The Johari Window: How to Build Self-Awareness & Achieve Success in Life

Do you want to enhance your relationships with others? Are you wanting to improve your communication skills? Do you want to become more effective and productive? If so, then you need to build your self-awareness. How aware are you currently of your own thoughts and feelings? What about your skills and abilities, or your attitude or behaviours? Is what you think about yourself and your behaviours the same as how others see you and your behaviours? I hope so, but so often is the case, what you think about yourself can be completely different to how others perceive you!

The Johari Window is a useful tool for helping you build self-awareness and gain an understanding of how others perceive you. If you are working with others on a regular basis, the Johari Window is particularly good for helping you build your awareness and relationships with those in the group. What else can you get from this tool? Using the Johari Window will help improve your communications with others, enhance your relationship skills, develop your metacognitive ability and most importantly, give you more clarity around who you are and how your representing yourself to the world.

The Johari Window

The Johari Window was developed by American Psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in 1955… have a guess at how the word ‘Johari’ came about! Let’s have a look at how it works.

The model is divided into 4 quadrants that represent your self-awareness and awareness from others.

1) Arena (Open Area)

The Arena is the area which is known to all. You are open about your thoughts and feelings,  you are aware of your behaviours and have an understanding of your skills can capabilities. Others that you are interacting with are aligned and understand your thoughts and feelings that you are communicating, either verbally or non-verbally. They also have visibility and awareness around your skills and capabilities or other knowledge or information.

2) Facade (Hidden Area)

The Facade is the area that is known to yourself but is hidden from others. There may be some things that you know or are thinking in your head, or you may feel a particular way, however you decide to conceal this information and not share it with others. You may know that you have certain skills or abilities, but choose to not show this to others. Those around you do not know what you are experiencing in terms of thoughts and feelings, and may not know or your capabilities. It is hidden from them.

 

3) Blind Spot (Blind Area)

The Blind Spot is the area that is known to others but not to yourself. There may be behaviours that you are exhibiting or things that you are communicating that are affecting others in a particular way. You may be unaware or perceive yourself as not having the ability to perform in a certain situation. However, those that you are interacting with can see exactly how you feel or know from your behaviour or prior experience that you do have skills and abilities to perform in a particular situation.

 

4) Unknown (Unknown Area)

The Unknown is the area that is blind to both yourself and to those around you. There may be things about yourself that you do not know, such as your own skills and abilities, even your own thoughts and feelings. Others around you might also have no visibility or knowledge of these.