Awareness

A Coaching Model By Tuba Mutlu, Personal Development Coach, UNITED KINGDOM

Awareness Definition & Meaning

The purpose of this model is to shine a light on the inner world of a person and to create deep self-awareness.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, self-awareness definition is ‘knowing and understanding yourself very well.’

Most of us go through our lives on autopilot without even realizing it. As a result, we don’t learn or think about why we do things the way we do them and don’t reflect on how we feel or why we believe the way we think.

What Are the Benefits of Self-Awareness?

When we are in a self-aware state of mind, self-awareness allows us to see and evaluate ourselves from a different perspective. When we are self-aware, we can be aware of our emotions, thoughts, beliefs, fears, needs, and values. We can get to know ourselves better, therefore, respond to situations rather than react and make better decisions.

In simple words, self-awareness means ‘the ability and evaluate yourself consciously and objectively. It is about understanding our emotions, values, weaknesses, and strengths. It is about knowing ourselves, our fears, our feelings, interests, values, and so on….

With self-awareness comes humility, forgiveness, a growth mindset, emotional mastery, confidence, and clarity.

Self-aware people know their strengths and their weaknesses. They forgive others as they accept that nobody is perfect. Having a growth mindset is also one of the essential aspects of self-awareness. People who know themselves well usually want to improve their weaknesses, but they focus on their strengths. By knowing our strengths, our confidence gets a boost too. By learning and understanding ourselves comes emotional mastery. When we become aware of the origin of our emotions, we can have better control over them.

Being self-aware also opens the door to new possibilities and choices. It allows us to peek at the bigger picture, which enables us to look at situations and problems from a different perspective and therefore helps us make better decisions.

Self-awareness is a powerful tool necessary to make a real, impactful, lasting change in our clients’ lives. To be able to create that change, people need to be able to look inwards to understand and become familiar with their inner world.

When clients can’t see themselves as who they are or understand their values and underlying beliefs, coaching can make a big difference in shining a light into their inner world and helping them to understand their authentic selves.

The awareness model is a coaching model which helps the client to uncover their deep underlying beliefs, fears, strengths, values, and emotions through the following steps:

Listening actively and observing the client’s emotionally charged words, tone, or reactions to a specific situation or event. Acknowledging the client’s emotions and enquiring about their feelings and thoughts regarding the issue they brought to the session.

Customizing the questions to the client’s words by asking short, powerful, and open-ended questions.

Sample questions:

• What does clarity mean to you?
• What makes clarity vital for you in this context?
• What do you mean by finding the balance?

Making observations about the body language, facial expressions, and tone and actively inviting the client to share their feelings or their thoughts about them.

Sample questions:

• It seems like your boss not taking into your suggestions is causing you concern. What is causing you to worry about this?
• I noticed an emphasis on the word perfect. What has come up for you when you mentioned it? 
• I noticed a laugh. What was that about?
• I noticed your energy becoming calmer. What has shifted for you?

Challenging the client when needed through open-ended but powerful questions.

Sample questions:

• What have you thought that saying yes is always the way if anything?
• What makes you think you can’t get a new job?

Removing obstacles with ‘what if’ questions or questions to invite the client to think about other possibilities.

Sample questions:

• If salary wasn’t a problem, what would you do?
• What would your ideal day look like?
• What would you tell a friend in the same situation as you?

Making observations about patterns and contradictions and inviting the client to reflect on them.

Sample questions:

• It seems like there is a pattern of saying no but doing other’s projects for them anyway. What comes up for you when I say that?
• It seems like there is a contradiction. Once you mentioned x, but then y. What comes up when you hear that?

Acknowledging the client’s insights, values, and progress they are making throughout the session and inviting them to share what they are learning about themselves.

Sample questions:

• Honesty seems like an essential value for you. How could you use this value to continue running your project?
• It seems like a powerful insight. What are you learning about yourself today?
• How are you planning to use this learning to move forward?
• What are you planning to do with this insight?

Invite the client to design an action plan using the insights/ learning they gained during the session to achieve their goal. If the goal was gaining clarity, ask about how they will use the clarity to move forward.

Sample questions:

• What else?
• What else could you do?
• What else do you need to do to finish the project on time?
• What else are you planning to achieve x?

Support the client in designing steps to implement their plan and what support they need to move forward. If there is any form of hesitancy, ask about what would get in the way and how they would like to overcome the barrier to ensure they have solid accountability.

Sample questions:

• What steps are you planning to implement this plan?
• When are you planning to talk to your parents about the move?
• What could get in the way of calling your friend tomorrow?
• What are you planning to do if procrastination gets in the way?

Ask the client about their learnings or takeaways to remind them of their insights and realizations bout themselves.

Sample question:

• What learnings are you taking away from today’s session?

Acknowledge the client’s success and check in on how they feel about their progress within the session.

Samples:

You shared about your worries about being a parent today, it looked like it was difficult to talk about, but you showed great openness and courage.

It seems like your energy has shifted from heavy to lighter. How are you feeling about your progress today?

Bonus question for the client to acknowledge their achievements to encourage the client.

Sample question:

• What are you acknowledging yourself for today?

This process is how self-knowledge becomes a powerful tool to move forward and help clients to transform their lives through self-awareness. Through self-awareness comes clarity, which can help to make better decisions. When we understand who we are genuine, we can align our values, beliefs, and actions to move forward. We can open our horizons to different possibilities and see the choices we weren’t aware of.

Most importantly, when we understand ourselves, we can make choices based on our strengths and values rather than fear.

References

tonyrobbins.com. (n.d.). What is self-awareness, and how to improve it? [online]
Lincoln Counselling. (2021). Self Awareness. [Online]