[Leadership Qualities: Self-Aware]

Being Self-Aware

by Leonard Fernando

School Holiday. 2018. I watched a lot of self-motivational videos, including topics that revolve around ‘Self-Love.’ Since I’m going to enter University in a few months, I thought I needed some confidence boost. Trust me that I used to be a shy person back then. Connecting to new people is like a strange concept for me. From most videos that I watched, they repeatedly said to love myself, from inside and also outside, basically every inch of it. But the problem is that I don’t know which part of myself that I want and could love.

Hello! My name is Leonard Fernando, and one trait that helps me to be a leader is to be Self-Aware. For me being self-aware means knowing my strengths, embracing my weakness, accepting who I am, and appreciating me for even existing in this world. It is a long journey for me and may seem hard at first. But trust me, it’s not impossible, and you can do it too. 

Two things that help me to be ‘Self-Aware’ are Self-Reflection and acceptance. I’m not exaggerating here, but when you can do Self-Reflection the right way and accept you for being yourself, you could achieve self-awareness and help you with other things in life.

I learn the concept of Self-Reflection when I entered High School. On our first day, we got a ‘diary’ book that we have to fill in with our daily reflection. Imagine how boring that is. There’s no rule on how to do it, but I have to fill it every day. Yes, every day, until I graduate. Most of the time, I don’t know what I have to write, so I wrote some poems and sometimes added a few song’s lyrics.

But along the time, I realized that reflecting is actually a simple thing to do. At first, I think back to what I did that day. After a few weeks of doing that, I started to think about how I feel when things happened. For me, this is where I open myself to myself. Then, I began to appreciate all the good things that happened that day. Over time I started to get in touch with myself even more. I get to know what I want and what I don’t want, what I am, and what I am not. It’s a roller-coaster feeling, I am happy for all the strengths that I got, but on the other hand, devastated for all the weaknesses I have. That’s where acceptance comes in handy. Acceptance helps you embrace all of your weaknesses. One thing that you should have in mind is it’s really okay to have flaws. It is also what makes you, you. When you can accept yourself for being the way that you are, that’s where you reach self-awareness.

Referring to my story in the first paragraph, I want to achieve Self-Love, but, I don’t even know what I want to love from myself. That’s where Self-Reflection is useful. When you reflect, you can know yourself more in-depth than before. By reflecting, you can know your strengths, your weaknesses, and get to know part of yourself that you never discover. And after I know all those things, then I could reach ‘Self-Love.’

Being Self-Aware could help you throughout your life. For me, It helps me go through all of my organizational and academic activities. For example, being Self-Aware could help me realized that I’m capable of being a Team Leader when there’s an opportunity to be one. Or that I have what it takes to compete in a Poster Design Competition. But, It also helps me to realize and accept my limitation. Being Self-Aware help me understand that I need to rest after a long day of work.

Just like what Lucille Ball said, “Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”