Squiggly Shortcut: 3 Self-Awareness Habits That Increase Your Career Growth - Squiggly Careers

Squiggly Careers Podcast

Episode: Squiggly Shortcut: 3 Self-Awareness Habits That Increase Your Career Growth

Host: Helen Tupper
Date: February 19, 2026

Episode Overview

This Squiggly Shortcut episode, hosted by Helen Tupper, delves into the vital topic of self-awareness and its undeniable impact on career growth. Helen introduces listeners to three practical self-awareness habits that professionals can implement immediately to unlock more learning, development, and fulfillment in their "Squiggly Careers." The episode is concise, actionable, and filled with relatable examples and personal insights drawn from Helen's and co-host Sarah Ellis's experiences.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What and Why of Self-Awareness

Definition:
Helen clarifies that self-awareness is not just about self-reflection; it's equally about understanding how others perceive you.
- “It is not just you knowing you, it is also you knowing how other people see you too.” (02:30)
Importance:
She cites Tasha Eurich, who calls self-awareness “the meta skill of the 21st century,” and agrees it’s essential for continuous learning, development, and growth at work.
- “Otherwise we are operating at work without the insight of our impact or information about how we could improve.” (03:15)

2. Self-Awareness Habit #1: At My Best / At My Worst

How It Works:
- Reflect and write down when you are at your best and worst at work.
- Then, ask trusted colleagues when THEY see you at your best and worst.
- Compare feedback with your self-reflection to identify alignment or blind spots.
Purpose:
- To increase insight into both strengths and development areas.
- Reveals possible blind spots and highlights differences between self-perception and others’ views.
Tips:
- “If these thoughts about when am I at my worst run riot in your head, it can sometimes trigger confidence gremlins. So we don't want to do that. We're trying to be really constructive here.” (04:40)

3. Self-Awareness Habit #2: Mapping Energy Flows

How It Works:
- At the end of each day, write down everyone you’ve interacted with.
- Indicate with arrows whether each interaction gave you energy, took energy, or was balanced.
Insight Sought:
- Assess the give-and-take of your daily interactions—are you in energy equilibrium or depleted/overloaded?
Example:
- Helen humorously describes tracking her early-morning interactions: husband, children, YouTube personalities, colleagues, and more—before even reaching mid-morning! (07:00)
Takeaway:
- “You need the self-awareness to see where your energy is going. Really useful exercise.” (08:10)

4. Self-Awareness Habit #3: Say the Nice Thing / Say the Hard Thing

How It Works:
- Write down something positive about yourself ("the nice thing"—strengths, things you’re proud of).
- Write down something challenging ("the hard thing"—areas for improvement).
- Reflect on which voice is louder in your day-to-day thinking.
Why It Matters:
- Ensures self-critical thoughts don’t dominate, possibly stifling confidence and growth.
Helen’s Ratio:
- “Personally, I think maybe like 60% say the nice thing, 40% say the hard thing is the right ratio for me.” (10:56)
Customizing Your Ratio:
- The right balance depends on your circumstances—sometimes you need more self-kindness, especially in tough times.
Key Point:
- “If [the hard thing voice] is too loud, it's demotivating, I think.” (10:30)

5. Encouragement & Next Steps

Helen encourages listeners not to be overwhelmed—just pick one habit to get started, rather than all three at once.
Deeper dive available: episode 459 discusses self-awareness strategies in more detail.

