EP: 16: HOW TO GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY: TASHA EURICH ON SELF AWARENESS

Dr. Tasha Eurich is an organizational psychologist, researcher, and New York Times best-selling author of “Insight: Why We're Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and in Life

Tasha has thoroughly studied the science of self-awareness and has helped thousands of people improve their personal and professional effectiveness. Tasha believes that heightening self-awareness is essential for success today and self-understanding positively affects work performance, career satisfaction, leadership potential and relationships

I think we all know someone like a co-worker or manager who thinks he’s a brilliant presenter or thinks he is well loved in the office but in reality they are far from it. But how often do we stop to consider whether we might have the similar problems?

Do you understand how others really see you?

According to Tasha’s research, 95 percent of the population believes they’re self-aware, but the reality is that only 10 to 15 percent actually are.

So the majority of you are not self aware. Ok, so what?

A recently published working paper from Paul Green and Francesca Gino of Harvard, and Bradley Staats of the UNC, caught people avoiding criticism - a specific type of criticism where they thought they were doing a good job but then were told they were not, this is called “disconfirmatory” feedback.

They show’ed that when disconfirmatory feedback was given, workers would then avoid contact with the people who had given them the unwelcome comments.

The problem is that “disconfirmatory” is the most useful type of feedback there is. If I’m blind to the mistakes I’m making I really need someone to explain what I’m doing wrong, however uncomfortable or it gets I just get worse.

We have blind spots; things we do, issues we have that we just cannot see from our subjective vantage point. 

And if we were more self aware, more open to feedback, they could be revealed to you for positive change, promotion, new position, better relationships, new relationships and on and on. 

To the my fellow Googlers out there listening, this will help you with Perf (or anyone working for an organization that has regular performance reviews). Believe me, you can really benefit from what Tasha has to say. 

But also, even if you don’t have regular reviews, she says self insight is a meta skill and can be applied to improve many areas of life. 

Give it a listen.

Some of what we discuss in this episode. 

• Self awareness as a necessary component of happiness
• Why self awareness is a meta skill
• Why insight is more important the higher up the corporate ladder
• On Dunning Kruger and inappropriate confidence
• How much should we care how others see us?
• How to use social media (Facebook)
• What Tasha thinks of personality testing  
• How to handle performance reviews
• How do you deal with negative feedback
• How self awareness can help someone bounce back from a setback
• The Miracle Question and how to properly ask it
• On the benefits of journaling
• Mindfulness without meditation