Self-awareness is a vital skill for a life coach because it enables you to understand your internal state and how people perceive you. Coaching requires you to manage your responses during sessions to empower (and not discourage) your clients. Luckily, self-awareness is a skill you can improve as a coach and help your clients attain.
What Is Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is being in touch with who you are and knowing what others think of you. Because it helps you recognize your thoughts and feelings and bring awareness to how you treat others, it is a vital skill for professional life coaches. It allows you to stay present and attentive with others, which improves your relationship with your clients.
There are two types of self-awareness:
Internal self-awareness
External self-awareness
Internal Self-Awareness
Internal self-awareness is the ability to know and understand yourself. Therefore, you understand your strengths and weaknesses, recognize your behavior patterns, and understand what motivates you.
In essence, a life coach with internal self-awareness is aware of their thoughts, feelings, and actions. And as a result, they understand their behaviors and develop strategies for change to improve their effectiveness as professional life coaches.
External Self-awareness
External self-awareness is the ability to know what people think about you. It helps individuals in their relationships with others by better understanding how they behave in certain situations.
External self-awareness helps you proactively reflect on a conversation with your clients and see if any adjustments need to be made in future sessions.
Why Self-Awareness Is Critical for Life Coaches
Your life coach clients come to you because they need assistance and are in a vulnerable state. Self-awareness allows you to appreciate your client’s unique position. It also helps you properly assess your interactions with your clients while balancing your response in emotionally-triggering situations.
Helps you identify your strengths and weaknesses
Your success as a life coach depends on identifying your strengths, weaknesses, and limitations. It empowers you to make proactive decisions on your niche and decide whom you will and will not serve. It also enables you to understand how to act and react in certain situations.
Assists in maintaining healthy boundaries
Life coaches serve as guides, and they help facilitate change in their clients’ lives. A coach that lacks insight may find it hard to set boundaries or recognize when they (or a client) cross those boundaries.
Acts as a primer for other coaching skills
Being self-aware enhances both your professional and personal relationships. With heightened awareness, you’ll improve your empathy, listening, and problem-solving skills.
How to Raise Your Awareness Level
So, how do you become more internally and externally aware? Luckily, your coach training and many other deliberate activities will help. Here are some ways to raise your self-awareness levels:
Evaluate your current self-awareness skills
Develop and maintain feedback loops
Practice mindfulness
Set goals
Regularly practice self-care
Uncover your biases
Journal
Take a self-awareness assessment
Don’t be alarmed if you find that you are not as aware as you may believe. In fact, a study found that 15% of the people they researched were genuinely self-aware, which means that majority of the people were not as self-aware as they thought. There are free quizzes online that can help you assess your self-awareness level. We all have blind spots, and uncovering them helps enhance our relationships. Here are some:
Have continuous feedback loops
Mindfulness is a constant practice. It is not something you do once. A continuous feedback loop is a self-awareness tool that will help you as a life coach and help your clients. A feedback loop will heighten awareness and improve your personal and professional skills.
Meditate often
Meditation is a practice that can help you gain more self-awareness and improve your mental health. It is a simple practice that has been around for centuries. Still, it is becoming more popular in the modern era. Mindfulness helps you become more aware of your thoughts and emotions.
Set Goals
Goal-setting is setting and achieving specific, measurable, and achievable goals. It is an effective tool for self-awareness. In the past, goal-setting was done through pen and paper or self-reflection
Today, many apps can help you set your goals and achieve them. These apps provide you with a list of options based on your requirements and feedback on how well you are progressing towards your goals.
Practice Self-Care
Self-care is a practice that helps you be aware of your own needs and wants. It is an essential part of self-awareness. When you practice self-care, it enables you to be more mindful of your emotions and how they affect your life.
Self-care is not only about looking after yourself physically but also emotionally. It can help you manage stress and make decisions more positively. Taking care of your wellness helps maintain balance in your life. It helps you become more attentive to what’s going on around you.
Know your biases
Biases are unconscious thoughts, feelings, and actions that influence our decisions. We all have biases, and it is crucial to be aware of them because they can create problems in our lives.
Self-awareness is the first step to understanding your biases. With understanding, you can make better decisions about how you act and behave.
Journal frequently
Journaling is a form of self-reflection to process thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Thus, it enables you to express your thoughts and emotions or as an exercise for self-development.
Ultimately, the process helps raise your understanding of your emotions, thoughts, and desires,
Use Life Coach Certification Courses to Build Foundational Skills
Like other professions, make sure that you choose training programs that help you develop your foundational skills. Include continuing education courses as part of your training regimen.
Transformation Academy offers lifetime access to any online training courses you purchase. The courses give you everything you need to coach your clients, and the online trainers also walk you through the process (a win-win).
Here are some courses that help build your self-awareness.
Professional Life Coach Certification
Transformation Academy’s Professional Life Coach Certification Course curriculum provides you with the foundation, skills, and tools to increase self-awareness.
Goal Success Life Coach Certification
Goals success gives you all the tools you need to help you and your clients uncover what you want and the tools to achieve it. I recommend the Goal Success training to all coaches and thus, should be treated as a foundational course.
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Life Coach Certification
The EQ course dives into the present moment and emotional awareness. Interpersonal and intrapersonal skills are critical to success. Not all life coaches choose to get their EQ certification. If that's the case for you, then you can purchase the self-development course. It offers online training without the coach certification (coaching tools, tips, and training).
Helping Your Clients Is Helping the World
Life coaching is a rewarding career that serves the client and the professional. Self-awareness is critical because we all continually evolve as human beings. Frequently practicing awareness makes you more amiable to the different situations you face as a professional and an individual.
Gaining the skills, you need to become an effective life coach should not break the bank. Even if you choose courses with contact hours, you’ll find that Transformation Academy courses will enhance your coaching skills. Check out their online life coaching courses today.