The Self-Awareness Guy

Developing Self-Awareness to Get Rid of Fear Instilled by Parents - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Developing Self-Awareness to Get Rid of Fear Instilled by Parents

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As you build self-awareness you’ll find it easier to leave behind some of the negative beliefs your parents may have instilled in you. Many well-meaning parents project their fears onto their children by offering “helpful” guidance and suggestions about what they should do with their lives. This leads to many kids growing up doubting themselves and following career paths that make them miserable.

Parents want their children to succeed and not get hurt but these caring instincts often stifle creativity, squash dreams, and force people to live inauthentic lives. Thankfully, you can pursue your bliss regardless of what your parents say now or have said in the past.

It isn’t just parents who limit our horizons, it’s other caring people like teachers or good friends, all of whom project their own fears onto us and make us second-guess whether we can pursue our dreams. The irony is that it doesn’t matter what anyone else says, you get to follow your dreams if you so desire.

The key to living with self-awareness and enjoying a fulfilling, meaningful life is to kindly thank people for their advice and then do what you really want to do deep inside. Chart your own course and live as you wish.

What will you do to increase your self-awareness and move past the fear instilled in you by your parents?

Cheers,

Guy

How to Develop Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

How to Develop Self-Awareness

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People often ask me how to develop self-awareness. Here are some ideas on how to do it.

Heal Your Hurts

Self-awareness means getting to know and understand yourself, which starts with looking deep inside to see what makes you feel, think, and behave the way you do. One of the main reasons people practice negative behaviors is that they are functioning from their inner hurts, the unresolved issues that lead to less-than-desirable outcomes.

Take the time to heal the hurts from your past, it will allow you to be a mentally healthier person who is able to live life positively. You’ll feel better inside which will lead to much more favorable emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. The way you do it is to go to a professional therapist, someone trained to help you heal the challenging issues from your past.

Look Inside

You can’t be self-aware without looking inside. Make the effort to look deep within to understand your strengths and areas for improvement. Be honest and candid with yourself, work on improving the things that you need some help with and celebrate the positive things about yourself.

Looking inside doesn’t mean beating yourself up, it’s just the process of being aware of the areas you need to fine tune and improve. The idea is to be aware of how your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors affect you and others.

How to Develop Self-Awareness

So, you’ve worked on healing your hurts and continually looking inside to improve yourself. Now what? Self-awareness is an ongoing process, you don’t just do it in a one-day workshop or after one try, it takes continuous practice and effort to master. Each day is an opportunity to develop your self-awareness by working on improving the things that don’t yield positive results in your life.

The idea of self-awareness is to always be working on becoming the best version of yourself, a person who is comfortable with herself and feels, thinks, and does positive things. You don’t have to be perfect, all you have to do is always be working on being comfortable with who you are and making sure others also feel the same way around you.

There’s no big mystery to self-awareness, it just means working on yourself so you become a high-functioning, happy person who treats herself and others well. What will you do today to develop your self-awareness?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Means Treating Yourself and Others Well - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Means Treating Yourself and Others Well

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As you build your self-awareness, you’ll likely understand that how you treat yourself often predicts how you will treat others. If you feel horrible about yourself, chances are you’ll treat others the same way. There are countless cautionary examples of people who don’t feel healthy inside and the destruction they wreak on their own psyches, the people they interact with, and the world. If you feel great, then you’re bound to create good vibes in the world, which is what happy, balanced people do.

A great way to feel wonderful about yourself is to increase your self-awareness by consciously looking deep inside and deciding who the real you is. Who are you at your very core? What do you really want to do with your life? Once you answer questions like these you can start doing things to live authentically. As you become a more fulfilled and balanced person, you’ll naturally treat yourself and other people wonderfully for all the right reasons.

How do you treat yourself and others?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Prioritizing - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Prioritizing

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When you’re working on developing self-awareness it’s important to prioritize. You get to decide what’s most important to you and what actions you want to take. You have a lot of power to move your life in any direction you want by choosing to work on things that will create positive results. Spend less time on minor details and focus on what really matters and you’ll be on your way to success. For example: Would you rather heal one of your inner hurts so you can be genuinely happier or do something superficial that just puts a band-aid on everything?

