You Gotta Have That SAQ!
Seven Steps to raising your Self Awareness Quotient
An essential goal of any program or keynote I deliver is that participants leave with an awareness of their every word, action and interaction – and the impact on how their behavior impacts others. In fact, I firmly believe that elevating self-awareness – otherwise known as your SAQ — is critical for understanding both your strengths and your challenges. That’s why raising your SAQ is an important element in all of my programs.
In Maximizing your Presentation Skills this means being aware of your mindset before you deliver the message. It also entails being conscious of how you handle questions, particularly those that make you feel challenged.
In Networking, self-awareness is critical in understanding what stops you from being more proactive. It also helps you build rapport with individuals from different backgrounds, age groups, countries, and cultures.
In my programs around Executive/Leadership Presence, elevating your SA Q results in a greater understanding of how you are perceived and leads to creating a culture of trust, an essential factor in building a high performing team.
And, when I talk about Overcoming Unconscious Bias, self-awareness is the first step to understanding our implicit associations and becoming more adept and overriding them. It’s essential for connecting deeply and authentically with people who at first glance appear different from ourselves.
So, the question is what will it take to elevate your SAQ?
Here are seven steps to build this is essential competency in ways that are immediately actionable.
Step One: Start observing yourself as if you were watching another person. That means becoming completely conscious of everything you say and do.
Step Two: Pause before reacting to anything or anyone. In other words, slow down your limbic system, the part of your brain that mediates your “flight or fight reaction.” This takes practice, but take inspiration from the words of Holocaust Survivor Victor Frankl: “Between stimulus and response there lies a pause, and in that pause lies your power to choose”.
Step Three: Take the billboard test. That means ask yourself the following: If what I am about to say or do was on a billboard in Times Square, would I be proud of it?
Step Four: Ask trusted colleagues/friends/family for specific feedback.
Step Five: Observe people’s reactions to what you are saying or doing.
Step Six: Listen actively. This means listening with the goal of truly understanding what the other person is saying without feeling the need to relate it back to yourself.
Step Seven: Become acutely aware not only of the words you use, but also your tone. We often unintentionally miscommunicate because of the way we deliver a message.
I assure you that if you implement these seven steps, your level of self-awareness will increase incrementally and so will the quality of your relationships