Self and Self-Awareness Archives – Page 19 of 32

Self-Awareness and Dealing with Co-Dependence

May 1, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Self-awareness is a great tool for dealing with co-dependence because, when you understand your and others’ emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you’re well-equipped to build and enjoy positive, healthy relationships.

Co-dependence takes a toll on relationships because it makes people behave in ways that focus more on others than themselves. A wife lives through trying to please her husband or children, a boyfriend stays with his girlfriend who has an addiction because taking care of her makes him feel valued.

Co-dependence arises when you ignore your own needs and focus your energy on someone else. Some of the signs of co-dependence are: A lack self-awareness or self-esteem, a need to feel in control in an out of control situation, insecurity, compensating for someone else’s issue, or a lack of clear boundaries. The common denominator is that you don’t control your own life because you’re living through someone else.

The good news is that you can redirect your energy to build yourself up instead of always worrying about others. Clearly defining who you are and what you need helps you break away from living through someone else. For example: The mom who says, “I live to make cookies for my kids,” is often not living for herself because she needs constant reinforcement from the outside to make her feel valued whereas the mom who actively works on finding out who she really is and pursuing her own dreams is more likely to find meaning inside herself.

You can feel better about yourself and stop living through others by doing things that increase your self-awareness and help you feel positive about who you are. The next time you feel obsessed by what someone else is doing, remember that you can’t live through someone else and your happiness doesn’t depend on them. Try doing something positive that builds you up and increases your self-awareness. Feel good about the person you are without outside validation. Once you learn how to take care of yourself you can build healthy, two-way relationships rather than co-dependent ones.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and reduce co-dependence in your life?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence

April 28, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Self-awareness and emotional intelligence are closely linked and when you have one, you’re likely to have the other. Let’s define the two, look at how they compliment each other, and how they can help you live a happier life.

The Definition of Self-Awareness

The ability to get to know yourself so well that you understand and are able to control how you feel, think, and behave in order to move your life in a positive, deeply meaningful direction with an intimate knowledge of who you really are deep inside.

The Definition of Emotional Intelligence

The ability to recognize, experience, understand, and modulate your own and others’ emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.

As you can see, these two concepts have a lot in common because they both refer to the ability to know yourself well enough to live a happy life instead of doing stuff that aggravates you and others. I’ve worked with a lot of people over the years to help them increase their self-awareness and emotional intelligence, here are some of the things they look at in order to grow and succeed:

Healing the unresolved, painful, or hurtful issues from their childhoods.
Taking an honest look at what they’re doing that doesn’t work.
Learning and practicing new, positive thoughts and behaviors.
Realizing emotions are positive and learning how to feel them.
Discovering who they really are deep inside and doing the things they love.
Living life authentically, from their hearts.
Practicing love, kindness, compassion, caring, both toward themselves and others.
Doing the hard work necessary to become healthy, including going to therapy for as long as it takes.
Having the courage to live life as their real selves.

Self-aware people possess emotional intelligence and vice versa. There is no mystery behind either concept, they just require work and a dedication to learn how to deal with emotions, thoughts, and actions. The end result of developing both is that you get to enjoy a wonderful life being the real, healthy you.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Balancing Your Work and Personal Life

April 28, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

People who lack self-awareness often spend so much time at work that other areas of their lives suffer. It’s not uncommon for people to spend every waking moment toiling on some task related to the workplace. They spend much of their time scrambling around putting out fires rather than planning ways to do things more efficiently and enjoyably.

You can implement some basic steps that can help you increase self-awareness, bring your life into balance, and allow you to focus on what really needs attention. It all starts with prioritizing. Think about the following questions as you begin your workday:

1. What are the things I absolutely have to do right now?

2. What are the things I can do later?

3. What are the things I can have someone else do for me?

When you ask yourself these questions you begin to move away from emergency response mode and into self-awareness and planning deliberate actions each day. My consulting clients often tell me that, when they learn how to prioritize more effectively, they actually increase the time they have to focus on ways to grow their business.

The next area is your personal life. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a healthy personal life. A healthy personal life will improve your general outlook and performance. Think about the following ideas and how they apply to you:

1. How much time have I set aside for my personal life today?

2. What can I postpone doing at work to spend more time on my personal life?

3. What have I done to take care of myself today?

Thinking about these questions allows you to pay more attention to yourself and the things you need to keep you feeling great. If you work too much, dial in a little more personal time. If you have too much free time, do a few more things to further your career. When you achieve work and personal life balance you will feel invigorated in all parts of your life and will be ready to take on any challenge that comes your way.

