Blind Spots – the mote behind our eyes

"The eye that sees all things else, sees not itself." - Bulgarian Proverbs

Blind spots are positive or negative personality traits that you may not see but are lying in front of you. The hidden areas, or blind spots, are hiding in plain sight but it takes more than simply turning your head to find them. These are areas of your personality that demand work to uncover. Since these areas within yourself are difficult to realize, other people play a significant role in helping to illuminate them.

One surefire way to uncover blind spots within your life is by asking for feedback from trusted sources. Trusted sources can be people such as:

• Family 

• Friends

• A significant other 

• Work colleagues who respect and get along with you

Authentic feedback involves asking open-ended questions so the person you speak with must think of their answer. Examples include:

• Are there certain habits or things I do that I don’t notice myself?

• What is something you like about me?

• What is something you don’t like about me?

Self-reflection is equally necessary as asking for feedback when discovering blind spots in your life. When you take the time to self-reflect without bias on where things are going right and wrong, you will notice similarities between different situations. By engaging in self-reflection, you can begin to pinpoint your blind spots based on the similarities and differences between situations and how they played out. 

While I was in treatment, a part of our therapy involved submitting evaluations of, as well as receiving evaluations from, our peers to help uncover the positive and negative blind spots that we could not see for ourselves. The evaluation included:

• Blocks to Recovery (e.g.: Denial, Isolation, Blaming, Masking, Impatience, Seeking Perfection, Aggression, Manipulation, etc.)

• Strengths to Recovery (e.g.: Accepting Illness, Receptive to Feedback, Asking for Help, Focusing on Treatment, Taking Responsibility, Friendly, Warm and Caring, Genuine Committment, Letting Go/Working on Self, etc.)

• Why the two most significant blocks will hinder recovery

• What two strengths will be most helpful in recovery

• General thoughts and feelings about this peer, and how you see them presently

Fortunately, my peers were honest and genuine. They helped me uncover blind spots that I was mostly unaware of. Blocks to my recovery included: Blaming-self; Seeking perfection-self; and Aggression (I knew it, but always blamed "The Bronx" for it :P). The strengths for my recovery included: Genuine Committment; Letting Go; Friendly, warm and caring (I knew I had made a genuine committment, but I never saw myself as the letting go or friendly, warm and caring type :P).

Putting jokes aside, the letters from my peers offered me a perspective that I could not have obtained, or more importantly, trusted, if I were not in treatment. Yet they were invaluable to me in seeing myself in a new light. They helped me to self-reflect on areas of my life that play to my strengths and the areas that bare my weaknesses. 

Now that we know what blind spots are, along with ways to identify them, we can discover how to turn blind spots into strengths. You will never benefit from identifying blind spots in your life if you do not capitalize on the positive ones / correct the negative ones.

As you begin to uncover blind spots, be sure to write them down. By writing them down and taking notes, it helps train your brain to notice certain behaviors that occur and feed into these blind spots. 

Embracing blind spots is paramount to converting these "weaknesses" into strengths. People might hesitate to accept a positive or negative behavior they exhibit within their life if they haven’t fully believed it. You must first verify if what you are learning about yourself is accurate, whether positive or negative. So it’s important to determine:

• What evidence made either yourself or somebody else notice this behavior within your life?

• Is the evidence based on something that happened once or multiple times?

• Is the behavior impacting your life negatively or positively?

If you discover or get told that you are exhibiting a behavior that you didn’t know you were prior, and you can verify its accuracy, then learn to embrace that behavior. Regardless of the behavior being positive or negative, you must embrace it to either correct it or capitalize on it.

The skill of learning how to identify blind spots in your life can be challenging and uncomfortable but will ultimately lead to a more fulfilling life. Through learning what your blind sports are, ways to identify them, and how to turn your blind spots into strengths, you can find these areas within your life that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. 

While blind spots in your life may not be as easy to discover as blind spots when you are driving, they will be worth all the effort that you put into uncovering them. Stay tuned for more!

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