The battle for self-awareness is an endless one. The ability to step back and see yourself from a distance, to analyze your own flaws and weaknesses, to understand your own motivations? This is not only not easy; it’s basically not natural. We were given – cursed with all sorts of biases and blind spots that work against self-knowledge on a daily basis. 

Yet we must continue to aim for self-awareness, at knowing ourselves as fully as possible. In my youth, lack of self-awareness might have helped me advance in my career, but it also cut my long-term career path painfully short. Later in life, I undermined my own legacy by persecuting people around me for not performing to my standards. And so will we destroy ourselves and undermine our own legacy if we are not always working to understand ourselves better, to question our biases, and to look at ourselves… objectively.

Take today to review you, look inside and ask, ”What if I did something differently? What if I tried something new?” For me, its less talking and more listening.

By Brian Nadon

www.vaticfoundation.com