Knowledge is important. It is because of and through him that we understand the world around us, the origin of things and their consequences. But what about our interior? And what are we? What about our motivations, our happiness, our sadness? This set of knowledge is what is known as self-knowledge, that is, knowledge about ourselves.
How is self-knowledge important in our lives and how is professional self-knowledge – that is, career-oriented self-knowledge – essential for us to develop at work and, consequently, in material and financial life?
Why is self-knowledge important?
If we do not know who we are, what our strengths and weaknesses are, it is very difficult to understand why we do what we do and act as we do, what demotivates, discourages and saddens us, and also what makes us happy and fulfilled.
Self-knowledge is trying to understand the origin of your feelings, emotions and thoughts. It means understanding how external and internal factors are related, it means reflecting on the mistakes and successes of the past so that they serve as a lesson for the future... In short, a lot is contained in self-knowledge, which is not an exact discipline, since each person is unique in their own way, so they need to know themselves in their own way too.
Self-knowledge is important, after all, because it helps us understand what makes us sick and why it makes us sick, guiding us to escape these uncomfortable situations, as well as teaching us what causes positive sensations and emotions, so it helps us to lead to life towards these good sensations. It is, finally, to understand what are our weaknesses, our defects, our qualities and all the contours of our personality, so that we can make beneficial decisions and make positive choices in all areas of life: in our individuality, in love relationships, in life. professional, financial life etc.
We are beings in constant change and transformation, as the experiences we go through, the losses and achievements we obtain, the people who cross our path and so many other things influence and shape who we are. So self-knowledge is something that must be exercised daily throughout life, if we want to make good decisions because we know who we are and what we want.
Personal self-knowledge vs professional self-knowledge
When we talk about professional self-knowledge, we are talking about the ability to understand our positive and negative points as professionals. This analysis process starts from more basic personality traits, but which influence professional performance – such as being organized, proactive and creative. But it also includes capabilities specific to your role and profession, in addition to your emotional characteristics, for example.
It is difficult to separate all these branches, because everything is interconnected. Want an example? Let's say you're not an organized person, so you've forgotten about a meeting that was due on Monday morning. You're great at meetings, as long as you're prepared for them, because you don't know how to improvise. As you haven't organized and prepared, you'll need to act improvised... And when you act improvised, you tend to get tense and nervous. And when you have to deal with criticism—and it will surely come from your superior after the meeting—you fear losing your job, which causes anxiety in your days.
See how it all connects? Being organized, a basic, non-specific skill. Your performance in meetings, something specific to your profession. And also tension, nervousness and anxiety, which are emotional problems.
It is therefore not possible to dissociate professional self-knowledge from general self-knowledge, because everything we do at work influences and is influenced by who we are outside of it, so it is essential to work all the ways of your journey to know yourself.
Benefits of getting to know yourself in the professional field
When you know what kind of professional you are and what tasks you perform with mastery or with difficulty, it helps you understand which jobs are good for you and which ones should be turned down, because you will certainly perform poorly, for example. If you know that you are not very organized, a position as secretary is not a good one, right? If you are good with numbers, but not so good with words, the ideal is to follow the path of Exacts, right? It's only by analyzing yourself as a professional — and as a person, of course — that you can understand which professional paths will be best for your life.
Professional self-knowledge has different roles at different stages of life. For the student who needs to decide on a higher course, for example, it is essential to understand his personality to understand the profession that will bring the most fulfillment to his life. For those who have just been fired, it serves as a reflection to understand their mistakes and incapacities as a professional, to improve in a next job. For those who are looking for a job, it serves to accept or refuse vacancies, according to their capabilities. For the mature worker, it is worth asking yourself: am I following the career I would like? Do I earn as much as I think I deserve?
In addition, professional self-knowledge intertwines with general self-knowledge and helps us understand how we react emotionally in different situations at work: do we handle pressure well? Are we creative? Do we need feedback often? How do we handle criticism? How do we interact with colleagues?
Finally, when you understand who you are professionally and how your personality is manifested in your work environment, this gives you better conditions to grow in your career and to follow professional paths that are more in line with who you are.
Tips for getting to know yourself
Self-knowledge is an individual path, as we are unique and individual beings, so only you can define your journey and how to do it, but there are some tips you can take advantage of to improve your professional self-knowledge:
1. Most importantly: reflect! Take a few minutes of your week to think about your life, your work and your emotions. Only by turning inside yourself and evaluating yourself will you be able to understand yourself and walk a path of evolution.
2. Have you ever practiced meditation? When we meditate, we focus only on the present time and dedicate a few minutes to being only in the company of the most important person in our life: ourselves. If you've never practiced, a tip is to use apps that do guided meditation, which will introduce you to the practice. Some examples are Sattva, Insight Timer and Meditate.
3. You can do some mental exercises to get to know yourself better and understand who you are. A good tip is to think about work environment situations that required decisions on your part and then evaluate your decisions and what you could have done differently. Do this also with situations that happened to other people in the corporate environment: put yourself in their shoes and think about how you would act.
4. Books can help you expand your view of the job market and improve your professional self-knowledge. Some tips are “The Monk and the Executive”, “Never Eat Lunch Alone”, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and “The Weapons of Persuasion”.
5. Do you have time for lunch or on public transport, on your way to or from work? How about taking the opportunity to watch a video on YouTube and, at the same time, work on your self-knowledge? Some channels indicated: Roberta Zanatta, Rachel Newman and Fred Mattos, all trained psychologists who talk a lot about self-knowledge.
6. If you have never had therapy, that is, psychological counseling, this can be essential to develop all types of self-knowledge. In the therapy space, you talk openly about what you feel and can understand the origins of your feelings, your frustrations and your problems, thus reinforcing your concern for yourself and your self-knowledge.
Problems of lack of self-knowledge in professional life
The main problem caused by not understanding what kind of professional you are and what you want to achieve in your career is, of course, being unhappy at work. Considering that we spend 8 to 12 hours at work and/or commuting to work and that represents half of each of the 5 days of the week we will have, finding happiness in this area of ​​life is essential.
In addition to being forced to work with something that brings unhappiness, a lack of professional self-knowledge can turn even the perfect job into a nightmare. If you don't analyze yourself to understand the roles you can perform properly and the ones you struggle with, it will be practically impossible to be a good employee.
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Another example: if, in a job interview, you lie and say that you have skills or characteristics that you don't have — and you may end up saying that because you think you have, because you don't know yourself deeply — you may end up not even passing the probationary period. .
Finally, not knowing yourself and not improving your self-knowledge can also be harmful to the way you react emotionally in your work. If you explode with anger or cry compulsively after a scolding from your boss, it will be viewed negatively. If you can't deliver under pressure, this is likely to be underrated. Anyway, learning to deal with your emotions in the work environment is essential.
Professional self-knowledge is extremely important for us to find a career that is aligned with our interests and personality, but it can also help us to perform our duties well and deal with the emotional burden that is part of the work environment. Don't neglect your self-knowledge and live a life more aligned with who you really are.
