Self-Analysis

1. Self Analysis

i.                     An independent methodical attempt to study and comprehend one’s own personality, emotions and behavior

ii.                   Analysis performed on oneself, Introspection

iii.                  The application of psychotherapeutic principles to the analysis of your own personality

iv.                 The application of psychoanalytic techniques and theories to an analysis of one’s own personality and behavior without the aid of another person

Need for Self-analysis

We are always changing based on our personality and life experiences. It is good periodically to take time out to conduct a self-analysis. It helps you to reflect on where you are in various aspects of life. This knowledge prepares you to make the required adjustments and take the correct decisions about your career and life as you move along.

5 Ways to conduct a self-analysis

Method 1.     Assessing your self-esteem

Method 2.     Understanding Your Personality Type

Method 3.     Writing a self-assessment for work

Method 4.    Measuring your stress levels

Method 5.    Seeking help from others Method

Method 1   ---    Assessing your self-esteem

i.                     Reflect on your childhood experiences

a.       Were you listened to or harshly criticized?

b.      Did you get proper attention and affection or were you neglected?

c.       Were you physically, verbally or sexually abused?

d.      Were you spoken to respectfully or ignored criticized or teased?

e.      Were your accomplishments recognized?

f.        Were your shortcomings and failures accepted or were you berated?

g.       Were you always expected to be perfect?

ii.                   Keep track of your moods

Maintain a record of the changes in your mood. It may change several times in a day. Your mood is the reflection of your inner voice – the thoughts that you experience about yourself. The inner voice may be either self-affirming or self-defeating. If it is healthy, it shows that you have high self-esteem. If it is negative, you have poor self-esteem.

It is important for you to have a balanced positive self-esteem to be able to achieve your full potential

iii.                  Write down what you were thinking

Write down the thoughts that you were experiencing just before the change of mood, the thoughts that led to the change. These automatic thoughts show you what you think of yourself and of the people around you. Ask yourself what led to the change of mood. The first answers may be superficial. Keep probing deeper and you will finally arrive at the real cause.

iv.                 Evaluate the thinking pattern

The above exercise will make you discover a pattern in your thoughts. Healthy or Otherwise.

Common patterns that emerge from negative thoughts are:

a.       All or None thinking - You judge yourself to be either totally good or totally bad on the basis of a single action.

b.      Disqualifying the positive – You ignore your achievements and focus only on your failures.

c.       Jumping to conclusions - You rush to form a judgment about yourself on the basis of a few facts without taking into account all the facts and possibilities.

d.      Labeling or Branding – You may brand yourself as good or bad, efficient or inefficient as a result of one action instead of evaluating the action or behavior itself. 

V. Examine if you have healthy or low self-esteem

Healthy or low?

Healthy – You think of yourself as worthy; You have a positive feeling about yourself.

Low – You feel poorly about yourself; You look upon yourself as being totally unworthy;

         Always seek approval of others

         Have negative feelings about yourself

Low self-esteem has a negative impact on the way you see yourself.

Therefore, it is important to have a healthy and balanced view of oneself.

If unsure, consider if you have one of these three facets of low self-esteem:

i. The Victim -------

You always feel helpless, and wait for others to come to your rescue,

or indulge in self-pity or indifference to masque fears of failure

You tend to be Unassertive,   Underachiever,    Excessively reliant on others for self- assurance

ii. The Imposter

You try to believe you feel happy and OK but actually are full of fears; You try to deceive yourself.

You always try to be successful which often leads you to perfectionism, competition and ends in burn out

iii. The Rebel

         You try to downplay others, especially people of authority.

         You are always feeling angry with yourself for not being good enough

         You try not to be hurt by criticism

         You blame others for your problems. You often try to defy authority.

Method 2   ---    Understanding Your Personality Type

Evaluate (Rate) yourself on the following five traits

I. Extroversion --- Sociability - Approaching others and seeking their friendship

II. Agreeableness – Being friendly, cares for others, empathetic, nice, tender-hearted, tries not to hurt                 others

III. Conscientiousness – Having regard for other people while taking decisions

                High on this dimension – Disciplined, well organized, function well with autonomy.

                Low – Impulsive, rush to decisions without bothering how they will affect others.

