💎 Friday Gems - The Self Awareness Issue
Self-awareness doesn’t stop you from making mistakes. It allows you to learn from them. When we resist, we get stuck. When we accept reality, we can act. ✊🏽
Hey all. It’s been a while since I have posted.
No, I wasn’t travelling across the US on my bike or went to a months long silent retreat. Not that there is anything wrong with either of those and maybe one day I will take part those activities. I took a pause from the newsletter because work got busy and all my mental effort was put into doing my project right, kind of like when the one part of the body needs help all the available resources are sent to it for to ensure survival. All my mental energy was diverted to my work with not much time left for writing.
I was far away from my writing, which made me sad.
It’s been a rough few months but now I am slowly re-entering my happy place, writing this newsletter, where I can share interesting ideas that can help us think differently and grow to be more present in our everyday lives.
Although during the break, I didn’t go on some big adventure out in the world, I did go on an adventure within. I took time to do what I love to do, which is spend time with my family, draw, run, bake, cook, and read about Zen and mindfulness. I practiced mindfulness through the storms of everyday life, being in the moment through whatever learning opportunity life presented me. Sometimes I succeeded and many times I did not but that is the practice which will continue.
I truly appreciate your support through all my ups and downs. ✊🏽
On to this week’s gems…
Today's Gems
If You’re Not Growing as a Designer, This Might Be Why: The Self-Awareness Dilemma
Know Thyself: How to Write a Reflexivity Statement
The Essential Guide to Shadow Work: Integrate Your Wounded Parts + Live Your Authentic Self
The Metaskills You Need to Thrive in the 21st Century
The Mindful Designer: Embrace Constructive Criticism
But, first
Because our country is on fire…
How to protect and serve
There’s a common belief among the red-pilled MAGA crowd that the people causing all this disruption and mayhem in American cities are paid actors. And here I’ll throw them a bone—they are correct. They’re just looking at the wrong people. The people causing the disruption and mayhem in our streets are paid out of city budgets, with seemingly bottomless overtime allowances and billionaire gifts, and the cover of elected officials.
As ICE is kidnapping people and the raids are breaking up families and wreaking havoc in communities, people have taken to the streets to protest these inhumane acts. It takes courage, true empathy, and it’s the true meaning of “to protect and serve”.
As Mike says:
We are united in wanting to protect each other. We are united in wanting to protect and to serve our community.
The threat of violence isn’t coming from the crowds, the community members, the protesters, it’s from the violence workers, the police in military armor who are carrying military gear.
We, the people, protect and serve each other.
The people are the sanctuary.
We protect and serve each other.
✊🏽
🔗 How to protect and serve by Mike Monteiro
Self-Discovery
💜 If You’re Not Growing as a Designer, This Might Be Why: The Self-Awareness Dilemma
Self-awareness isn't just about knowing yourself—it's about how your awareness (or lack of it) affects your ability to collaborate, receive feedback, and grow. The best creatives aren't just talented; they actively work on seeing their blind spots.
Feedback can be tough so we may resist it at first, but knowing that we don’t have all the information, it can be a empowering experience. Without feedback we operate in the dark and may stumble our way forward but with feedback we light our path to put our best foot forward.
Seeking feedback within the right environment, with the right people, helps us break through our assumptions to make informed decisions about our own growth and how we show up as design leaders.
I love the idea of making self-reflection a habit after each project by asking
What went well? What could I have done better?
🚀
🔗 If You’re Not Growing as a Designer, This Might Be Why: The Self-Awareness Dilemma by Barney Abramson
Self-Awareness
💜 Embrace the Darkness (Carl Jung & The Shadow)
Self-Awareness
😅 The Metaskills You Need to Thrive in the 21st Century
Skills are temporary; meta-skills are permanent.
Self-awareness has a more positive impact on leadership than an MBA. Studies show that self-awareness encourages us to lead ourselves with authenticity and integrity — and in turn, better lead others.
Self-awareness is a meta-skill that can help us work through the uncertainty, unpredictability, and the constant change we face in our work and our lives. By knowing ourselves better and how others see us we can accept our reality and operate with more information to be able to do something about it instead of taking shots in the dark. Instead of fighting reality and denying it we can learn to let go of the tension and accept it and work through or around it.
When we resist, we get stuck. When we accept reality, we can act.
Self-awareness helps us adapt, take ownership of ourselves, and be more present in our lives so we can learn, grow, and be our best selves.
✌🏽
🔗 The Metaskills You Need to Thrive in the 21st Century by Fearless Culture
Self Awareness
🌏 Embrace Constructive Criticism
I have a very tough time being criticized, corrected, or accused – of even the smallest mistakes – and I react very angrily. I’ve wrestled this instinct under control in a professional context, more or less, but I have more trouble with it at home. All it takes is for my daughter to make a mild comment such as, “You forgot to remind me to bring my library book,” to set me off. “What do you mean… it’s not my responsibility…I didn’t know Wednesday was Library Day…” etc., etc.
Yeah, this sounds like an all too familiar reaction for me too. A slight criticism can set off a chain reaction which we end up regretting in the end.
Here are some strategies Gretchen shares to help keep us from falling into over reactions:
Listen to what the critic is saying
Don’t be defensive
Don’t expose yourself to criticism from people you don’t respect
Delay your reaction
Admit your mistakes
Enjoy the fun of failure
As designers, we will face situations where we are criticized and challenged but the key is to develop strategies to be open to fair critique, shield ourselves from uninformed criticism, and to use the information we gain from those situations wisely instead of reacting negatively.
💜
🔗 How To Embrace Constructive Criticism and Leave the Rest Behind by Gretchen Rubin
Wisdom
On Shadow Work
“This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people, for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided so long as we can project everything negative into the environment.
But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved: we have at least brought up the personal unconscious. The shadow is a living part of the personality and therefore wants to live with it in some form. It cannot be argued out of existence or rationalized into harmlessness.”
- Carl Jung
That’s it for this week’s Friday Gems.
May curiosity be your guide!
