Identifying an Overabundance of Negativity: Recognizing and Managing Negative Individuals
In the pursuit of effective decision-making and personal growth, self-awareness plays a crucial role. This article outlines various methods to measure and enhance self-awareness, providing a well-rounded approach to understanding oneself better.
Self-awareness, the ability to recognise and understand one's own thoughts, emotions, and behaviours, can be assessed through a combination of self-assessments, personality tests, emotional intelligence (EI) measures, and external feedback.
Personality Assessments, such as the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and VIA Character Strength survey, reveal dominant behavioural patterns, fears, desires, and strengths, helping bring unconscious patterns into conscious understanding.
Emotional Intelligence Tests offer valuable insights into one's emotional capacity. Notable tests include the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i), the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), and the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue), which measures subdomains including self-awareness, emotional regulation, and empathy with high reliability.
360-degree Feedback provides a unique perspective by collecting input from colleagues, friends, or managers. This helps identify blind spots, as others may perceive aspects of our self-awareness differently from how we see ourselves.
Besides these formal assessments, reflective activities such as meditation, journaling, and values clarification can increase conscious awareness of internal states. These practices help track thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, uncovering hidden tendencies and promoting personal growth.
Learning new skills or taking on challenges can also reveal unknown strengths and weaknesses, further enhancing self-awareness.
In summary, a combination of personality tests, EI self-report and ability tests, 360-degree feedback, reflective activities, and learning new skills offers a well-rounded evaluation of self-awareness. Relying exclusively on self-report can be misleading, so incorporating external feedback and objective assessments is important.
For practical application, start with one or two personality or EI inventories online, then seek feedback from trusted peers and engage in reflective practices to deepen your understanding and measure progress over time. Self-awareness is a key factor in personal growth and development, allowing individuals to reflect on their experiences and make meaningful changes.
Career development can benefit greatly from self-awareness, as it provides a clear understanding of one's strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. Incorporating resources such as personality assessments and emotional intelligence tests can offer valuable insights for career-related decisions.
For instance, taking tests like the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and VIA Character Strength survey can reveal dominant behavioral patterns that are crucial for selecting a suitable career path. Similarly, emotional intelligence tests like the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i), Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), and Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue) can help identify emotional capacities relevant to professional success.
meditation, journaling, and self-reflection are tools for cultivating mindfulness and emotional intelligence, which are essential for making informed career decisions based on self-awareness.
Engaging in education-and-self-development activities and seeking personal-growth opportunities can also enhance self-awareness, resulting in better career-development outcomes. The combination of self-assessments, external feedback, learning new skills, and reflective practices can lead to a well-rounded evaluation of one's self-awareness and ultimately, a successful career.
