Professional Self-awareness To Increase Growth

There are different ways to increase your growth. One of them is professional self-awareness. How can awareness-based practice promote well-being in your life? And how do you do that?

Before you go in depth, remember that intention is one of the keys that allows you to promote such a development. In addition, it will be a learning path that you can gradually integrate into the various areas of your daily life.

Professional self-awareness

The dictionary describes self-awareness as “conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives and desires”.

A professional emphasizes this skill and links it to the regular activity in which they develop, for which they have prepared and for which they are rewarded.

This is about how you recognize and perceive your work environment and relate to it and the factors that include it. Here are some related features:

• Responsibility. People with professional self-awareness are responsible for themselves and take into account their duties together with any consequences of their actions.
• Ethics. This consists in knowing and applying the set of moral rules that regulate activities.
• Reflection of deontological principles. One’s action, and interaction with others. According to the definition presented by Córdoba Azcárate, an expert on the subject, deontology is “Set of norms required in a professional group”.

Furthermore, acceptance of rights and obligations is necessary to acquire social and individual responsibility, accompanied by self-regulation and actualization. Thus, it is about constant learning about the profession, work interaction and responsibility towards yourself and others.

Improve development

When you exercise professional self-awareness, you do not take things personally or become defensive. Instead, you know that assumption can lead to mistakes, and thus you ask before you start.

You also do not have to please everyone. You know that is not the essence of work. Thus, you connect deeply with someone and are confident above all others to be effective in what you do. In doing so, you put yourself in other people’s shoes when dealing with conflicts, and communicate as effectively as you can so as not to harm them. You do it while maintaining boundaries.

Professional self-awareness is a way to improve your development. After all, you are an integrated being. Thus, what you promote in one area may affect another. For example, when you work on how to deal with your emotions to lead a team, you are already working on your emotional side, and it can have a social and physical impact.

It turns out that everything that concerns your consciousness, such as focusing on how you act. what you perceive and what you do it for; how your thoughts and feelings are; and how they affect other areas are all factors that increase personal growth. They all help increase your physical, emotional and social well-being, starting with self-knowledge and self-regulation.

In fact, anxiety, insomnia and stress are reduced, and your leadership functions are improved. It connects you to the present moment, promotes acceptance and activates your senses, among other factors. It will be different for each person and will depend on their consciousness-based practice. This can be used at work and in other aspects of life.

How to increase professional self-awareness

You can strengthen professional self-awareness in different ways. On the one hand, it is important that you constantly update the knowledge about your profession, since theories, parameters and techniques develop or become obsolete. Thus, you will practice ethics if you stay up to date.

You can also elaborate on the concepts and deontological principles for your particular area of ​​expertise. To do this, just read the manuals and codes that guide you.

It is also important to take responsibility for your actions. Continuous learning allows you to grow. It will update your rights and obligations to others.

Another way to do this is through feedback. You can not only learn from your own perspective, but need to see things from others. Thus, you should consult colleagues, read, have a mentor, be in supervision processes, etc.

You can also go into psychotherapeutic processes that promote integrated well-being and have techniques for self-awareness. Having support to guide you will help you do your best and reach your goals.

Concluding notes on professional self-awareness

Finally, professional self-awareness can have a positive impact in other areas. In addition, you need to develop skills to improve it, such as ethical awareness, self-knowledge, reflective and personal awareness and internalization of the rights and duties of your profession. Through it , you will grow by exploring, rebuilding and learning  to achieve set goals in a responsible way.