GETTING TO KNOW YOU

By Noah Gentner, Ph.D., NBC-HWC, CPHWC, RHC and Ashwin Patel, Ph.D.

Self-awareness starts with paying attention to yourself. The more you listen to that voice inside you, the more you learn and grow. It’s time to start paying attention to your thoughts and feelings and really get to know yourself.

When I was a Junior in high school, I started thinking about what I wanted to be. Unfortunately, my dreams of playing in both the NBA and the English Premier Football League were fast disintegrating so I needed to face reality and think about my future. A few friends said, “You’re smart, you should be a doctor.” That settled it for me and I was soon heading confidently off to college as a Pre-Med major. Two years later, I was in the academic advisor’s office trying to change my major.

I had spent my first two years of college feeling anxious, uncomfortable and bewildered as I sat in my chemistry and physics classes. I’d thought this was what I wanted and it was certainly what everyone had told me I should do. I couldn’t, however, shake the feeling that something didn’t feel right. Nothing excited me about going to class or learning the material, and I started having a hard time seeing my future as a physician. I loved the thought of helping people, but that wasn’t enough to motivate me to pursue this career. It was becoming increasingly obvious that I dreaded going to class, wasn’t engaging in the material, and kept choosing other things to do rather than schoolwork. In class, I spent all my time thinking about my intramural sports and after ten minutes of studying for exams, would quit and play video games.

Athletes often use the phrase “being in the zone” to describe how they feel when they are at their best and fully engaged. I was anywhere but in that zone. Ultimately, I realized that I had to spend a few difficult weeks doing something extremely uncomfortable but ultimately rewarding – getting to know myself. I thought about my strengths and my passions, and considered what made me happiest. Eventually I started listening to that little voice inside my head telling me something wasn’t right and I knew I had to make a change.

My passion for learning returned when I enrolled in a psychology course. I began loving my classes and could finally picture a future for myself. Psychology provided an opportunity for me to explore my passion for helping others, and it energized me in a way that medicine did not. My admiration for my dad –who is a psychotherapist – was an important influence. Ultimately, I finished college as a psychology major and one year later started graduate work in sport psychology which was the natural marriage of two of my passions.

If you have been questioning your career choice, ask yourself some of the same questions I wrestled with:

Did people tell you what career you should choose?

Has anyone ever told you how you “should” feel about something?

Have you ignored that little voice inside you when it was saying something important?

Instead of ignoring that voice, listen to it. William Goleman defines self-awareness as “the ability to understand your feelings and use them to guide your decision-making and

WHEN DO YOU EXPERIENCE GREEN, YELLOW, & RED LIGHTS IN YOUR DAILY LIFE?

interactions.” That awareness of what’s happening and the impact it’s having on you will influence the way in which you respond. Self-awareness helps us learn from our mistakes, be honest with ourselves about our behavior, understand what frustrates or angers us, identify what makes us happy, develop strategies for coping with stress, and be present and intentional with our behavior. That involves understanding what activities make you happy, what coping strategies help you deal with stress, and how you can achieve your best work performance every day.

Have you ever been angry after returning to the fire station but been unsure about the source of that frustration? Have you reacted negatively to someone on your crew when there’s been little or no provocation? Do you have difficulty coping with stress? Do you lose sight of activities that make you happy? As you learn more about yourself, you’ll begin to be able to identify what inspires or upsets you.

What makes you happy?

How can you increase your self-awareness?

The first step is to start paying attention to your thoughts and feelings. Start with a simple exercise at the end of every day, shift, or big event. Ask yourself two questions: What went well and what did I learn?

This common exercise, widely used by athletes and the military, encourages learning every day, from every experience.

TO INCREASE YOUR SELF-AWARENESS, IMAGINE A TRAFFIC SIGNAL

What do you do when you approach an intersection and the light is green? You keep going. At a yellow light, you look for potential danger before deciding whether to speed up or stop. At a red light – you stop!

The process is the same in our daily lives. When do you experience green, yellow, and red lights in your daily life? When are you at your best? Which situations signify danger? When is your body telling you to stop? One of the best ways to increase self-awareness is to start paying attention to yourself. Over the next few weeks, begin noticing your traffic lights.

When your light is green, it’s a signal that you’re engaged in activities that make you happy. Make note of those moments and activities so you can make more time for them. Yellow lights warn you to be cautious and you’ll feel your body responding accordingly. If something you’re doing causes you concern on a regular basis, pay attention and take note of what’s necessary for you to change that light from yellow to green. The red lights in your life are your body’s way of telling you that you’re doing something harmful – and you need to stop. My first two years of college were full of red lights telling my body and mind to stop what I was doing. As soon as I started to pay attention to those traffic lights, a better road forward appeared. As you become aware of your own traffic lights, consider these questions: • When am I at my best? • What circumstances and activities increase my happiness and performance? • What strategies can I use to activate those situations?

• What can I do to get that feeling back when it disappears? There are a number of different specialty areas within the fire service: rescue, maintenance, leadership, wellness, health and safety, training, and more. Some will suit your interests and strengths better than others, so take time to discover the best matches. In your off-duty hours, give yourself the opportunity to try different activities to see which speak to the authentic you. Do you feel like you’re in the zone when you’re playing a guitar, or doing some carpentry work, or painting or kayaking or hiking? Find what makes you feel best...and do it!