Notable Quotes & Moments

On self-awareness:
“I do agree that self-awareness is very important because otherwise we are operating without the insight of our impact or information about how we could improve.” (03:10)
Confrontation with self-reflection:
“I appreciate that is confronting. My recommendation there is to write this down. … We're trying to be really constructive here.” (04:40)
On energy tracking:
“You need energy at work to sustain our impact and you need the self-awareness to see where your energy is going.” (08:20)
On the self-critical voice:
“If that's the loudest voice, day after day, week after week, it's likely to be getting in the way of your growth.” (10:34)

Timestamps for Key Segments

02:30 — What is self-awareness?
03:10 — Why does self-awareness matter?
04:30 — Habit #1: At My Best / At My Worst explained
07:00 — Habit #2: Mapping energy flows with examples
09:40 — Habit #3: Saying the nice thing / Saying the hard thing
10:56 — Personalizing your internal feedback ratio
12:20 — Wrap-up and encouragement to start with just one habit

Episode Summary & Tone

Helen’s delivery is practical, warm, and empathetic, offering listeners realistic actions and personal anecdotes. The episode’s tone is encouraging and non-judgmental, with an emphasis on improvement through self-knowledge and feedback, echoing the Squiggly Careers' ethos of taking ownership of your career journey.

Actionable Highlights

Pick a self-awareness habit (At My Best/Worst, Energy Mapping, or the Nice/Hard Thing reflection) and try it this week.
Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback—it’s a critical part of the self-awareness equation.
Be mindful of your inner dialogue and adjust the "volume" of self-critique as needed for healthy growth.
For deeper learning, check out episode 459 of the Squiggly Careers podcast.

For questions or feedback, Helen and Sarah are contactable at sarah@squigglycareers.com.

Transcript

A (0:00)

