The case of the missing professional people pleaser
Easy for me? At work, focusing on how others feel and helping them drive forward. Someone says they need my help? I have tons of ideas and energy to help them frame goals and move forward.
Hard for me? Picking a lane, choosing a path and articulating how to move forward for myself. I enjoy not being the center of attention because I can focus outwards, where I am out of the frame. Tasha Eurich, author of Insight, a book about self-awareness, has this cool self-awareness quiz where you and a friend or colleague can answer questions about you. Here’s the opener from my report.
Because internal and external self-awareness are independent, we can think of them as two intersecting dimensions that create four different archetypes. Each archetype has distinctly different characteristics and challenges, and each has their own set of strategies for improving insight…. Pleasers have more developed external self-awareness and less developed internal self-awareness.
I learned I am a pleaser (at the office). And I recognize that person! The hard part is tapping into my internal compass. It sounds easy, but I find it super challenging. For one thing, I like to try lots of things and learn. I also value other people’s point of view. I haven’t figured it out, frankly I’m a work in progress, but I’m focusing on tackling internal self awareness to get better at listening to my own voice. Here’s some things I’m trying.
Gallup’s Clifton Strengths Assessment. Took it. Skimmed the results. Seemed fine, but frankly I found the questions frustrating and the report pretty generic. For one thing, I could see both sides to some of the answers depending of the context. I felt pretty split down the middle. Next step is to dig deeper and reflect, also discuss with a few colleagues.
Review past performance reviews. I’ll make a database on the strengths identified and areas for improvement, try to place those things in present day context and plot out future goals after some reflection.
Write the story of my career, focusing on the anchor moments and favorite, proudest achievements. From there I plan to dig into the feelings and understand why they stand out for me? What made those moments or achievements possible? What themes tied them together?
I’m super motivated to improve my internal self awareness. I am starting by setting some SMART goals for myself with small steps everyday. Excited to see where this takes me. And of course grateful to everyone who shares their own strides towards self awareness with me.
