Most people spend their lives improving their skills - without ever understanding the person using them.
Perhaps one of the greatest taboos in life is this: very few people truly know how to learn about themselves.
We are taught how to read, how to write, how to calculate, how to argue, how to sell, how to perform. But we are not taught how to see ourselves. And so we live inside a kind of triple bind:
- You do not know what you do not know.
- You are not taught how to look for it
- And even if you were, you are given no reliable way to work it out for yourself.
It is like having a shadow that is always present - close enough to recognise, but impossible to grasp. Every time you turn to face it, it moves. And so self-knowledge, despite being one of the most sacred pursuits in human history, remains one of the rarest.
This is not because tools do not exist.
But rather because most people lack two things: the courage to see what those tools reveal, and the mechanism to integrate that insight into how they live. Without that, you may become highly capable at doing, but disconnected from being. And at some point, the question becomes unavoidable: are you living your life, or simply executing patterns you have inherited?
Most people never answer that question. It shows – quietly at first, then unmistakably – in the decisions they make , the relationships they build and the ceilings they never quite break through.
Building a Mechanism for Self-Knowledge
Self-awareness does not happen by accident. It must be built. And if there is a single shift that has changed this in recent years, it is this: for the first time, you can observe yourself systematically, at scale.
Once you know this, the raw question becomes whether you use that capability -or avoid what it shows you. Below is what I call ‘The Mirror Method’ – a 6 stage continual process for building deep self-knowledge and awareness.
1. Get Out of Your Head
The first step is to create distance between your thoughts and yourself. Most people are so immersed in their thinking that they cannot distinguish between what they think and who they are. But thoughts are not identity. They are patterns - conditioned responses to stimulus. And unless you can observe them, you remain governed by them.
For me, this is where Wing Tsun has always been so powerful. Through structured movement and repetition of forms, you begin to notice something subtle but important. Your body expresses differently depending on your internal state. Tension appears where it is not needed. Effort emerges where simplicity would suffice. And slowly, something separates.
You begin to see what is you, and what is simply layering. Like a light bulb covered in dust, you are not becoming something new - you are revealing what was already there. While Wing Tsun is a specialist in this, it does not have to be martial arts. It could be running, climbing, yoga - any discipline that creates space between stimulus and response. Without that space, self-knowledge remains theoretical.
2. Find Your Edge
You will not find yourself in comfort. Clarity lives at the edge. Comfort is seductive precisely because it numbs and detaches you from your essence, replaced by superficial insights.
This is why I have pursued extremes - not for the outcome, but for the information created by the experience. You won’t necessarily enjoy the experience but that is rather the point. At the edge, your nervous system is exposed, your patterns accelerate, and your defaults become visible. You see how you respond under pressure, not preference.
In Wing Tsun, we describe this wisdom as expect to be punched. Not literally in every context, but philosophically. Prepare for the moment where things do not go your way, because that is the moment that reveals deep learnings opportunities.
Growth does not occur in comfort. It occurs in intelligent discomfort, and it must be sought deliberately. It doesn’t need to be your everyday experience – but it does need to a regular part of your life.
3. Relentlessly Seek Feedback
If you want to understand yourself, you have to study your patterns - relentlessly. Feedback is everywhere: what you observe, what others tell you, and what outcomes reveal. The key is not just to receive feedback, but to analyse it:
What did I do well? What could I have done better? What patterns are repeating? What do I naturally move towards - and away from?
And perhaps equally importantly: where is the feedback wrong? Even incorrect feedback is data. It tells you something about perception, communication, projection, or context. Every interaction becomes a mirror. Over time, you see patterns emerge. And that is where insight begins.
4. Use the Tools - But Do Not Worship Them
There are many outstanding tools that can accelerate this process. Each brings its own layer and lens, allowing you to see different aspects of your thoughts, behaviours, competencies, communication styles. Below are the ones I use personally and professionally. The key is to see these as insights – rather than labels you identify with (a trap you have to navigate carefully):
The Enneagram: A framework that maps underlying motivations - core fears, desires, and defence patterns - shaping how individuals interpret experience and respond, particularly under pressure.
Insights Discovery: A self-awareness and communication framework that uses four colour energies to help people understand their behavioural preferences, strengths, development areas, and how they relate to others.
MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator): A typology that helps people understand their preferences in how they take in information, make decisions, direct their energy, and approach the outer world.
DISC: A behavioural model that outlines observable tendencies in communication and action across four styles: dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness.
The GC Index: A contribution-based model that identifies how individuals create impact within an organisation - whether through generating ideas, shaping them, driving them forward, or executing them.
The Bain 3 Communities Model: A strategic lens that distinguishes between disruptors, scalers, and executors, helping clarify how individuals contribute to innovation, growth, and operational delivery.
Chemistry Psychometrics: A trait-based assessment that combines behavioural data and performance indicators to evaluate capability, role fit, and potential in applied contexts.
PACE: A performance-oriented model that examines how individuals deliver outcomes through dimensions such as drive, adaptability, curiosity, and execution.
Each of these is useful, but none of them are complete. What becomes clear over time is that no single tool explains you. Each is only a partial view.
Their value is not in defining you, but in helping you see patterns from different angles. And this extends further than most people are comfortable admitting. You can explore systems you may not even believe in - astrology, numerology, alternative frameworks - not because they are right, but because of what happens when you engage with them. In particular:
What do you notice? What resonates? What do you reject? What patterns appear across different lenses?
The goal is observation, not belief - insight often comes not from certainty, but from contrast.
5. Observe Yourself at Scale
Self-knowledge is layered. There is what you are born with. There is what shapes you early on. There is what you experience - and what you choose to pursue. And there is how all of that expresses itself in how you act and respond.
This is where the modern shift matters. For the first time, you can externalise your thinking and examine it at scale.
You can take your profile, your writing, your decisions, your communication patterns, your feedback, your recurring themes - and compare them. You can ask better questions of them. You can see where they align, where they contradict, and where the same pattern keeps appearing in different forms.
And with large language models, you now have a level of analysis at your fingertips that was previously very difficult to access. For the first time they allow you to hold more of yourself in view at once. They allow you to compare, test, challenge, summarise, interrogate, and begin to build a working model of how you operate.
Over time, you are no longer relying only on memory or feeling. You are building a dataset of yourself.
6. Build a Living Framework
Insight is not enough. At some point it must change how you act – and insight without structure fades.
It starts by organising what you are learning: What are your consistent strengths? Where are your recurring blind spots? What environments amplify you, and which diminish you?
And then, crucially, how do you act on this?
It should shape the roles you take, the people you work with, the way you lead, and the way you make decisions. Over time, this becomes a living framework which constantly evolves.
Expand Through Others
There is one final mechanism after this. You must consciously have people around who are not like you.
Similarity creates comfort. Difference creates awareness.
When you engage with people who think differently, something important happens. You begin to see your own reactions, your own biases, your own limitations. This is why dissent matters - not as conflict, but as clarity. Without contrast, you remain invisible to yourself.
The Real Cost of Not Knowing Yourself
I have seen CEOs who demanded high standards but lacked self-awareness - prickly, reactive, concerned with being right. So focused on avoiding mistakes that they made the ultimate ones. And ultimately, they were removed from the company despite being seen as ‘untouchable’.
It wasn’t that they lacked intelligence, but because they lacked insight into how they operated. And they paid the ultimate price.
Equally, I have seen leaders who understand themselves deeply - more tolerant, more precise, clearer in judgement, stronger in execution. The difference was not capability but awareness.
And this becomes even more pronounced as organisations grow. It is rare for someone to lead effectively from startup to scale-up to maturity. Each stage requires a different version of you. And if you do not evolve, you become the constraint.
Importantly, without self-knowledge, you do not scale – and you limit what the organisation can become. So the question becomes: do you grow with the organisation, or do you find the environment that fits who you are?
And both require self-knowledge.
The Invitation
The tools exist. The opportunities are everywhere. For the first time, you can observe yourself at scale. But none of it matters without one thing: the willingness to see clearly.
The greatest limitation is not a lack of information; it is the avoidance of what that information reveals. The quality of your life, your leadership, and your decisions will never exceed the clarity with which you are willing to see yourself.
Starting today: Build the mechanism. Refine it. Live it. You are only one LLM prompt away.
Julian Hitch
