Weekly Tools and Tips to Improve Any Relationship
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on the Color Code blog in 2018, but the subject seems just as (if not more) relevant today. The dates have been changed to 2021 to reflect the current year.
As we come to the end of January, many of us have made and most likely broken New Year’s resolutions. In fact, statistically, only about 58% of New Year’s resolutions are successful past the one-month mark.
QUESTION YOUR MOTIVES
According to statisticbrain.com, 44.3% of resolutions are self-improvement related, and 22.8% are relationship related. Based on those figures, a person’s resolutions along those lines of self-improvement and relationships could look something like this:
But, as you can see, these resolutions are all addressing vague, behavior-based problems.
A person with these goals instead might first want to ask themselves:
Of course, to come up with the answers to these questions, this person would need to look deeper than their surface behaviors and examine their motives. In other words, this person would need to become self-aware.
WHAT IS SELF-AWARENESS?
Oxford dictionary defines self-awareness as conscious knowledge of one’s character, feelings, motives, and desires. So, to become self-aware, you must do an honest self-evaluation–and that isn’t easy. You might not like to admit that Kathy in Accounting isn’t the problem, but you are. You need to dig deep into aspects of your personality, character, feelings, motives, needs, and wants without beating yourself up, and then make a specific plan to improve.
There are many ways to improve your self-awareness. Following are a few suggestions you can use to continue your self-awareness journey utilizing Color Code as a tool:
ONE. When doing your self-evaluation, don’t be critical of what you find, but accept your findings as problems that can be solved. Over-examination can lead beyond self-awareness to self-consciousness, which defeats the purpose. Blues, this means you.
TWO. Think of how you relate to others and how they perceive you.
THREE. For a clear picture of all of your behaviors, you will need to see your complete profile results. A person that is a Red with secondary White is much different than a person that is a Red with secondary Blue.
FOUR. Once you have your full results in front of you, work on eliminating the limitations in colors other than your core motive, then move on to your innate limitations.
FIVE. Think of a positive person you admire–one whose character you would like to emulate–then emulate him/her.
SIX. Examine negative behaviors you have adopted from your parents, siblings, friends, and coworkers. What made you take on those behaviors as your own?
These suggestions won’t solve all your problems or magically help you lose those 15 pounds from the holiday. Still, they will help you have a much stronger foundation when making and keeping relationships and self-improvement goals.
Throughout 2021, we will be challenging you to become more self-aware with a series of self-awareness articles tackling serious a workplace issues that include bullying, conflict resolution, reverse mentoring, and corporate culture. January of 2022, we hope you will have risen to the challenge to be more successful with your New Year’s resolutions and, more importantly, your life. CC
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Teresa Glenn has been working with the Color Code since 2006, where her main focus is product development. She has been in the publishing and product development field for over 20 years. Teresa is a core Red with a strong Yellow secondary.