Prioritizing means that you get to choose what you work on and when. A big part of self-awareness is knowing yourself well enough that you can tell the difference between meaningful and superficial work. I always recommend that people work on the deeper things in life, the ones that will bring them meaning and fulfillment rather than just getting by or pretending things are okay. What will you decide to do today?

Cheers,

Guy

4 Steps to Build Your Self-Esteem through Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

4 Steps to Build Your Self-Esteem through Self-Awareness

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Building your self-awareness leads to higher self-esteem because, when you know yourself well and are able to positively manage your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you’ll feel much better about yourself and live a happier life.

Have you ever met someone who seems to have strong self-esteem but who does things to sabotage himself or herself? We all do things that keep us from succeeding and we do it at an unconscious level. Oftentimes, the messages we learned early in life keep holding us back and telling us that we can’t achieve what we want in the workplace. The good news is that you can change those inner messages by following some practical steps.

1. Identify the message. Ask yourself, “Where did this message begin.”

2. Ask yourself if the message is true. For example, do you really not deserve to succeed?

3. Think of the opposite of the message and do that instead. Make it a positive message that gets you where you want to go.

4. Every time a negative, limiting message comes into your head repeat these steps until it is gone.

As your self-awareness increases, so will your self-esteem, but it requires concerted effort. It will take you some time to become an expert at changing your inner messages but you will do it if you stick with it over time. Plan on spending at least 30 days practicing the new behavior and then check in with yourself to see how you’re doing. You’ll be happy with the results because you’ll be moving in a positive direction. If you’re not, it’s likely you have another message to work on. What will you do to start building your self-esteem?

Cheers,

Guy

Benefits of Self-Awareness in the Workplace - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Benefits of Self-Awareness in the Workplace

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There are a lot of benefits of self-awareness in the workplace, including building a happier, more productive workplace where people interact positively and get more done. Self-awareness is a vital skill for everyone in any organization because it helps things run better.

Self-awareness is defined as the ability to recognize, understand, and deal positively with one’s own (and others’) emotions and thoughts, which leads to positive behaviors and the ability to interact well with other people. It’s important in workplaces because it makes things easier for everyone.

Here are some of the most important benefits of self-awareness in the workplace:

  • Leadership treats people well because they aren’t behaving out of fear or ego.
  • Leaders are mentally healthy and model positive behaviors.
  • Employees are better taken care of and are treated as the valuable members of the organization that they are.
  • People don’t work out their problems on each other, they have the ability to understand their own strengths and weaknesses and interact positively.
  • Communication is much easier because people know how to get out of the way and listen to each other.
  • People get more done with less effort because they don’t waste time with power struggles or the need for dominance or power.
  • Less conflict.
  • Fewer arguments.
  • People are able to work well with each other.
  • People understand each other better.
  • Everyone is more motivated because leadership encourages them to do what they do best.
  • People treat each other with empathy and kindness.
  • The organization functions as a cohesive whole.

Imagine what your workplace would look like if you and your employees did all or even some of these things, you might actually enjoy being there instead of having it be a constant struggle.

Self-awareness is vital in the workplace because people are happier and work better when they feel healthy inside. What will you do to enjoy enjoy the benefits of self-awareness in your workplace?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Retirement - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Retirement

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Retirement can be both an exciting and challenging time in life but you can retire with self-awareness and foresight. The key to living the next faze of your life meaningfully is to ask yourself questions like:

  • Will I continue working?
  • What is my passion in life and am I pursuing it?
  • What unresolved issues do I need to fix in my life?
  • How is my relationship with those I love?
  • What are my skills and talents?
  • What will I do with the rest of my life.
  • What brings me great joy and am I doing that?

Take a moment to think about who you really are as a person and what you want to purposefully do with your life. When I coach people, I help them clarify what they want out of life and plan for the future. I’m always amazed at the wonderful things that people can do when they follow their dreams.

As you think about retirement, try to include things you love and that have great meaning to you. Retirement can be a wonderful time to show the world who you are and leave your mark as the great person you are.

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy