Chapter 3.1 The Self in Interpersonal Communication
Goal: Define self-concept, self-awareness, and self-esteem and explain the ways in which you may increase self-awareness and self-esteem.
Self-Concept (The way you see yourself)
The image you see of who you are is your self-concept. Ones self-concept consists of your feelings and thoughts about your strengths and weaknesses, your abilities and limitations, and you aspirations and worldview.
Self-Concept develops from at least four sources.
Other's images of you: when you wish to find out for instance how friendly you are, you would look at the image of yourself that others reveal to you though the way they treat + react to you. As an adult, you look to friends, partners, and colleagues; if they think highly of you, you'll see this positivie image of yourself reflected in their behaviors, the same goes for more negative images.
Comparisons with others: This is another way to develop your self-concept; when you want to gain insight into who you are and how effective or competent you are, you probably look to your peers. Two ways of comparing yourself to others include downward social comparison where you would look to those you know are less effective than you and upward social comparison where you look at ones better than you. For more accuracy and objective views it would often be better to compare one's self to peers who are similar to you.
Social networking sites and social media generally have provided you with the tools to compare yourself to others, these include...
Search engine reports.
Network spread.
Online influence.
Twitter activities.
Blog presence.
Cultural teachings: Through your parents, teachers, and the media, your culture instills in you a variety of beliefs, values, and attitudes about success. These teaching provide benchmarks against which you can measure yourself.
Self-evaluations: Much in the way others form images of you based on what you do, you also react to your own behavior; you interpret and evaluate it. these help to form your self-concept. i.e. lying is wrong and tutoring someone is good.
Self-Awareness (Your insight into and knowledge about yourself)
You self-awareness represents the extent to which you know yourself. Understanding how you self-concept develops is one way to increase this. The more you understand about why you view yourself as you do, the more you will understand who you are.
The Johari model of the self; Self-awareness is neatly explained by the model of the four selves. This model has four basic areas, each of which represent a somewhat different self...
open self: Information about yourself that you and others know
blind self: Information about yourself that you don't know but that others do know.
hidden self: Information about yourself that you know but others don't know.
unknown self: Information about yourself that neither you nor others know.
Growing in self-awareness: 5 ways you can increase your self-awareness...
Ask yourself about yourself: One way to do this is to ask "Who am I?" respond what comes to mind first. I think of this many times personally; asking myself just what exactly I want out of life and where these events are taking me. The song Who Am I by Peace Orchestra always comes into mind for me.
Listen to others: You can learn a lot about yourself by seeing yourself as others do. Ever since I have spent more time on IRC chats and VoIP I have gotten many opportunities to communicate with many people, all of them are interesting to talk too and provide more insight for myself.
Actively seek information about yourself: do this to reduce your blind self, don't be too obvious but you can use everyday situations to gain information about yourself. "Do you really think this class is worth my time?"
See your different selves: Every person you have encountered with views you differently. Try to think about how any of them see you as.
Increase your open self: When you reveal yourself to others and increase your open self, you bring into clearer focus what you may have buried within.
Self-Esteem (The value you place on yourself)
Self-Esteem is a measure of how valuable you think you are. If you have high self-esteem, you think highly of yourself, vice versa if you are low in this. I see this being very important as it is needed to further yourself in life.
Attack self-destructive beliefs: Challenge these ideas that you have about yourself that are unproductive or that make it more difficult for you to achieve your goals. Everyday I ask myself 4 questions; "Why, Why not, Why not me, and Why not now". By asking myself this it pushes me to do better than before, after all, you can't change the world if don't start by making your bed.
Beware the impostor phenomenon: This is the tendency to disregard outward signs of success and to consider yourself not successful. One useful aid is to develop a relationship with a knowledgeable mentor who not only teach you new things but also let you know that you are successful.
Seek out nourishing people: Noxious people criticize and find fault with just about everything, nourishing people, on the other hand, are positive and optimistic. By having surroundings with other nourishing people you then increase your self-esteem.
Work on projects that will result in success: some people select projects that will result in failure simply because these projects are impossible to complete. avoid this and work on projects that will result in success. One thing that I found that helps is by taking things one at a time to better manage things.
Remind yourself of your successes: Some people ten to focus on and to exaggerate their failures, their missed opportunities, and their social mistakes. Outside do not care as much though, if your objective is to correct what you did wrong or to identify the skills that you need to correct these failures, then focusing on failures can have some positive values. We are all one consciousness experiencing itself simultaneously, a few failures won't change anything; life goes on.
Secure affirmation: An affirmation is simply a statement asserting that something is true. It's frequently recommended that you remind yourself of you successes with affirmations.