Hi, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers podcast and before the episode starts, I just wanted to let you know about something that Sarah and I are so happy about and so grateful for, and that is that our new book, Learn Like a Lobster, which came out in the UK on the 5th of February, is now. I wish I could do a drum roll, but it's now a Sunday Times number one best selling book. We're so proud and we know that lots of the listeners of this podcast are part of what's made that possible. So it is a huge, huge thank you from us. The book actually comes out the US on the 24th of February, so please keep sharing. Please let anyone know in the US that the book is coming very, very soon. But most of all, we just wanted to say a huge thank you for you and now let's of course get on with learning. Hi, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers podcast and you are listening or perhaps watching if you're on YouTube, in which case say hello in the comments. It's always lovely to hear from our Squiggly community, but yes, you are watching one of our Squiggly Career shortcuts. These are, as the name implies, short episodes which focus on a topic we think is important for you in your Squiggly career. And we summarize a couple of actions so that you can get started with it quickly. Generally, all of these Squiggly shortcuts are linked to a longer episode that we've done. So if you do want to dive deeper, you can do that. So today we're going to talk about self awareness. We have done a longer episode. It is episode 459 of the Squiggly Queers Podcast and we will link to that below and you can also search for it on our website. Amazing if dot com. So self awareness, what is it? Why does it matter? How do we do it? I think the best thing on the the what and why comes from Tasha Urich. So what is self awareness? First thing is it is not just you knowing you, it is also you knowing how other people see you too. And I think that is something people miss because they just think it's journaling. And you know, I'm not, I'm not anti journaling. I quite like journaling. But that isn't effective self awareness. You need, you also need to get some feedback. You need to have some data about what other people see and feel when they work with you. And that's part of what makes self Awareness too. So that's what it is, why it matters. Tasha Eret, the academic who I really would recommend on this topic, has said that it is the meta skill of the 21st century. And I would also add learning as a meta skill. I think learning how to learn at work is a very crucial skill. But I do agree that self awareness awareness is very important because otherwise we are operating without operating at work, without the insight of our impact or information about how we could improve. And I think you just miss out on a lot of moments of development if you haven't got self awareness. So we don't want to miss out on moments for our development. We want to make sure that we are learning, growing, improving all the time. And self awareness is a skill that's going to help us do it. So three things you can do to increase your self awareness. Three ideas, three activities. You don't have to do all these three, so please don't be overwhelmed, just pick the one that feels right for you. First is an exercise called At My Best at My Worst. This definitely touches on Tasha's point around how you see you and knowing how other people see you too. So the first thing you do is you reflect on when do you think you are at your best at work, the moments, the meetings, the situations and when do you think you are at your worst. I appreciate that is confronting. My recommendation there is to write this down. I think if these thoughts about when am I at my worst run right in your head, it can sometimes it can trigger confidence gremlins. So we don't want to do that. We're trying to be really constructive here. So I just write it down and then what you're going to do is you're going to ask for some feedback from some trusted colleagues, colleagues who know you well, colleagues who you trust to give you this insight because you are going to ask them when do you see me at my best? When do you see me at my worst? And you are going to contrast what they come back with, with you have written down. Now if you get very similar stuff that indicates a high level of self awareness, which is great. If you get different stuff it's either might have some blind spots, you might think, oh, I didn't, I didn't know that that's what people saw me as being good at or oh, I didn't know that that was an area for improvement. You might also think, oh, I'm probably being a bit self critical because at my worst has no, no one else I've asked has seen that so why am I, why am I thinking that's not me at my best? So it's a really, it's a useful, a useful way of quickly getting some insight to inform your self awareness. So that's one exercise. The second is about energy flows. I love this one. So we spend time with people all day, all week and I don't think we often stop and think about the impact those people have on our energy. Now as an example it is, let me check the time. It is 9:23. So I've not been at work very long but already in my day here's people I spent time with, I've written them down. My husband, my children. I spent time with three people on YouTube. I'm probably not the best use of my time. This morning my childbinder, I spent time with Sarah over WhatsApp. I spent time with Vivi who works in amazing if over Microsoft Teams and it's only 9:23. These are already a lot of people I spent time with that I have given and potentially gotten energy from. This is the point at the end of a day I want you to reflect and write down everyone you spent time with that day, to be honest, so you don't forget. You might want to track the names through the day. You just write them down and then what you're going to do is do an arrow. The arrows away from you are you've given energy to that person, that arrow is kind of towards you are they have given you energy or if it was kind of an equal energy exchange, you just do a line with an arrow on both end and that is data and the data you are looking for is how much energy are you giving and how much energy are you gaining? And does that feel in equilibrium? Do you feel like you're getting as much as you're giving or is it a bit off balance? And it could be off balance in either way but it is insightful. You know we need energy at work to sustain our impact and you need the self awareness to see where your energy is going. Really useful exercise. I mean you could do it over a week but I actually think it's quite insightful just on an average, just an average day at work. One more, because I need to keep this short, I would also reflect on saying the nice things to, to yourself and saying the hard thing to yourself. So the nice thing might be you thinking about, you know, the things that you're proud of at the moment, thinking about your strengths, thinking about the difference you're making to your team that's all the nice thing saying the hard thing might be when am I getting in my way? What am I not doing well? Where am I not delivering on what I want to do? The the point of doing this exercise is for you to kind of then take a step back and say which voice is louder right now? And we don't really want the say the hard thing voice to be louder. Now I don't think that should be silent because I do think there is some insight in saying the hard thing to yourself about where you could improve. But if that's the loudest voice, day after day, week after week is likely to be getting in the way of your growth. Because that voice, if it's too loud, is demotivating, I think. I mean, you get, you know, reflect on what the right ratio is for you. Personally, I think maybe like 60% say the nice thing, 40% say the hard thing is the right ratio for me. But maybe you've been through a tough time and you need to up your ratio. You need to say, say the nice thing to yourself a little bit more right now to get you through a bit of a tough time. You don't know unless you give it a go. So you're going to write down the nice thing, the hard thing from your own perspective and then you're just going to think about like, what's the volume on these things right now and is it the right volume for me? So those are three exercises. As I said at the start, pick one and give it a go. Don't need to do all of them straight away. And if you do want to dive deeper, episode 459 different ways you can develop your self awareness is an episode Sarah and I recorded together and we'll put the link in the show. Notes Feedback questions always welcomed. It is just Helen and sarah@squigglycareers.com. thanks so much for listening.