Self-Awareness Is Not Enough
“He lacks so much self-awareness.”
No one wants to be this person. Self-awareness places a lid on personal relationships and professional development.
For those wondering what self-awareness is, I’ve found Tasha Eurich’s Harvard Business Review article entitled “What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate it)" helpful.
According to Eurich, self-awareness shows up in two ways:
Internal self-awareness: How we see our behavior, weaknesses, values, etc.
External self-awareness: Understanding how others view us
According to Eurich, self-aware individuals are growing in knowledge on the two aforementioned fronts.
But what if I told you that self-awareness alone is insufficient? What if I told you that self-awareness, by itself, could be potentially dangerous, stunting holistic growth for all that God has for an individual?
Self-awareness must be coupled with two other “awarenesses”:
1. God-Awareness
What good is self-awareness without awareness of God's values, passions, and aspirations?
God is the originator and creator of all things. He has designed a way for life to work best. So wouldn’t growing in self-understanding apart from understanding one’s own Creator be a bit like typing an important message on your computer with the hand placement on the keys completely off? In the same way, it’s possible to know some “whats” and “whys” of you while missing the big picture of one’s true design and God’s purposes.
16th-century theologian John Calvin took it even a step further. He wrote in his magnum opus “Institutes of the Christian Religion” that God-awareness precedes self-awareness. He wrote, “It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.”
God-awareness makes self-awareness precise since we’re operating out of ultimate truth in knowing our Creator. It makes it truly peaceful since we can rest in God’s sovereign care for us.
2. Other-Awareness
God also designed human beings for human-to-human interdependency. This means a human being with perfect God-awareness and perfect self-awareness without human relationships is insufficient. There was a time when this utopian scenario was a reality and God deemed that situation as being “not good” (Gen 2:18).
It is in awareness of those around us, their wiring and needs, that our self-awareness is brought its complete expression in loving interdependency. This is the difference between a self-centered parent and a selfless one, a self-serving leader and a servant-leader.
And if we attempt to do things with an understanding of self and even understanding of God without loving interdependency? Paul the apostle compared that to the emptiness of a “noisy gong” and “clanging symbol” (1 Cor. 13:1).
Bringing the 3 Together
Isaiah demonstrates the beautiful interplay between all three awarenesses.
In Isaiah 6:1-5 the prophet has a vision of God’s glory and he responds in the following way:
“Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Armies.”
Isaiah sees God accurately as the holy God who sits on the throne (God-Awareness), which moves him to an acute understanding of his own sinfulness (Self-Awareness) and the sinfulness of those around him (Other-Awareness). We see all three at play.
It’s not a coincidence that from the awareness of all three, Isaiah shortly thereafter would be used to bring a Kingdom contribution to the people of God in his day as he would say, “Here I am! Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8)
Practically speaking, I’ve found habits such as a Bible reading plan, time for prayer and reflection, being more transparent and vulnerable, and hosting others for deeper relationships to be helpful in the process of growing in all three.
Don’t get me wrong, I still long to grow in self-awareness and I hope the same is true for you. But self-awareness alone is not enough.