Ultimately, I would recommend that you pursue your dreams and do what you really want to do in life. When you live life authentically you don’t have to worry about work/life balance, you just get to be the real you each day. What will you do to develop self-awareness and enjoy life more?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Can Help You Completely Change Your Life

April 25, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Self-awareness can help you completely change your life because it allows you to take an honest look at yourself and make adjustments based on who you really are deep down inside. Here are some practical steps you can take that will help you change your life:

Think of the thing you want to change.
Think of three things you can do to achieve what you want.
Pick one of those items and start taking action to make it come true.
Check in with yourself to see how you’re progressing. If you’re not seeing results, pick another item and work on it.
Once you’ve achieved what you want, start the process again from the beginning.
Celebrate your accomplishments in a positive way.

The purposeful act of choosing to do something and then following through helps you achieve whatever you want. It’s the act of taking action that, over time, helps you become an entirely different person.

The key to changing completely in life is to move from wishing it would happen to actually doing stuff that will make it come true. Try these steps today on any goal you want to achieve and follow through until it happens. Along the way you will be experiencing change.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Creating Change in Your Life

April 25, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Self-awareness is a major part of creating change in your life because, when you are in touch with your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you’re able to consciously move in any direction you wish.

Anyone at any time can make a deliberate decision to change their life. We literally can move our life in any direction we want to. For example: If I decide I want to be an artist today (even if I am not one) I can do specific things to achieve that goal. I could take a class, call some artists, visit some galleries, buy some art supplies, paint a picture, and the list goes on and on. The only thing stopping me is the voice inside my head that tells me I can’t do it. This is the voice that tells me that I will never achieve that, that I should be sensible, that I can’t take a risk, that people will judge me, that my dreams are stupid and that I might as well give up.

This programming is powerful but can be overcome by following these basic steps:

1. Close your eyes and think about what you are telling yourself that stops you.
2. Close your eyes and think back to the first time you heard that message from someone.
3. Picture how your life would be without that message. Develop a short phrase that describes that feeling. For example, “I can be an artist because it’s who I am.”
4. Write down the phrase you come up with.
5. When you wake up in the morning and before you go to bed read the phrase and experience the good feelings that come with it. Repeat for a month and longer.

We play messages in our brains over and over that keep us from being self-aware and doing things we love. Following these basic five steps gives us a chance to introduce a new way of seeing ourselves. Practice it over time (at least a month) to make sure your brain believes in your new way of thinking. If you don’t practice, it won’t stick. Once you’ve shifted your thinking you can move on to a new goal.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and create change in your life?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Building Trust

April 24, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Building trust in your personal or professional life requires increasing your self-awareness so you can feel great about yourself and encourage others to do the same. A lot of leaders and individuals walk through life or their workplaces wondering why they can’t trust people or why others won’t trust them. A lack of trust means that the person involved hesitates to get close to anyone because he or she is afraid of being hurt or doesn’t know how to build positive relationships. Here are some practical ways to build trust:

Do what you say you’re going to do.
Avoid saying one thing and doing another.
Behave with kindness and compassion.
Be there to help people.
Communicate openly.
Avoid rumors, gossip and secrets.
Listen to people.
Trust the other person first.
Be open to considering others’ points of view.
Have confidence in people’s talents and abilities.
Let people shine.

Trust is about you, you either believe it can happen or you don’t. Your thoughts and actions will determine whether you encourage people to be themselves and let them do their thing or continue to think and show them that they’re untrustworthy. You can move in a positive direction any time you choose by healing the parts of you that create the mistrust and behaving in ways that show others that you genuinely and unconditionally value them. How will you trust more?

Cheers,

Guy

The First Step of Your Self-Awareness Journey

April 23, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

The way to get started on your self-awareness journey is to take one step. Nothing happens if you don’t take a chance and deliberately choose to move forward. It’s the act of taking one step after another that builds confidence, stamina and eventual success. It takes effort and determination to achieve anything in life but each endeavor starts with one small step.

What kind of things might you do? How about working on:

Healing the hurts from your past.
Improving who you are as a person.
Admitting mistakes and working to make amends.
Feeling all your emotions.
Letting go of things that don’t work for you.
Becoming a healthier person inside and out.
Learning each day about what makes you tick.
Being comfortable and knowledgeable about your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.
Doing small things each day to make your dreams come true.
Being kind to yourself and others.

Please note that you don’t have to do all these things at once. All it takes to become more self-aware is to be open to examining who you are, celebrating the great things about you, and improving the areas that need some attention. You just need to be truthful and dedicated to becoming the best version of you possible.

What will the first step of your self-awareness journey be?

Cheers,

Guy