Introspection And The Power Of Becoming Self-Aware – Lesson 6 – Take Action Following Observation And Analysis

Introduction

Welcome to Lesson 6 in my Introspection And The Power Of Becoming Self-Aware course!

When you get started in life, you make sense of the world by observing. It’s what infants do = -hey sit back and take it all in before they reach a point where they attempt to join in and try those things, too.

That’s what introspection is, it’s you sitting back and taking in your inner world to figure out what’s going on.

Following a period of introspection where you observe your inner world and analyze it, you have to decide what you want to do about it – just as an infant observes before taking action, because analysis without action is empty.

Let me tell you a story about Paula, who was dealing with difficulty at work.

Somebody suggested a spot of introspection and she confidently replied that she’d already been through the process.

She was fully aware of why the difficulty bothered her so much.

There wasn’t much to say in response to that, but the existence of additional contributing factors seemed reasonable.

Paula was encouraged to introspect further, and by doing so, she realized there were multiple factors involved, and one of those wasn’t even on her radar.

After further discussion, she found a resolution for all of the issues. It really was as simple as that.

This is something we’re all guilty of – we introspect and believe we have it nailed.

However, we’ve seized on the first reason our brain finds, the obvious, and go with that.

But there’s more to it than that.

Paula had done a fairly good job with her introspection, but the problem was there was another issue she hadn’t yet considered.

The important part of the process was when she and her friend figured out the action to take. It wasn’t until action was addressed that she was able to emotionally clear her decks and settle the issue once and for all.

How does this help you?

Well, hindsight is 20/20 and with the benefit of it, I can look back on Paula’s story and impart that wisdom to you.

Moving From Observation And Analysis To Action

Paula is a high-level computer engineer, and she and her team had carried out some repairs on the company’s system and implemented a new feature. Unfortunately, there was an unintended consequence, with internal customers.

The problem was reported properly, but it was a customer service person who took the call.

This person assumed that, because this internal customer was facing a problem with the repair, it would also be affecting hundreds, if not thousands, of external customers.

That person did a hard reset and while the internal customer’s issue was fixed, external customers were now affected.

Paula wanted to ensure this never happened again.

She felt annoyed at the action the customer service person took, she felt guilty because perhaps she could have done a better job with communication, and she felt concerned because the affected customers would be dissatisfied with the service they received.

There was also lingering guilt that the mistake had happened in the first place.

Paula wanted to know how the mistake happened and how he could avoid it.

As the conversation evolved, Paula realized she hadn’t made a mistake, at least not really – there was a plan in place for testing the code before it was released, and there was no evidence in that process that there was an error. There was absolutely nothing they could have done to prevent the issue that occurred.

For some, this alone would have been enough to resolve those lingering negative emotions.

While the guilt itself was unearned, Paula still felt as though she was culpable – and the introspection work she did allowed her to gain clarity.

The root of the problem was not down to her, it was a system issue – and that’s something that occurs in small companies.

Sometimes things slip through the cracks, and Paula (like all of us) wasn’t a mind reader.

However, what it did highlight to Paula was a need for documentation, and this allowed her to create a system to ensure issues like this could be caught before being released.

It was this action plan that resolved Paula’s guilt over the issue.

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