The Self-Awareness Guy, Author at The Self-Awareness Guy

Conflict Resolution Requires Self-Awareness

June 4, 2024 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness in Leadership, Self-Consciousness / A Self-Awareness, Leadership Self-Awareness, Personal Awareness

I recently facilitated a workshop on conflict resolution and I found it fascinating that almost no one possessed the self-awareness to understand their own role in conflict. I heard many comments about how the other person would be so much easier to get along with if they only did this or that but very little about what each participant would do himself or herself to improve the situation.

Conflict can be a horrible mess or it can be an opportunity for growth and increased understanding. The challenge for many people is that it requires putting their own issues aside in order to connect with someone else, which requires a high level of self-awareness. So how can you become more self-aware and resolve conflicts more easily? Try thinking of the following ideas the next time you feel a conflict coming on.

1. Be aware of your personal triggers. What sets you off?

2. Remember that you decide how you react to situations.

3. Only you can let someone make you mad.

4. Understand it’s not personal, people aren’t trying to slight you in general.

5. Learn to recognize exactly when someone is getting to you.

5. Where do you feel it? Identify where you feel the conflict in your body.

6. Do something different to interrupt the pattern.

If you deliberately give some thought to these areas you will find that you can increase your self-awareness, reduce the way conflict affects you, and move toward more positive interactions. It takes some discipline but it also affords you a way to not let conflict consume your life.

What will you do to develop your self-awareness and decrease the conflict around you?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Experiencing Kindness

May 25, 2024 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / A Self-Awareness, Examples of Self-Awareness, Personal Awareness, Self-Knowledge, What Is Self-Awareness

Self-awareness plays a big part in how we treat ourselves and others. People who are self-aware tend to be mentally healthier and able to treat themselves and other people with kindness. The more whole you are, the more likely you are to be able to empathize and care for other human beings.

Experiencing kindness as a child is a major part of being able to practice compassion as an adult. People who have not had families where kindness was the norm tend to be skeptical that it exists because they didn’t experience it in their formative years.

Kindness is really just another way of saying that you’re self-aware and mentally healthy enough to treat people with love, you care for them as if they are precious and deserve great tenderness and respect. It’s the only way to live a truly fulfilling life because, when you treat others well, it tends to create positive vibes in the universe.

People who value self-awareness often think in terms of how to increase the kindness in the world, whether it is by writing about love or challenging injustice. How will you develop your self-awareness and spread kindness in the world?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Finding Meaning in Life

May 25, 2024 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self and Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / A Self-Awareness, Examples of Self-Awareness, Personal Awareness, Self-Awareness Examples, Self-Awareness Meaning

Self-awareness is a vital to finding meaning in life because when you understand and are able to manage your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you can live more consciously, deliberately, and meaningfully.

If you’re searching for meaning in your life, you’re not alone. It can feel scary and uncomfortable to not know what direction your life is going in but you can find your path by asking yourself questions like:

Who am I deep inside?
What do I really want to do in life?
What brings me deep joy and fulfillment within myself?
What things am I doing to take care of myself?
In what ways am I following my true path in life?
What am I doing to love myself?
What resources am I using to help get me where I want to be?

When you ask yourself questions like these, you’ll be building self-awareness and moving toward finding the answers you’re looking for. It all starts by looking deep within yourself and doing the work necessary to live the life you want to.

What will you do to increase your self-awareness and find meaning in life?

Cheers,

Guy

How to Use Self-Awareness to Fix a Relationship Problem

May 15, 2024 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self and Self-Awareness, Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / Awareness Meaning, Examples of Self-Awareness, Personal Awareness, Self-Knowledge

Self-awareness can help you fix your relationship problems because, when the people involved understand and can manage their emotions, thoughts, and actions, they are in a good position to resolve the situation.

Many people experience difficulties in their relationships and don’t know what to do about them. They repeat an endless cycle of getting hurt, hurting back and perpetuating the hurt through their actions. It even happens in dating situations and marriages where both people are kind, intelligent and caring. So what is it that causes this conflict and what can we do to increase our self-awareness and do something about the issue? It helps to first examine why conflict occurs. Here are some of the causes:

Neither person understands the other person’s point of view.
There is not a meeting of the minds on issues.
Neither side backs down.
Each side tries to win.
Neither side has the skills or knowledge to fix the problem.
The people involved are hurt, angry, frustrated or sad.

The good news is that you can help your situation by being self-aware and thinking about new ways of doing things. The key point is to start a process where nobody wins and both of you collaborate to find a solution that works for everyone involved. Consider using the following ideas to begin increasing your self-awareness and connecting with your significant other in ways that will benefit both of you.

You both agree to talk.
Set up an interruption-free time to talk.
Agree on one thing to talk about.
Brainstorm possible ideas to fix the problem.
Evaluate each option.
Agree together on the resolution that works best for both of you.
Work together to take action on the resolution.
Move to the next problem.
Think about getting a neutral person involved to mediate.

