I had a strange revelation today. I used a Johari Window tool for the first time in several years. This is basically a way of measuring self awareness, where personal attributes are put into four sections of a square and each of the sections represents one of the following categories:
- Things only I am aware of about myself
- Things other people are aware of about me, but I don’t know
- Things both myself and other people are aware of about me
- Things nobody is aware of about me
It can be an excellent way of helping people to think about how self aware they are.
The tool I used (this one) does depend on semantics and an individual’s understanding of particular words. For example, a person might describe themselves as ‘clever’, but other people describe them as ‘intelligent’ – does that mean that they lack self awareness or do they lack a common understanding of the best way to describe intelligence? So this form of the Johari tool is quite limited, but it’s fairly fun.
So I seem to have shown up as pretty well lacking in self awareness. There are only two words that I used to describe myself that were also used by other people.
This was unexpected.
I’m contemplative Jon! I’m eminently self aware. Surely?
There are reasons why my description of myself might prove different from that of other people’s. I’m an introvert, so what you see is often a tiny fraction of a bigger internal story. In recent years, I’ve been through some deep stuff that has led me through big personal changes. And several other grasping-at-straws-type excuses. Or I might just be not very self aware.
In the long run, is this sort of stuff something that I should care about? Is thinking about self awareness something that anybody should bother with?
In the Christian sub-culture, there are people like Mark Driscoll who might say it’s all too effeminate for followers of Jesus (to be fair, I don’t know, Mark might be Johari-ing all over the place) or that it’s too self-centred. Then there are people like Vicki Beeching, who seems to suggest that self awareness can aid us in worship.
So what do people think? Is the Johari window only any good when the glass is smashed? (I don’t understand that question, but it sounds quite strong.) Is self awareness a waste of time and effort? Is is a distraction from the important stuff? Is it a tool to help us do more and inspire us? Could it even help us to help others?
When we set out on a journey, isn’t it important to know where you are starting from? Life is a journey where, I believe we are supposed to grow on the way into someone better. Self awareness is therefore rather important in my view. The big question is, who or what do I compare myself to in order to know who I am and where I need to grow? Being self aware is not the same as being good! In my experiance the more self aware I am, the more I realize how in need of rescue I am. I have long since come to the conclusion that I can’t do it on my own!