiene was also suffering—a result of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and the accompanying retardation of my social development during my teenage years.
As painful a realization as this was, I knew that if I was ever going to enjoy a healthy romantic relationship with a woman, I needed to address the underlying causes of my faults. Pathological as my disappointment was, I knew it would be wrong for me to blame the girl for rejecting me.
So, I decided to take a careful look deep down inside myself (self-observation) to see where I might have gone wrong (self-examination). I further engaged psychotherapy and the advice and counsel or others (feedback) to help me develop a more successful game plan for the future.
It was perhaps a bit naïve, unfair, and myopic to assume that this rejection was all—or even mostly—my fault. Again, it may have largely been a result of natural lack of physical attraction or personality compatibility on the woman's part—and there's only so much a guy can do to overcome those variables.
Nevertheless, I came to realize over time the inherent power in searching deeply within myself for my own problems and weaknesses—as well as the solutions to them.
This period of my life marked the beginning of my journey toward mental, emotional, and social health—the kind of health that would be required for me to eventually achieve success in romance and other areas of my life and career.
"When people succeed they tend to party; when they fail, they tend to ponder."
—Tony Robbins
Robbins is right, and that is precisely why failure can be such a tremendous blessing in disguise. When we sincerely ponder (self-observation and self-examination) and seek out guidance from wiser, more experienced persons (feedback), we gain self-awareness that can help us "to make new distinctions that will enhance the quality of [our] lives." (5)
Theoretically speaking, the wisest course to take through life is always to learn from the mistakes of others. But practically speaking, there are some lessons you can learn only through personal experience. These times can serve as golden opportunities to ponder, increase self-awareness, and grow.
These lessons hurt, yes!
Sometimes badly.
But pain can be our ally if it produces the necessary motivation to change, improve, and ultimately succeed.
There is a famous quote that goes like this: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. I like this quote, but acknowledge that it skips the vital step of increasing self-awareness and appropriately altering your game plan before you try again.
It does no good to try again if your plan is flawed to begin with. As previously mentioned, "Insanity is doing the same things over and over again while expecting a different result." (6)
"Insanity is doing the same things over and over again while expecting a different result."
—Anonymous
At Freedom Focused, we adjust the proverbial "Try Again" quote in deference to the wisdom found in the "Insanity Quote" to formulate a SAL Mantra as follows:
SAL Mantra
If at first you don't succeed, figure out why, make a new game plan, and then try again.
Despite the devastation I felt over being rejected romantically, I knew if I wanted to someday succeed in romance, I needed to work on my own insecurities, lack of self-awareness, social immaturities, and troubled mental and emotional states.
Opting to take complete personal responsibility for my failure, I went to work—heeding along the way the sage advice of M. Scott Peck, who wrote:
"We cannot solve life's problems except by solving them. This statement may seem idiotically tautological and self-evident, yet it is seemingly beyond the comprehension of much of the human race. ... We cannot solve a problem by saying 'it's not my problem.' We cannot solve a problem by hoping that someone else will solve it for us. I can solve a problem only when I say, 'This is my problem and it's up to me to solve it.' But many, so many, seek to avoid the pain of their problems by saying to themselves: 'This problem was caused by other people, or by social circumstances beyond my control, and therefore it is up to other people or society to solve this problem for me. It is not really my personal problem.'" (7)
The first step to improving my mental hygiene was admitting that my mental hygiene needed work. My mental, emotional, and social problems—and the pain and failure they caused—were real and intense. But the responsibility for these problems were mine and mine alone; there was no use in blaming my circumstances on anyone else.
My OCD was my problem, and it was my responsibility to confront it head on.
In addition to entering regular psychotherapy and taking medication, I also accepted Og Mandino's 45-week self-help success challenge as outlined in his book, The Greatest Secret in the World. (8) I dedicated myself to fulfilling this program with a religiosity borne of my quest to improve my circumstances and circumvent unnecessary suffering and failure in the future.
In light of my full-time class schedule, part-time work, participation in the school play, family time, and a fledgling social and dating life, I knew completing this challenge—which required time and attention three (3) times a day, five (5) days a week for 45 straight weeks—would take tremendous discipline, focus, determination, and stickie-ta-tudy. (10)
This made my successful completion of the challenge very satisfying, and my eventual success in romance very satisfying.
This unique and extended self-action research project, in conjunction with my ongoing commitment to psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy, self-help, and spirituality laid a firm foundation for bringing about significant growth and improvements to my mental, emotional, and social life. (9)
And it all began with Self-Awareness!
- In what ways have you already engaged in self-observation, self-examination, and obtaining feedback in your life and/or career?
- What could you do to improve your own self-observation, self-examination, and obtainment of feedback in your life and/or career?
- Make a list of your strengths and weaknesses. Do not look at or answer any additional questions on this list until you have completed these two lists. When you are finished, come back and answer the rest of the questions in your journal.
- Which list was easier to make?
- Which list was longer?
- How honest and complete were you in making these two lists?
- Were you more honest and complete in listing your strengths or weaknesses?
- What emotions did you experience while making your list of strengths?
- What emotions did you experience while making your list of weaknesses?
- What weaknesses can you realistically work on/through on your own?
- What weaknesses will you realistically need the help of others to successfully work on/through?
- What is one action you could take TODAY that would assist you in further refining or polishing one of your strengths?
- What is one action you could take TODAY that would move you forward in the direction of working positively and productively on one of your weaknesses?
—Dr. JJ
Author's Note: This is the 433rd Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 239th consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.
Click HERE for a compete listing of the other 432 FF Blog Articles
Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL QUOTES
Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL POEMS
Click HERE to access the FULL TEXT of Dr. JJ's Psalms of Life: A Poetry Collection
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Chapter 6 Notes
1. Neck, C. P., & Manz, C. C. (2010). Mastering Self-Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence (Fifth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Pages 17-19.
2. Ibid. Pages 17-18.
3. Ibid. Page 19.
4. Robbins, A. (1991). Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical, and Financial Destiny. New York, NY: Free Press. Page 43.
5. Ibid.
6. The origin of this business-cultural “definition of insanity” is unclear, although it is frequently misattributed to Albert Einstein.
7. Peck, M. S. (1978). The Road Less Traveled. New York, NY: Touchstone. Pages 32-33.
8. Mandino, O. (1978). The Greatest Secret in the World. New York, NY: Bantam Books. Page 2.
9. "Stickie-ta-tudy" is a term coined by Jens Nielson (1821-1906), a 19th century Latter-Day Saint pioneer, who invented the term to describe the ability to "Stick" to a task until it is accomplished or completed. Nielson's verbatim quote reads: "We must go on ... If we have plenty of stickie-ta-tudy we cannot fail." See URL: https://www.hirf.org/NielsonJens.html for more information.
10. Jensen, J.R. (2013). Self-Action Leadership: An Autoethnographic Analysis of Self-Leadership through Action Research in Support of a Pedagogy of Personal Leadership. Volume 3. UMI Number: 3592738. Pages 641-656. (Dr. JJ's Doctoral Dissertation)
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