Go Know Yourself

I need help! I don’t want to look back and think, I wish I did things differently, 16-year-old Brad was clear on what he needed from me during our first consultation session.

It is a common request by many of my typical clients. They are the clients who are driven and willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that they are on a path to find their bliss. They are not shy about networking and asking questions. They are also the ones willing to put in the necessary hard work to lead a life of successful endeavors. They have done the research and are empowered to move forward. Unfortunately, they have been misled by some people who told them that if they love what they do, they will never make mistakes nor have to work a day in their life.

Know Yourself

My response to Brad’s consultation request is always very simple and the same one I give to every client. It is based on the work of many theorists, in the career development field and beyond: Know yourself.

The challenge for me as a Coach is to explain to ambitious Brad that as long as he regularly checks in on who he is and is aware of his place in the world, he will rarely make a decision he will regret. While he can be happy at work, he needs to be aware that working requires a commitment that can be pleasant at times. Moreover, never having to work a day in his life is utter nonsense.

​To all the ambitious young people out there, this blog is for you!

Informed Decisions

Stop thinking that you will always make the right decisions. Start believing that you will rarely make a bad decision as long as it is an informed decision. What does an informed decision mean? For now, suffice to say, an informed decision is one that you will rarely regret. At present, your priority is to get to know YOU. Remember there is work to be done in your journey of self-knowledge and putting the effort is part of every successful journey.
​  ​
Don't try to find your bliss. Start by getting to know yourself. Know thyself is definitely not new advice. It was one of the maxims in Greek philosophy and exhaustively discussed by Socrates and Plato. To this day, self-knowledge continues to be valued in the fields of psychology, psychotherapy and counselling as well as career development.  

​Prioritize Self-knowledge

Self-knowledge is also prioritized by many career theories as the way to find career happiness. From Parsons’ foundational Trait and Factor Theory and beyond and including all the assessments that have been created, the objective is always to help you learn a little bit about who you are. Today, an evolution has surfaced expanding the definition of self-knowledge to include knowing your place in the world.

Develop Self-Knowledge

Self-knowledge is developed by two critical components, self-awareness and self-reflection. It leads to a life that meets your needs. More importantly, it drives you to experiences of personal significance and facilitates discovering your place in today’s world.

The key to effective self-knowledge lies in not looking at it as a one-time event. The reality is that getting to know who you are is a lifelong process. For example, the person you are today may be happy to party till the sun rises. The person you become in a few years may hate going to parties.

​What I am proposing may not be easy since it is an approach that involves regular check-ins. Not only will your view of partying change, so will your needs, desires values and the skills you develop along the way. Recognizing your individuality and the reality of this transformation shifts your focus to immediate meaningful choices.

To clarify further, self-knowledge is discovered by living a life of self-awareness and self-reflection. Self-awareness is about bringing your attention to personal data that reflect who you are such as, the way you interact with others, how you feel about certain activities or tasks, or your views on what is happening around you.

As soon as you engage in self-awareness, you couple all the information you are gathering with self-reflection. Self-reflection is about assessing the information conveyed by self-awareness to become acquainted with who you are and unravel what you want to do next.

Getting Started

Not sure where to start?

The hard way is to sit and write down what you know about you. Imagine you are your best friend and start typing what your friend would say about you.
Another way to get to know you is to take one or more of the many free online self-knowledge assessments. I recommend them as a place to start, particularly if you are trying to build self-knowledge with no support.

Check out my Complimentary Resources page for free online assessments. My personal favourite and the assessment tool of choice for many of my colleagues in the career practice field is the VIA Character Strengths Survey.

Bear in mind that in order to improve the effectiveness of any assessment, you have to reflect on its results with a caring adult, a mentor or a certified career coach. Working with a career coach facilitates the reflection. A coach requires you to meet and discuss any assessment you partake in. A discussion with a professional coach will involve targeted inquiry questions to help you in your journey of self-discovery.

​When I ask clients to describe their best friend’s qualities, likes/dislikes, talents, values, beliefs...They typically find it comfortable to talk about their friend. The labeling process is easier when talking about others. Regrettably, many young people go through their teens without knowing how to describe who they are.

