A pattern I have seen again and again in business is this: a leader can explain the market, the client, the team, and the competition in great detail — yet struggle to name the part of the problem they themselves are creating.
I understand why.
Looking outward is easier. Other people's mistakes are visible. Our own motives usually feel reasonable from the inside.
For more than two decades, I have worked with entrepreneurs, leaders, sales professionals, and teams. One lesson keeps returning:
Results often start changing when the person stops asking only "What is wrong around me?" and starts asking "What part of this belongs to me?"
That does not mean blaming yourself for everything.
Responsibility is not guilt.
To me, responsibility means identifying what is actually yours to influence: your decision, your standard, your communication, your boundary, your reaction, your next move.
And that requires self-awareness.
The problem is that self-awareness is much harder than simply thinking about yourself.
Key takeaways
- Self-awareness is more than introspection.
- We usually see our intentions more clearly than our impact.
- Other people can sometimes notice visible patterns we miss.
- Repeated behavior is often more useful than a single self-description.
- A useful insight should eventually change a decision or action.
- Self-awareness without action can become another form of avoidance.
Why introspection is not enough
We usually assume we know ourselves best because nobody else has direct access to our thoughts.
That is true — but incomplete.
Psychologist Timothy Wilson and colleagues have argued that some of the mental processes behind our judgments, feelings, and behavior are not directly accessible to conscious introspection.
In other words, sincerity does not guarantee perfect self-explanation.
You can be completely honest about why you did something and still miss part of the pattern.
You may call yourself calm because you rarely argue, while other people experience you as conflict-avoidant.
You may call yourself demanding because you care about quality, while your team experiences you as reluctant to delegate.
You may believe you are giving someone space, while they experience silence as emotional distance.
You may say you are "not creative" because you do not paint or write music, while your work repeatedly depends on original problem-solving.
This is why I do not treat self-awareness as a private monologue.
I treat it more like an evidence review.
The MeByFace Three-Mirror Method
When I want to understand a pattern more clearly, I find it useful to look through three different mirrors.
Mirror 1 — The inside view
Ask yourself:
What do I believe is happening inside me?
This is your access to motives, emotions, fears, hopes, values, and intentions.
It matters. Nobody else can fully replace it.
But it is only one source of information.
Mirror 2 — The outside view
Ask:
What do people who know me well repeatedly experience?
Research on self-knowledge suggests that other people can sometimes contribute useful information about visible behavior that we do not notice as clearly ourselves.
That does not mean other people are always right.
It means they have access to a different dataset:
your observable impact.
A powerful question to ask somebody you trust is not:
"What are my weaknesses?"
Ask:
"When I am under pressure, what do I do that helps — and what do I do that makes things harder?"
Specific questions create better evidence.
Mirror 3 — The pattern view
Ask:
What keeps happening?
One difficult week does not define you.
One argument is not a personality trait.
Look for repetition.
What kind of work consistently gives you energy?
What type of conflict keeps returning?
What do people repeatedly ask your help with?
Where do you keep taking too much responsibility?
Which decisions do you delay even when you already have enough information?
When do you feel most like yourself?
What kind of environment repeatedly brings out your best — or your worst?
The pattern view protects you from building an identity around a single emotional moment.
The fourth step — Choice
The three mirrors are not useful unless they eventually change something.
That is why I add a fourth step:
Inside View → Outside View → Pattern View → Choice
The goal is not to describe yourself more beautifully.
The goal is to choose better.
Three blind spots I see most often
1. We judge ourselves by intention and others by impact
You know what you meant.
They experienced what happened.
That gap is responsible for an enormous amount of friction in leadership and relationships.
A manager may intend to protect quality but make people afraid to bring unfinished ideas.
A partner may intend to solve the problem quickly but leave the other person feeling unheard.
A highly responsible person may intend to help, yet slowly take over so much that others stop taking ownership.
The intention may be good.
The pattern can still be costly.
Ask yourself:
If my intention were invisible, what would my behavior suggest?
That question can be uncomfortable.
It can also be extremely productive.
2. Natural strengths feel too normal to count
People often know their weaknesses in extraordinary detail and struggle to describe their strongest natural abilities.
I have seen this repeatedly.
The person who naturally creates structure says:
"I just organized it."
The person who reads a room well says:
"I simply noticed."
The strategist says:
"The next step was obvious."
The relationship builder says:
"I just remembered what mattered to them."
When something comes naturally, we often underestimate its value.
That is why one of my core beliefs is that the biggest opportunity is not always to become someone new.