I also encourage my clients to do away with the word “problem” and look at the challenges in life as opportunities for personal growth and movement in a more positive direction. Looking at challenging situations in a positive light gives you the opportunity to actually fix things rather than repeating the same patterns.

So the next time you are in the middle of a fight, redirect your thoughts to the possibility that both of you can work together and purposefully resolve the matter. What will you do to increase your self-awareness and fix your relationship problems?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and the Power of Positive Thinking

May 15, 2024 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self and Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / A Self-Awareness, Examples of Self-Awareness, Personal Awareness, Self-Aware, Self-Knowledge

Self-awareness is connected to positive thinking because, when you understand yourself deep inside, you’re able to focus your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in a favorable direction.

I was recently facilitating a workshop with a group of people who had been through significant trauma in their lives and I posed the question, “Why is it that some people are able to move forward and others can’t?” Their responses included determination, resilience, and courage.

An answer I’ve found helpful is: People who overcome obstacles are those who develop their self-awareness so they are able to focus on the positive. This doesn’t mean that they minimize trauma or don’t acknowledge difficulties, it’s simply that they are able to understand themselves well enough to bypass the negative and concentrate on doing positive things.

Human beings have an amazing ability to move in any direction they want to. Right this moment you could take some small action to increase your self-awareness and change your life. All it takes is making a conscious decision to do something, anything. Being positive is about focusing on the things you can change and that you have control over.

We are able to change ourselves because we have control over what we do. Next time you feel like there is no hope, try doing one thing to interrupt those thoughts and that will move you in a positive direction. Time after time I’ve had clients tell me that all it took to change their lives was thinking positively about something they used to think of as negative.

What will you do to increase your self-awareness and think positively?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Doing Things Now

May 5, 2024 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self and Self-Awareness, Self-Awareness / A Self-Awareness, Personal Awareness, Self-Aware, Self-Awareness Examples, Self-Knowledge

Did you know that you can use self-awareness to start doing things right now to improve your life. When you understand yourself deep inside, you’re better able to take action to transform your situation.

We spend so much time thinking about the things we could have done that we forget the power we have to change things in the present. It’s easy to get stuck in a mode where we replay past events or make up future possibilities but that never seems to affect the present.

Spending more time consciously working on the present is the only way to change your destiny. If you start today by telling yourself that you will work on something occurring in the present you will suddenly have command of your destiny and power to change whatever you want.

Try doing that today; find something that you keep hoping would happen in the past or future and re-focus it in the present. Ask yourself what you can do right now to affect something in your life right now. Doing stuff in the present helps us take our minds off all the things we have no control of and focuses our energy on the things we can change.

What will you do to increase your self-awareness and make things happen right now?

Cheers,

Guy

10 Characteristics of Leaders Who Lack Self-Awareness

May 5, 2024 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness in Leadership / Leadership Self-Awareness, Personal Awareness

Quite frequently in my trainings I notice that certain leaders become uncomfortable, defensive or combative when I suggest that they take a look at themselves and their behaviors. They’ll list their accomplishments, defend their tough decisions, justify negative behaviors or blame others for things that went wrong. Sometimes I get dead silence or resistance because they aren’t comfortable looking at themselves. It can be hard to look in the mirror.

Self-awareness is, understandably, a somewhat unusual concept for many leaders because it’s not emphasized or practiced in our workplaces. We tend to focus on results rather than people so, naturally, leaders gauge how good they are by the kind of results they get rather than how healthy, insightful or empathic they are.

Most leaders are simply responsible for being authoritative, highly productive and making decisions that make money without ever having to take a look at what kind of people they are and how they affect others. Here are ten characteristics of leaders who lack self-awareness:

Any problems are due to other people’s shortcomings.
They don’t have a sense of how their actions affect others.
They haven’t worked out their own stuff and it tends to get on their employees.
They almost exclusively make decisions based on their own perspective and needs.
They don’t ask for feedback from others because they know they’re doing a great job.
They get upset when someone questions what they do.
They haven’t found deep personal fulfillment and happiness yet.
Their ego drives their actions.
They worry about how events affect them but not others.
They have difficulty praising the great work others do.

Think about these ten points and whether you know someone who practices any of them. If you do, it doesn’t mean they’re bad or wrong, it just shows to what extent we’ve glorified the image of the strong, productive and decisive leader who runs around all day barking orders and never has to think of who might be getting hurt.

Self-awareness is about being comfortable with who you are because you’ve reached a point of genuine health, balance and understanding of yourself and others. The key point is that self-awareness leads to treating yourself and others well. The happier you are with yourself the more likely you’ll be to treat your employees with empathy and kindness.

Self-aware leaders move beyond the need to appear powerful or trumpet how great they are to simply being good people. What ideas do you have to encourage more self-awareness in leadership?

Cheers,

Guy