What About Brad

My priority for Brad is therefore to introduce him to himself. By knowing who he is, he will rarely look back wishing he did things differently. In keeping with young people his age, conflicting emotional reactions presented when I asked him to describe himself. Try it out. Here is the question: Can you please help me to get to know you? How would you describe yourself?
How did you do?
Here is what Brad did to improve his vision of the process. 

The VIA Character Strengths Survey

Brad completed the VIA Character Strengths Survey to start the process of knowing who he is.

The VIA Character Strengths Survey is an assessment that through a series of questions highlights your top character strengths. The 24-character strengths that scientists identified and are reflected in the results are (1) appreciation of beauty and excellence, (2) bravery, (3) creativity, (4) curiosity, (5) fairness, (6) forgiveness, (7) gratitude, (8) honesty, (9) hope, (10) humility, (11) humour, (12) judgement, (13) kindness, (14) leadership, (15) love, (16) love of learning, (17) perseverance, (18) perspective, (19) prudence, (20) self-regulation, (21) social intelligence, (22) spirituality, (23) team work and (24) zest.

Each of these characters also represents one of six virtues namely (1) courage, (2) humanity, (3) justice, (4) temperance, (5) transcendence and (6) wisdom. Check out the website if interested in more details.

Once you complete the survey, you will receive an email with your results. The results highlight your character strengths starting with the strongest.  You do have to provide your email to receive your results, but you can unsubscribe as soon as you receive the email and save your report.

A paid option is also available if you would like a more detailed VIA Report but the free report provided is a great place to start your journey of self-knowledge. As a coach with a Pro Dashboard, I provide clients with a unique link invite and a VIA Report which increases the effective understanding of the results. Working with a coach can also help you understand your results more effectively as the coach will continue to build on the report through further tasks and targeted questioning.​

Build on Results

Reading your free report results is not enough on its own. It is time to use the results to increase self-awareness. Start by reading about and truly comprehending your top strength.

​Next, observe your daily actions while keeping your top character strength in mind to spot its use in your daily life. For example, my top character strength is gratitude. Upon self-observation, I quickly realized how reflective that character was of who I am as I noticed it in my actions and attitudes in a typical day. Following up with a mentor or a caring adult is very important. The follow up discussions can be extremely helpful as you get to know who you are.

​What Happened to Brad

Similarly, I encouraged Brad to look for his top strength, read about it on the VIA Institute on Character website and we discussed the detailed results. After authentic reflections on the VIA Report, my regular meetings with Brad continued to build his self-knowledge utilizing other assessments, tasks and targeted questions.
 
Once more, I invited Brad to respond to the question, can you please help me to get to know you? How would you describe yourself?

Brad was able to talk about his strengths and not surprisingly, without my prompts, discuss ideas to boost these strengths. The survey along with our conversations ultimately increased his motivation as he became engaged in self-reflection and mindful awareness.

Can you see how the process is working?
​
Try out the survey and share your top character strength. If you are not sure that the VIA Character Strengths Survey is for you, take the time to check out the Complimentary Resources on my website to launch your journey of self-knowledge.

​Discover your BEAVI©

Building on his commitment, I invited Brad to work on the Discover your BEAVI© chart. BEAVI is an acronym I came up with for the assessment tool I created and regularly use with my clients. BEAVI is an acronym for:
B — Beliefs
E — Experiences
A — Abilities/Skills
V — Values
I — Interests
Feel free to play around with the words to create your own acronym and share it. 

The task is a simple chart that invites you to reflect on your BEAVI and present them in a medium of your choice. With my support and assistance, clients proceed to unravel the value of these five factors through powerful inquisitive questioning and exercises that raise awareness, stimulate reflection, and provide in-depth insight into their BEAVI.

A Discover your BEAVI© result underscores each client’s unique repertoire. The assessment tool is very simple and its power lies in its simplicity. Clients are allowed to use technology to complete the chart if they choose. However, I encourage clients to initially reflect on their BEAVI without the use of technology. This is because I believe that relying on technology may take away the opportunity to be introspective when self-reflection and self-awareness are involved.

