Self-Awareness Challenge & Final Assessment

Welcome to Lesson 4 of 4 in Discovering You. It takes about 15 minutes.

Seeing ourselves clearly takes honest attention, honest friends and an honest prayer. This lesson gives you a seven-day self-awareness challenge, then a short review of the whole course (for learning; nobody is marking you), and brings your three pieces together into your Discovery Profile. Finish all four lessons to unlock your certificate and the Discovering You badge: Discover who you are and what moves you.

Scripture comes from the King James Version. This is a course for learning and reflection, not counselling, and it cannot promise particular results.

Since last time

Last time you chose a small action: writing one sentence of direction, counting the cost of your goal, or doing your weekly action at the time you fixed.

Look back at the week. What did you try, and what did you notice? If you did not manage it, say so honestly and carry it into this week.

In this lesson you will

• Look at yourself honestly: spot clues to a blind spot and receive correction without defending or collapsing.
• Recall the main truth of each lesson: who you are, why you are here, and where you are going.
• Bring your identity statement, purpose statement and 90-day plan together into your Discovery Profile, with a first step.

Before you start

How true is each of these for you today, from 1 (not true) to 5 (very true)?

• When I am corrected, I can listen without defending myself or feeling worthless.
• I can say who I am, why I am here and where I am going, in a few sentences.
• I am ready to begin, even though I cannot see the whole road.

1. The mirror: look, then do

Most of us check a mirror before we leave the house. James says the Word of God is a mirror too, and warns about a strange habit: looking, and then forgetting.

James 1:22–25 (KJV) 22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

The trouble is not that the man looked. It is that he “goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth”. Self-awareness is seeing and then doing something about it.

Dr. Paul Enenche describes five “looks” that help us know who we are, and one of them is to look at yourself. That look is not vanity and not self-attack. It is honest attention: this is how I actually spoke, this is what I actually did.

A blind spot is something others can see in us and we cannot. Jesus pictured a man with a beam in his own eye offering to remove a speck from his brother's (Matthew 7:3–5). There are clues:

• What irritates me most in others. Sometimes it is my own habit.
• Feedback I have heard more than once. “You always interrupt.”
• Where things keep going wrong. The same argument, the same missed deadline.

Think about it: What have you been told about yourself more than once? Write it down, even if you do not agree with it yet.

Try this week: Each evening for seven days, write two lines: one thing you did well today and one thing you would do differently.

2. Faithful wounds, and “Search me”

If we cannot see our own blind spots, we need people who will tell us the truth.

Proverbs 27:6 (KJV) 6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

When correction comes, most of us do one of three things. We defend (“That is not true, and you do it too”), we collapse (“I am useless”), or we receive (“Thank you. Give me an example, so I understand”). Collapsing turns one comment into a verdict, which we learned to resist in Lesson 1. Receiving treats it as information to weigh.

Friends see part of us. God sees all of us.

Psalm 139:23–24 (KJV) 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

We are not searched by an enemy looking for reasons to reject us. For us who are in Christ, our place in the family is settled, so we can afford to look at the truth and change. A simple pattern for the week: ask (“Search me”), notice (what comes to mind, what others say), respond (one small change).

Think about it: Which is your usual first reaction to correction: defend, collapse or receive?

Try this week: Ask one person you trust: “What is one thing I do that makes me harder to work or live with?” Say only “Thank you”, and write it down.

3. Your Discovery Profile, and the next step

Over four lessons you have written three pieces: who you are (your identity statement), why you are here (your purpose statement) and where you are going (your 90-day plan). Below, you bring them together in a few lines: your Discovery Profile.

Many of us wait to begin until we can see the whole road. Scripture describes guidance in a humbler picture.

Psalm 119:105 (KJV) 105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

A lamp in the psalmist's day was a small clay lamp held in the hand. It lit a few paces of path, not the horizon. God's word shows us how to walk today, honestly and with love for the people in front of us. A plan does not need to be certain to be worth starting. It needs a next step that is clear and right.

So start before you feel ready, let someone see your profile, and expect a stumble without letting it end the plan.

Next in the free journey come the Foundations courses: Communication, Leadership, Financial Intelligence and Enterprise Building.

Think about it: Where are you waiting to see the whole road before you take the first step?

Try this week: Take the first step in your 90-day plan within three days, and show your Discovery Profile to one person who will ask how it is going.

Activities

Reflection

• Read your Discovery Profile aloud. Which line feels most true, and which are you most likely to let slip?

Key takeaways

• Self-awareness is looking and then doing. Look for clues to your blind spots.
• Receive correction as information: not defending, not collapsing.
• We can ask God to search us, because our place in his family is settled.
• Your Discovery Profile: who you are, why you are here and where you are going, with a first step. Start before you feel ready.

Your next step

You have finished Lesson 4, the last lesson of Discovering You. You are on the path of growth: you have your Discovery Profile and a first step to take this week.

Growth is easier with someone walking alongside you. KMA offers two ways to keep going:

Mentorship. Grow with a KMA mentor who helps you put what you discover into practice and follows up with you on it. See KMA's mentorship packages. See the mentorship packages

Or: the monthly Learning membership. Prefer to learn on your own first? KMA's monthly Learning membership takes you deeper in Communication, Leadership, Financial Intelligence, Enterprise Building, and AI and Automation. See the Learning membership