10/23/2026
You can know every mistake you’ve made and still not see yourself clearly.
This week, while we were sharing about the Trait-Based Model someone something that’s still sticking with me:
“When the root is healthy, the tree is healthy.”
In our Tree of Traits, self-awareness is the root. And their observation raises something worth considering. How much of what we call self-awareness is actually self-criticism?
Some of us can give you a detailed account of everything we think is wrong with us. But ask us what’s good in us, and we have a harder time answering. That’s a pretty incomplete picture of a person.
And that picture matters. We can be deeply empathetic and still abandon our own needs to keep everyone else happy. We can be determined and run ourselves into the ground trying to prove we’re enough. Our strengths are there, but how we see ourselves influences how we use them.
Healthy self-awareness helps us notice when that’s happening. It gives us room to recognize our strengths, acknowledge where we need to grow, and pay attention when something has moved out of balance.
We can care about someone and still speak up about what we need. We can work toward something and allow ourselves to rest. We can take responsibility for a mistake without making it the whole story of who we are.
The root needs our attention, too. And it needs more than a running list of everything we think is wrong with us.
What’s one good thing about you that you rarely give yourself credit for?