Sometimes it is to recognize what is already strong in you and start using it deliberately.
3. Identity turns descriptions into rules
"I am the responsible one."
"I am not emotional."
"I am an introvert."
"I always need certainty."
"I am bad at relationships."
A description can be useful.
A rule can become a prison.
Personality research shows meaningful stability across time, but stability does not mean immobility. Traits can change across the lifespan, and intervention research has found measurable changes in personality-trait scores.
You do not need to reject your nature.
But you should be careful about turning today's pattern into tomorrow's limitation.
A view some people may disagree with
I believe self-awareness is essential.
I also believe it is possible to overconsume it.
Another assessment.
Another report.
Another book.
Another journal prompt.
Another hour thinking about why you think the way you think.
At some point, more insight stops helping.
Self-awareness without action can become a sophisticated form of avoidance.
I have learned this in business as much as in personal life.
Information matters.
But information that never changes behavior has limited value.
That is why one of the ideas behind MeByFace is not simply:
"Know yourself."
It is:
Know yourself well enough to act differently.
A 15-minute self-awareness audit
Choose one recurring issue you care about.
It could be:
- difficulty delegating;
- conflict at work;
- overthinking decisions;
- feeling unseen in a relationship;
- losing energy;
- choosing the wrong priorities.
Then answer four questions.
1. My inside view
What do I believe I am trying to do?
Write no more than three sentences.
2. The outside view
How might another person describe my behavior if they did not know my intention?
Do not defend yourself yet.
3. The pattern view
Where else has something similar happened in the last twelve months?
Find at least three examples.
4. My next choice
What is one 10% different behavior I can test this week?
Not a life transformation.
A test.
For example:
Ask one question before giving advice.
Delegate earlier rather than after overload.
Name what you feel before moving to a solution.
Ask for one opposing view before finalizing an important decision.
Stop one commitment that no longer serves the life you want to build.
Now self-awareness has become useful.
Free Reading
Want another perspective to compare with your own?
Start your free MeByFace reading, then mark what resonates, what does not, and what you want to test in real life.
Where an external perspective can help
Sometimes you need a new angle because your usual questions produce your usual answers.
That is how I think about MeByFace.
A face-based reading should not become a verdict about who you are. Static facial features are not a scientifically validated personality diagnosis.
Instead, a structured reading can give you hypotheses to test.
Does this pattern appear in my decisions?
Do other people experience me this way?
Is this a strength I underuse?
Is this a strength I overuse?
What would change if I made the pattern visible earlier?
Our principle is simple:
Insight is a hypothesis. Life is the evidence.
If a reflection is useful, your life should eventually show why.
Self-awareness is not self-criticism
The purpose of seeing yourself clearly is not to find more reasons to judge yourself.
Sometimes clarity reveals a blind spot.
Sometimes it reveals a strength.
Sometimes it reveals that you have been trying to solve the wrong problem.
You may discover:
You do not need more motivation — you need fewer priorities.
You are not bad at relationships — you communicate important things too late.
You are not weak under pressure — you carry too much before asking for help.
You are not uncreative — your creativity appears through systems, language, strategy, or problem-solving.
You do not need to become more confident before acting — you need enough clarity to take the next step.
That is the kind of self-awareness I believe in.
Not perfect self-knowledge.
Better evidence. Better choices. Better life.
What to do today
Before the day ends, ask one person you trust:
"What is one pattern you see in me that I may not see clearly myself?"
Do not explain.
Do not defend.
Listen.
Then decide whether the evidence fits.
Ready to explore your own pattern?
Use the free reading as a hypothesis — not a verdict — and compare it with your own life.
About the Author
Marijus Morkevičius — Entrepreneur, Human Potential Researcher & Co-Founder of MeByFace
For more than 20 years, Marijus has worked with business leaders, entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and teams, exploring the patterns behind self-awareness, strengths, leadership, and human potential. His philosophy starts from a simple idea: we are not passive observers of our lives — we help create them through our choices and actions. About Marijus Morkevičius.
Related reading
- Why intelligent people doubt themselves
- Hidden strengths we overlook
- The Self-Discovery Guide: How to Truly Know Yourself
Sources
- Wilson TD. Self-knowledge: its limits, value, and potential for improvement. Annual Review of Psychology (2004).
- Vazire S, Mehl MR. Knowing me, knowing you: the accuracy and unique predictive validity of self-ratings and other-ratings of daily behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2008).
- Roberts BW et al. A systematic review of personality trait change through intervention. Psychological Bulletin (2017).