Success Defined Through Introspection of Soft Skills

Success can look different to you than it might to a classmate or a colleague, but even your view of success can change as you experience new things through college and into your career. That’s why it’s important to reflect on your experiences through introspection.

In her best-selling book, Insight, Organizational Psychologist Tasha Eurich discusses self-awareness as a surprisingly developable skill and suggests it’s worth putting forth the effort.  At its core, self-awareness is the ability to see ourselves clearly – to understand who we are, how others see us, and how we fit into the world. We may not be as self-aware as we think we are, and we may not always see ourselves clearly, which has proven to derail success. Tasha Eurich states that even senior executives are up to 600% more likely to derail success of their company when lacking self-awareness.

So how do we go about seeing ourselves more clearly on our journey to success?

Introspection, looking inward to know oneself, is the process of becoming the very best version of yourself. It is challenging, yet rewarding to reflect on your own thoughts, feelings and strengths.

Self-awareness helps us succeed and is a key leadership skill that includes knowing your strengths and weaknesses. Introspection combines the seeking out of feedback, being open to constructive feedback, addressing those areas in need of improvement, and using your strengths wisely.

Take Action

  1. Be courageous and discuss with your manager, mentor, and friends about what they see about you and be open to their suggestions on ways to grow your self-awareness, your capacity of knowing who you are and what other people think about you.
  2. Learn more about how you view your self-awareness with Tasha Eurich’s Insight Quiz

In college, you are learning hard skills, technical skills, and some soft skills as part of your educational efforts. The knowledge and skills that you acquire will be applied to your work and probably to your potential for advancement within your career. So, it’s important to constantly step back and assess your soft skills introspectively on a regular basis as these don’t come with a true/false answer key.

Develop a “forever learner” mindset to focus on learning new skills, listening to others’ perspectives, and applying to “being the very best self you can be.” Some of the soft skills that I believe will be especially helpful as you enter and advance in your career are collaboration, influence, decision-making, adaptability, work ethic, and communications such as professional speaking and business writing.

Over the next month, we will be providing a series of relevant news blogs on several soft skills for you to reflect on and apply to your preparation for your career progress. Make the effort to learn, know yourself through a new level of insight and you will have a more successful career!