Awareness of Self

Question 1

BENEFITS OF SELF AWARENESS?

Answer 1

Personal – The ability to develop resilience, foster positive relationships and grow as an individual.

Professional – Perform your role effectively, identify your strengths and limitations and plan to
improve.

Societal – Provide a positive impact to your patients, colleagues, friends, family and wider
community.

Question 2

SELF ACTUALISATION

Answer 2

The ability to reach your full potential!

Through practice of self-awareness and ensuring that our needs are provided for, this frees our
attention and allows us to put our minds towards pursuing our intellectual and creative goals.

This allows us to make progress towards becoming our ideal self.

Question 3

SELF ESTEEM - DEFINITION

Answer 3

“belief and confidence in your own ability and value”

Question 4

SELF ESTEEM – COMPONENTS

Answer 4

There is much discussion of the underlying components that contribute to our feeling of self-esteem. Argyle
(2008) lists:
* Reactions of Others
* Comparisons with others
* Social Roles
* Identification
Other authors such as Branden (1994) place a greater emphasis on the role of how our actions impact on self
-esteem; with links to concepts such as assertiveness and integrity.

Question 5

SELF IMAGE AND THE IDEAL SELF

Answer 5

• Self image represents our personal assessment of who are as an individual.
• The ideal self represents the ideal person that we would like to be.
  How closely we perceive these two concepts to align in our personal situation has an impact on our self esteem.
  Can you think of any features or attributes that we might consider when determining our self image and ideal
  selves?

Question 6

MATCHING SELF IMAGE WITH IDEAL SELF

Answer 6

Incongruent Ideas – Less overlap between the perceived self and
ideal self = lower possibility of self actualisation

Congruent Ideas – More overlap between the perceived self
and ideal self = greater possibility of self actualisation

Question 7

COMPARISONS

Answer 7

• There is an established link in literature between increased use of social media (such as
  Instagram) and lower wellbeing in terms of anxiety, depression and stress. (Ketye et al., 2020)
• There has also been studies undertaken which demonstrate that social media can have a
  harmful effect on body image. (Tiggemann et al., 2013)
  Self awareness and avoiding harmful comparisons can help protect our wellbeing.

Question 8

SELF COMPASSION

Answer 8

• Make positive comparisons, don’t think how far you have to go to reach your goals – but how far you have
  already come!
• Think of difficulties as learning opportunities.
• Use constructive words to describe yourself.
• Be mindful of your needs and consider how they can be met.

Question 9

MATCHING SELF IMAGE WITH IDEAL SELF.

Answer 9

Personal Development
& Self Compassion
Adjusting Expectations,
Goals & Perceptions

Question 10

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

Answer 10

bottom of the pyramid

• psychiological needs
  safety needs
  social needs
  self esteem needs
  self actualisation

Question 11

ADDRESSING NEEDS AND RESILIENCEADDRESSING

Answer 11

Recognising our needs allows us to build resilience, which is our ability to overcome problems and move on.
Some key factors which reinforce our resilience include:
* Maintaining our physical health through: diet, exercise and rest.
* Fostering strong interpersonal relationships.
* Pursuing our hobbies and interests.
* Challenging ourselves intellectually.
* Feelings of satisfaction from progress, contribution and success.

Question 12

HALT

Answer 12

HALT – Hungry, Angry, Late, Tired. This initiative began in 2017, encouraging staff to plan breaks,
so they would have the appropriate mindset to provide optimal patient care.

Question 13

HOW CAN WE EXPAND OUR SELF-AWARENESS?

Answer 13

• Undertake psychometric tests.
• Seek feedback from others.
• Use a journal to chart progress.
• Practice introspection and reflection.

Question 14

AUTONOMY

Answer 14

Autonomy is an individual’s capacity for self-determination or self-governance.
Personal autonomy is the capacity to decide for oneself and pursue a course of action in one’s
life, often regardless of any particular moral content.

Question 15

PURSUING GOALS - SMART OBJECTIVES

Answer 15

Developing self awareness allows us to undertake personal and professional growth. To improve the chance of
success, we should set appropriate goals, This can be done with SMART objectives.
* Specific – Focus on a specific element of a problem to improve.
* Measurable – It should be clear if/how much an objective is achieved.
* Achievable – The objective should be within the realm of possibility.
* Relevant – The objective should relate to the problem.
* Time Bound – There should be a defined timescale to achieve the goal.

Question 16

SMART OBJECTIVES EXAMPLE

Answer 16

Using the comparison of Marcus Rashford from earlier, becoming a world class professional footballer is not a
realistic personal development goal… but focussing on emulating one aspect of his career, such as charity work, can
be!
* Specific – Raise money for charity via a sponsored activity.
* Measurable – A goal of raising a certain amount for charity.
* Achievable – The sponsored activity is something that is possible to do.
* Relevant – Raising money for charity links to my overall goal.
* Time Bound – The activity must take place within 1 year.