Your Other Blind Spot
Sometimes hearing feedback is hard. I’m sure I speak for most people when I say that I would prefer to know what I’m wrong by others so that I can do it different in future.
The key to this is finding out what you don’t know about yourself. An interesting framework for thinking about this is the Johari Window. It is a model which represents what we do and do not know about ourselves and what others do and do not know about ourselves.
A “blind spot” occurs when there are things about us which are known to others but not know to ourselves.
Everyone has this kind of blind spot. But a problem often occurs when we receive feedback from others about what is in this blindspot (often because how the feedback is delivered). It is completely normal to get defensive about or deny this kind of feedback. But by not taking this feedback onboard, we can miss an important opportunity to stop annoying others, improve our relationships with others or grow as a person.
Do you have the guts to hear what many others can’t?
PS You may also like to consider what you are hiding from others in your “facade”. Is there a way for you to become more open, honest and comfortable about these hidden aspects of you?
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So how would one bring this up to their manly guy friends?
The problem, I find, with finding solutions for this kind of situation is that every situation is different. I would hope that one would be able to find a way to bring this up with their friends. But that requires maturity, honesty, trust and non-judgemental attitudes from both the person and their friends.
Something like counselling or coaching, however, can help – the practitioner is there to act as a kind of mirror, helping the client to see themselves more clearly.