IV. Openness to experience – You have a high Intellect. You are ready to learn from experience and       willing to adjust. You are ready to be even unconventional

                Low – You always follow conventional ways and are unwilling to change. You always follow the fixed patterns

V. Neuroticism – You are opposed to emotional stability. You rush either to one emotional extreme or to the other. And you keep rushing between these two extremes either being too happy or too sad.

 Method 3.    ----      Writing a self-assessment for work

I. Write down your achievements over the past one year

II. You can use the STAR approach if you are not absolutely clear.

You might have faced several situations. For each of them, write down the following details:

What was the Situation you had to deal with?

What was the Task that you had to perform to deal with the situation?

Describe the Action you had to perform to complete that task.

Describe the Results you achieved by performing that action.

II. Find out the areas in which you found yourself to be wanting and would like to improve.

IV. Make a list of 5-6 six goals you would like to achieve in the coming year.

Method 4  ----   Measuring your stress levels

Try to find out if you have been feeling stressed. If so, how much? Then try to find out the causes of stress.

1. List any recent changes in your life - Stress may be the result of some change/s that you have experienced. Changes may be good or bad. List all the changes that have happened in the last six months.

2. Think about your values – Stress may be the result of a conflict between your values and the way you have to live your life. For example, you may be ambitious, want to do something extraordinary but are stuck in a dull routine job and do not get the opportunity. Or you value family time but the responsibilities you have to shoulder in your job leave you no time to spend with family.

Ask yourself these questions:

i. What values do you consider important – kindness, honesty, money, success, name and fame, family time?

ii. Are you able to uphold those values? Or does your life style or behaviour conflict with these values – No time for family, Money but not fame, can’t afford to be honest?

iii. If not, what prevents you from doing so?

3. Evaluate your surroundings – May be, you have to live in an environment which conflicts with your values – surrounded by crime, over-crowding, noise pollution, any other thing you do not like. Consider how much your environment is contributing to your stress.

4. Reflect on your personal problems and social dynamics.

            Finances – Do you have enough money to meet your needs?

            Family – Do you have any issues with your wife, children, parents etc.?

            Health – Your own or of someone dear to you.

5. Track your sleeping – Do you have enough time to have full sleep out?

Not being able to have enough sleep impacts your life and work in various ways.

Thinking and learning may slow down

Accidents increase

Health changes – Diabetes, blood pressure, heart problems etc.

Tension, depression and forgetfulness

Loss of libido

Premature ageing

Weight gain

Impaired judgment

6. Consider what you can do to lower stress and improve your life experience.

After all the goal of self-analysis is to use reflection (thinking) to promote growth and make your life experience more healthy and pleasant.

Method 5. Seeking help from others

1. Consult a counsellor or psychiatrist

          He is not to be consulted only when you have serious, insurmountable psychiatric issues.

          He can help you with your self-analysis because he knows all about the common traps that people fall into

          Going to a therapist is no matter of shame. Rather a sign of strength and self-care.

          He can provide you space to explore your thoughts and feelings in. He will not judge you or make you feel silly for having those thoughts. Rather he will help you to discover yourself.

2. Look for an expert in cognitive and behavioural therapy

          Therapy focused on the relationship between your thoughts, feelings and behaviour.

          If you are having self-esteem issues, he can help you discover the thought patterns contributing to these issues and in learning new ways of thinking that can help you to overcome those issues AND LEAD A HAPPIER LIFE.

          He can help you get rid of conditions like anxiety, depression and sleeplessness.

3. Look for a trauma expert if you have had some traumas (very bad shocking experiences) recently. It may take time and effort to deal with but he will be able to help you overcome it.

          CBT is a very common therapy to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. Exposure therapy (trying to deal with trauma effects by talking about it), and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) in which you focus on bodily stimuli as you think or talk about your traumatic memories are some other ways to deal with it.

4. Find a therapist you can be comfortable with. It is not always possible to feel comfortable while talking about a trauma. But you should have faith that your therapist will be able to help you get over it. If you cannot click with one, find another.

5. Distinguish between different types of mental health professionals. There are many types. Psychiatrists, psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, psychiatric nurses, marriage and family therapists, licensed family counsellors are different kinds of professionals that deal with mind related problems. Go to the one you need.

Regular self-analyses are very important for achieving success in life. They show you your strengths and your core values and thus help you choose goals that you are equipped to achieve and develop and be happy. They also show your weaknesses and insecurities and thus enable you to avoid areas where you are likely to fail.

