Perception is Reality: Do you know how you are perceived?

Self Awareness - Are you capable of looking at yourself with a constructive and critical eye? Few of us are born with proficiency in this area. In fact, it's difficult to look inside yourself at your own flaws and then continue to peer deeply enough to be objective and accurate. Also, what many people outside of ourselves may see as flaws, we may not consider a flaw at all.

A good tool to use when conducting a self-evaluation is to ask friends and family to share their opinions of you good, bad, and ugly. Give them permission to let it rip - then practice your "active listening". In other words, don't go into defense or offense mode. Just listen, bite your lips, sit on your hands, bite a bullet if you have to (I did.) but don't SAY anything just let them really open up about the you they see and experience.

I would encourage you to think about writing down what is said, because when people start saying things about us, to our faces, it is easy to be so emotional  that instead of being useful, you become anxious and mix messages, misunderstand the meaning of their feedback and loose the key focus of the conversation. When I did this excercise with those closest to me, I prepared them and tried to make them as comfortable as possible by laying down some ground rules.

I explained

• what I wanted from them - honest, objective, useful feedback about my personality, actions and behaviors
• why I wanted the feedback - so that it would help me continue to grow and evolve into a more healthy, loving, and loveable person.
• what I would be doing while they were sharing - I explained I would be writing down some of the things they shared because it would help me use their feedback and incorporate their opinions into my overall self-awareness plan. Did my hand shake sometimes while I was writing? You bet it did, I teared up a time or two as well. And not just at the bad things, but the good as well. It is extremely moving to learn why the people who mean the world to you love you back.
• that there would be no hard feelings - that no matter what they said, if they cared enough about me to make the time and to be honest, I would be grateful and appreciative.
• that there were limits -
• this was not intended to give them license to critique me on every single move I made going forward, but to help me prepare for a process I was undertaking at this point in time.  
• And that if they ever wanted me to return the favor, I would be happy to, just not immediately afterward, when I might be feeling a bit raw (and retaliatory),  but anytime after 30 days had passed and I could be objective and provide the same level of care and thoughtfullness they gave to me.

If you decide to undertake this perception review choose the people you include wisely, don't only select people who you know will say nice things, don't select all haters either.  Make sure to get a cross section from your life, including your family, friends, colleagues, church members, and associates.  I also went to a couple people that I did not have a tremendous amount of love for, an ex boyfriend, an old colleague from work who bumped heads with me a couple times. Overall the information was very, very, useful. I learned that it did not have to be taken and accepted as gospel, but when the feedback was broken down into a few useful themes that were consistent across the board, it was easy to see what perceptions my behaviors and actions were causing.

Try to avoid dismissing people's feedback because you believe it's just their opinion and you feel that it is not important.  Opinions matter and perception is the reality of the person and people perceiving it and when it is about you it matters, trust me.  Embrace this opportunity to truly learn new things about yourself.  Be open to understanding that this is a data point in your self awareness assessment and it can be a fundemental part of change and self-improvement.