Self - Awareness: Why Bother?

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED FEB, 2026

Psychological Sovereignty, That’s Why.

95% of people think they are self-aware. 15% of people are self-aware.

I love that stat (thank you, Tasha Eurich, for that research).

I think about self-awareness a lot as a professional coach. It's one of the touted valuable outcomes of working with a coach. Improved self-awareness.

So what? What's the value of self-awareness? Wouldn't it be easier to stay in the 95%, moving through life blissfully unaware?

In my own experience, and that of my clients, becoming more self-aware is a journey. A journey to psychological sovereignty.

I think of psychological sovereignty at its core as the capacity to govern your own inner world (your thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and actions) from an authentic internal place, rather than being driven by external pressures, reactive forces, or outside influence.

Easier said than done, though. We've got inner critics, socialisation, indoctrination, education, and so many voices telling us what we should do and who we should be. Most of us are being run by something. The question is whether we know what it is.

It might seem self-indulgent to spend time and even money exploring your own self-awareness. But I see it as a gift. To yourself and everyone in your ecosystem.

Consider this: you say to your business partner, "I know that when I'm frustrated, I need to process it out loud, immediately." And your partner says, "When conflict arises, I need time to sit with it before I can come back to it."

Now those two self-aware people have the capacity for relational awareness. How do they navigate this? Neither partner is doing anything wrong, and neither has to abandon their way. What matters is that by naming it, they can build an intentional way of working together. By naming it, they give each other permission to notice it outloud.

I've spent years supporting individuals on exactly this journey. Lately, I've been bringing that same work into business partnerships. Because self-awareness on its own is powerful. But two people who are self-aware together? That's where something really interesting happens. If you read that example above and recognised yourself and your partner in it, that's not a red flag. That's just two humans trying to work well together. The question is whether you want to navigate it by chance or by design. That's what partnership coaching makes possible.

Email me to explore further: andria@peoplelab.ca