But mind one thing. Focus on yourself. Do not try to use self-analysis to blame others.

That will not serve any purpose. It may rather complicate matters even more.

SWOT – A Technique of Sel-Analysis

1.       Strengths –

i.                     Skills, Qualifications, Certifications, Education, Connections etc.

ii.                   Things you can do better than others

iii.                  Personal resources you can access

iv.                 Other people/s opinion of you

v.                   Past achievements you can be proud of

vi.                 The values you carry

vii.                Are you a part of an influential network of people and can use your connections to achieve your goals?

2.       Weaknesses

i.         What you avoid or do not feel confident about

ii.       What weaknesses others see in you

iii.      Are you confident about your education or skills? What deficiencies do you find therein

iv.     Weak personality traits – Shyness, Fear of public speaking, Fear of travelling, Poor sociability, Poor persuasive ability etc.

3.       Opportunities

                                 i.            Possession of new technology, Internet connection. Some kind of knowledge or resources

                               ii.            Market conditions you can take advantage of

                              iii.            Strategic contacts

                             iv.            Trends in the organization or in the society at large that you can take advantage of

                               v.            Failure of the competitors to meet the market demand or the exit of a rival

                             vi.            A void in the market that no one is filling and you can

                            vii.            Are you in a position to find a solution to some kind of complaint of the clients

You may discover things like –

a.       Networking events, educational classes , conferences you can take advantage of

b.      A colleague going on leave and thus giving you an opportunity to gain a new kind of experience by taking on his responsibilities

c.       A new project that may give you a chance to learn new skills

d.      Expansion or acquisition bringing you an opportunity to move higher up or to show your skills or improve them

4.       Threats

                                 i.            Obstacles you are facing currently

                               ii.            Demand for the skills you have may be decreasing

                              iii.            Changing technology may threaten your position

                             iv.            A weakness that can prove to be a threat to your position

                               v.            Entry of a new rival

                             vi.            Market conditions unfavourable

Who am I (Self-assessment)

         i.            My Interests,

       ii.            My Skills and Qualifications

      iii.            My Personality Traits = attitude, perception, needs, motivational drives

     iv.            My Values

       v.            My goals, aspirations, ambitions

     vi.            Aptitude – natural flair to do certain things or learn certain skills

Self-esteem

Self-esteem is one’s subjective evaluation of one’s own worth.

It encompasses

a.       One’s beliefs about oneself

b.      One’s emotional states such as triumph, happiness, despair, pride, shame etc.

 Measurement

To assess somebody’s self-esteem

                                                        i.            You may make a number of statements about him and ask him whether he agrees with them or not.

                                                      ii.            You can ask him a number of questions on a variety of topics and ask him to compare himself with a well-known personality in the field i.e. whether he is similar or dissimilar to him.

Determinants   of self-esteem

            i.            Childhood experiences

          ii.            Feedback by others

         iii.            Achievements and failures

        iv.            Parents and family

          v.            School experiences – achievements, Opinion of the teachers, Peer assessment

        vi.            Age – Increases during adolescence when one is growing up into a young man and begins to decline as one begins to grow old

Types of self-esteem

         i.            High 

a.       Secure- confident, no need of assurance from others

b.      Defensive – lacking confidence, needs assurance by others

c.       Implicit – based on spontaneous, automatic or unconscious assessment

d.      Explicit – based on conscious, reflective evaluation of self

e.      Narcissism – Inflated view of self-worth

f.        Threatened Egotism – A response to threats to one’s Narcissistic assessment of oneself. Hostile and aggressive.

Other Types

a.       Shattered – Looking upon oneself as worthless

b.      Vulnerable – Always seeing risks to self-esteem

c.       Strong

Self- confidence

Definition-

Faith in one’s worth, ability, competence, strength, skills etc.

Advantages

                                I.            Ability to give out one’s best even under stressful conditions

                              II.            Ability to influence others

                            III.            Ability to succeed as a leader and as an executive

                            IV.            Generating a more positive attitude

                              V.            Feeling valued

                            VI.            Rising to the top – Fast professional growth

                          VII.            Destroying negative thoughts

                        VIII.            More fearlessness, less anxiety, less tension

                            IX.            Freedom from social anxiety – Not worrying about what others think of you

                              X.            Source of energy and motivation

                            XI.            Generating happiness

                          XII.