Your BEAVI, Your Way

Filling out the Discover your BEAVI© chart as your first assessment tool will also get you started on your journey of self-reflection. As I mentioned earlier and based on clients’ requests, I invite you to portray your BEAVI using any medium of your choice.

My question to you, if you had the option to share your BEAVI using any medium including but not limited to technology, what would you choose?

Clients chose to continue to build on this self-knowledge chart utilizing various tools such as YouTube videos, short reels, art pieces and essays. One client expressed his BEAVI by writing a poem. Take the challenge and start to get to know you. Remember to discuss your results with a mentor, a coach or a caring adult such as a parent or a teacher.  The discussion step is important to build on your results and increase your self-knowledge.
Brad provided a short reel using music he had created when he was 14 years old, the year he quit writing his own music and playing his guitar to start focusing on his future. He choreographed the reel and engaged his friends in the process.

Can you imagine what Brad learned about who he is in the process of creating the real with his BEAVI in mind?
​​
Continuous check ins with who are today are invaluable. Brad and I met after I received the reel and this time, he was ready for me. His response to the question, can you please help me to get to know you? How would you describe yourself? was confident, engaged and effortless.

Exploratory Experiences

Surveys and assessment tools are not for you?

Self-knowledge can also be developed through reflecting on exploratory experiences. I encourage you to take on new challenges and experiences. Whether volunteering or working in a paid environment, I assure you that by spending time getting engaged in your daily activities, you will learn a lot about who you are.

​Many experts agree that you don’t learn anything until you experience failure. Others share that nothing that has meaning is easy. I would also add that you don’t learn anything about yourself until you undertake varied experiences, successful or otherwise.

The 5 Ws

What happens after the experiences? You reflect using self-inquiry by continuously asking what does this experience tell me about who I am. Using the 5 Ws guideline of writing is a great way to get started. Here are some sample questions:

1. Who did you support?
2. What did you like/hate about the experience? 
3. When was your favourite/worst part of the day?
4. Where did the experience take place?
5. Why did a certain part of the day appeal/not appeal to you?

Brad nailed an opportunity at a fitness center on the Mediterranean Sea. On top of his salary, the perks included a free lunch and access to an Olympic size swimming pool. Brad couldn’t believe his luck! He loved to swim. This was a great experience that was both income-generating and enjoyable.

Two weeks into the role, it was time to check in and reflect. The role was perfect for Brad. It allowed him to be outside enjoying the Mediterranean sun and swimming his laps during lunch break. The part he looked forward to the most was interacting with guests as they checked into the fitness centre.

Reflect on this, what did you learn about Brad? Please realize that your response is subjective and not clear cut. Each of us will take what we choose from Brad’s experience.

​Try it out. Reflect on a recent experience. Detail your responses using the 5 Ws guideline. What did you learn about who you are? It does not matter what other people think. It is what you think that matters.

Reflecting on Experiences

Very quickly, it was clear to Brad that exploratory experiences are valuable as long as we reflect on them. No matter what happens, success and failure are part of the self-learning process. Essentially, through self-inquiry questions you build self-knowledge by taking what you need from experiences and rarely looking back at them as worthless mistakes.

Ultimately

As I said earlier, my response to every young person needing to make a choice without knowing all the answers is very simple: Know yourself.

Once you develop the habit of self-awareness through observing your daily routine, you are on your way to make decisions that best suit who you are today. As long as you regularly reflect on who you are and are aware of your place in the world, you will be able to make informed decisions. How does one make informed decisions mean? This is a topic for another month and another blog. For now, work on getting to know YOU, a process that will ensure that you won’t say, I should have but rather what did I learn from?
​There is work to be done in your journey of self-knowledge and putting the effort to build the two critical habits of self-awareness and self-reflection is part of every successful journey.  

---

I am Hoda Kilani, Career and Academic Coach. I work with students, parents, teachers and community partners using the latest strategies to nudge you to innovatively craft your career journey your way!