Self Awareness: 40 Useful Performance Feedback Phrases

Self Awareness is the ability to have a sound understanding of who you are as a person and how to relate to the world in which you live by understanding your strengths and weaknesses and how to manage them in the workplace.

Self Awareness: Exceeds Expectations Phrases

• Maintains momentum, focus, and effectiveness, despite provocations, challenges, and emotionally charged situations
• Recognizes and appreciates the fact that continuous learning is an important part of professional and personal development
• Stays composed when presented with new instructions or faced with new situations and manages own negative emotions effectively
• Possesses a strong work ethic; handles own tasks and projects efficiently without complaining
• Shows willingness to test own assumptions by seeking the ideas and opinions of other employees
• Views challenges and disappointments as opportunities to grow and develop and encourages others to do the same
• Assesses oneself accurately and understands that one's emotional response to situations influences how one acts and how one is perceived
• Is always positive; creates good personal and work habits and rejects the bad ones
• Demonstrates self-control and recognizes one's own stress triggers and pressure points
• Calms oneself and others and positively impacts the effectiveness of others during difficult times

Self Awareness: Meets Expectations Phrases

• Acknowledges and recognizes the emotions of other colleagues and instills a constructive attitude and positive during complex and difficult times
• Draws upon one's self-control in order to identify and manage the emotions of others during adverse times
• Creates time to reflect; looks back at failures and setbacks in order to identify and apply key learning for self and others
• Maintains the ability to make good decisions and exercise sound judgment during difficult or stressful situations
• Remains calm, actively listens and tries to focus on the positive in order to manage challenges and maintain momentum in day-to-day work
• Identifies gaps in one's own skill set and takes advantage of the learning opportunities in order to enhance effectiveness
• Maintains awareness of one's own emotions and uses this knowledge to guide one's actions and to think in a favorable manner
• Depicts high level of self-discipline and looks forward to learning new things and opportunities
• Remains confident, energized and enthusiastic in the face of very challenging and prolonged work demands
• Identifies and appreciates the strengths of others and leverages their skills in order to manage uncertain situations

Self Awareness: Needs Improvement Phrases

• Does not show willingness to listen to new ideas and opinions from other employees and clients
• Sets unrealistic goals for oneself and always has unrealistic ideas on how easily tasks could be accomplished
• Does not care about how other employees think about oneself
• Does not create time after work to think about the day or meditate about one's own life
• Does not keep an open mind and lacks the ability to regulate own emotional world and that of other colleagues
• Easily loses focus and gets sucked into social media and other small distractions
• Always unable to set boundaries and gives in quickly to demands of other colleagues
• Represses one's own emotions and denies their causes and lacks the ability to bend and flex with them
• Ignores solitude; does not see the need to set some time for self-reflection
• Is unable to realize true self both internally and with other employees

Self Awareness: Self Evaluation Questions

• Is there a time when you were surprised about the positive impact your words or behavior had on a colleague or client?
• Can you think of a situation where you felt you needed to modify or adjust your behavior? How did you go about it?
• Describe times when you have been in a good mood at work. What impact did that have on your performance and colleagues?
• Are there times when you have been able to avoid negative situations at work? What did you do?
• Can you describe some circumstances and situations that brought out your best at work?
• Are there times when you have reacted to someone or something in the workplace in a way you did not intend to? How did you fix that?
• Can you list five things that you have learned about yourself in the last two years, that are relevant to how you work?
• Is there a time when you said something to your supervisor and later regretted saying it? What did you do?
• What is one area you have consistently developed in the last year?
• Is there a time when you received feedback about your work, and you had to disagree? What happened?