You’ve never seen the back of your own head, and you never will. Maybe you’ve seen pictures of it, but maybe not – it’s not exactly common. Even if you’ve been in a house of mirrors and gotten up to some crazy angles, you’ve at best seen a reflection of a reflection.
Of course, other people have seen the back of your head plenty. Everyone who’s ever sat behind you in class or at the theater, stood behind you in line, or snuck up on you in laser tag. The back of your head isn’t exactly hidden, it’s just that you can’t see it.
The natural shape of our physical forms combined with where our sensory organs are located simply precludes an accurate self-observation. A recording of your voice doesn’t sound like your voice to you. You can’t tickle yourself. You’re the last to notice when you stink.
With our physical senses being that bad at self-perception, it boggles my mind that anyone thinks that they have good emotional or mental self-perception.
I’ve noticed a few ways we can get a little better, though – in the same way that we can look at the back of our own head with the aid of a few mirrors or a camera. If you’re in a heated emotional state and someone tells you to calm down, it’s pretty common to incorrectly identify yourself as perfectly calm already, thank you very much! But asking instead:
“What does a calm person do?”
can really help separate you from your emotional self-perception in the same way a picture of the back of your head can separate you from your physical self-perception.
What does a brave person do? What does a confident person do? What does a happy person do?
Now you’re not talking about yourself. You’re talking about a hypothetical outsider, but one that you can draw comparisons to. Like the photo of the back of your head, you can use it to help you make decisions – about your haircut or about your behavior.
It isn’t perfect. But I’ve found it helps considerably.
The Opportunity Machine 