Communication Strategies: Growing in Self-Awareness

Because self-awareness is so important in communication, try to increase awareness of your own needs, desires, habits, beliefs, and attitudes. You can do this in various ways.

Listen to others. Conveniently, others are constantly giving you the very feedback you need to increase self-awareness. In every interaction people comment on you in some way—on what you do, what you say, how you look. Sometimes these comments are explicit: “Loosen up” or “Don’t take things so hard.” Often they’re “hidden” in the way others look at you—in the expressionless face that indicates disagreement or disappointment or the broad smile that says, “I think you’re wonderful.”

Increase your open self. Revealing yourself to others will help increase your self-awareness. As you talk about yourself, you may see connections that you had previously missed. With feedback from others, you may gain still more insight. By increasing your open self, you also increase the chances that others will reveal what they know about you.

Seek information about yourself. Encourage people to reveal what they know about you. Use situations that arise every day to gain self-information: “Do you think I came down too hard on the kids today?” “Do you think I was assertive enough when asking for the raise?” But seek this self-awareness in moderation. If you do it too often, your friends will soon look for someone else with whom to talk.

Dialogue with yourself. No one knows you better than you know yourself. Ask yourself self-awareness questions: What motivates me to act as I do? What are my short-term and long-term goals? How do I plan to achieve them? What are my strengths and weaknesses?