The Importance Of Self Awareness

Throughout personal professional development reflection is essential, allowing health care professionals to self-develop by revisiting events and analysing areas in which improvements and learning would ensure a positive impact on their future practice. The Nursing and Midwifery Council, (NMC, 2010) notes that all health care practitioners must be self-aware in their own values and principles which could affect their practice. Ensuring they maintain personal and professional development while learning through supervision, feedback and reflection.

Reflective practice allows us to reflect on our actions and experiences so that we can learn from them and adapt our behaviour accordingly. Reflective practice can be uncomfortable as it challenges our own assumptions about ourselves however it is vital for improving the quality of the service we provide.

This assignment aims to identify self-awareness as an important attribute for nurses. I aim to achieve this by exploring why self-awareness is important and the impact it can have on nursing professionals. Finally there will be a conclusion with a thorough justification on why self-awareness is an important life skill for nurses.

This essay will demonstrate an understanding of the theory of reflective practice within healthcare and nursing. Furthermore, the essay will identify and analyse the different models of reflective practice, the effectiveness of the models and how healthcare professionals can apply this within their profession. Also, the barriers that may prevent a healthcare professional from reflecting will be discussed in this essay and how it will impact the quality of care delivered to patients.

Self-Awareness, self-concept and emotional intelligence are effective managerial concepts that will result in leadership success. According to Stanford University, having these soft skills are indispensable traits that good managers should develop to be successful leaders. Managers strive to become aware of who they are, what their values, attitudes, skills, and abilities are. These values drive them to achieve and will eventually result in them become more effective. (Showry & Manasa, 2014, p. 15)

Gustaffson and Fagerberg point out that reflective practice has relevance for clinical practice as by understanding the contents of nurses’ reflections, it is also possible to understand the advantages of reflective practice and how and when such measures should be used by the nurses for further professional development.

Reflective practice is often defined as when practitioners engage in a continuous cycle of self observation and self evaluation in order to understand their own actions and reactions they prompt in themselves and in learners (Brookfield, 1995; Thiel, 1999). The goal is not necessarily to address a specific problem or question defined at the outset, as in practitioner research but to observe and refine practice in general on an ongoing basis. (Cunningham 2001). Reflection on practice is a key skill for nurses. Engaging in regular reflection allows practitioners to manage the personal and professional impact of addressing their patients’ fundamental health and wellbeing needs daily (Oelofsen, 2012)

The ability to become reflective in practice has become a necessary skill for health professionals. This is to ensure that health professionals are continuing with their daily learning and improving their practice. Reflective practice plays a big part in healthcare today and is becoming increasingly noticed.

In recent years, reflection and reflective practice have become well-known term with in the health care arena. They are words that have been debated and discussed with in the health care setting (Tony and Sue 2006). Reflective practice is essential for nurses, as nurses are responsible for providing care to the best of their ability to patients and their families (NMC, 2008). Reid (1993) states reflection is a process of reviewing an experience of practice in order to describe, analyse, evaluate and so inform learning about practice. Johns (1995) notes that reflection enables practitioners to assess, understand and learn through their experience. Reflective practice, therefore, offers nurses an opportunity to review their decisions and

Personal reflection in nursing is essential and critical as it allows for continuous development and re-assessment of skills whilst working within a health care setting (Reflective practice: a tool to enhance professional practice 2011, pp.1-3). Personal reflection is important as reflective practice allows for the ability for one to reflect and examine their actions and experiences which overall will increase and enhance their clinical knowledge, as well as developing and improving their practice (Reflective practice: a tool to

This part will discuss self-awareness and continuous self-development through analyzing a number of prior researches, then come up with the link of them to support my role as a manager in the future.

Within different disciplines, what is understood by reflective practice varies considerably (Fook et al, 2006). Despite this, some agreement has been achieved. In general, reflective practice is understood as the process of learning through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and/or practice (Boud et al 1985;

This essay will review the literature to critically explore the value and purpose of reflective practice.

It has been said by many that self-awareness is a defining characteristic of humankind, something only a few other living things on this planet may possess and none to the degree of humans. The British Dictionary defines self-aware as being "conscious of one 's own feelings, character, etc." However one must ask them self what is self-awareness and in asking what is self-awareness and the important questions of self-awareness such as what are we and who are we? While these questions seems like fairly simple questions to answer at first. We know that we are made up of skin and organs and blood and bone but is that really what we are? Are we the consciousness or are we the body or are we a combination of both and if so it what correlation are subject, mind to body or body to mind? For generations many philosophers have sought out to answer this question. The dualist Descartes would argue that all we can know for sure is that we are here and that the mind is real but everything else can be brought into question as to whether it is real or not, even our own bodies. Materialism on the other hand would argue that we are nothing more than a body and the mind is nothing more than another physical thing or the product of such a thing.

Reflective practice is beneficial for both professional and personal growth for several reasons. In particular, reflective practice allows you to learn from past experiences to gain a deeper understanding of how to work in your practice and in your personal life, thus leading to greater effectiveness as a health care provider (Mann, Gordon,& MacLeod, 2009). Furthermore, by reflecting on past experiences, reflective practice leads to better self awareness and constant self-assessment and which can lead to a shift in perspective (Smith & Trede, 2013). Moreover, reflective practice allows one to be able to continually improve by constantly