Self and Self-Awareness

Self-Awareness Helps You Take Action - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Helps You Take Action

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Have you ever met someone with big dreams but who never does anything about them? Frequently, the only thing that separates those who succeed from those who stay stuck is the ability to build self-awareness and take action. It sounds obvious but action is a key element in helping us move forward in life. Many individuals remain in the planning or idea phases of life, living with vague hopes that someday they will achieve something.

I’ll let you in on a secret: The people who succeed move their ideas from abstract to concrete by taking action. How does one do it? Here’s another amazing secret: You actually have to do stuff to succeed. The great thing is that you can begin this process at any time. Increasing self-awareness and taking action feels great and it yields positive results because we are actually taking charge of our lives.

Think about the difference between the person who dreams all day and the one who dreams but also does something to make them come true. Here are a couple ideas that will help you move toward action.

1. Think about something you would love to achieve.
2. Come up with five ideas that might help you start working on it.
3. Pick the idea that makes the most sense to you.
4. Take action and do it. Set a short-term date by when you will finish it.

Nothing happens without actually doing something. What will you do to develop self-awareness and take action on today?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Feeling Better about Yourself - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Feeling Better about Yourself

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Sometimes event the most confident people in the world don’t feel amazingly great about themselves. We all have days when we think we don’t measure up to some ideal, some people stay stuck in this state for long periods. The good news is that you can do some practical things to increase self-awareness and feel better about yourself immediately.

Think about the following five questions and how they apply to your life and you’ll be on your way to feeling better about yourself:

1.  Do you do things you love?

2.  Do you fill your mind with negative messages about yourself?

3.  Do you have positive messages to replace the negative ones?

4.  What actions do you take to feel better and do positive things?

5.  How will you know that you feel better about yourself?

Think about these concepts for a while. Your answers will help you find ways to feel better about yourself and become more self-aware. So much of life (and your self-esteem) is about the messages you put in your brain. If you stuff yourself with junk you will likely not feel so great, if you fill your mind with ideas that build you up the results are much more positive. Either way, you have a choice which path you decide to stay on.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and start feeling better about yourself?

Cheers,

Guy

Mean People and Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Mean People and Self-Awareness

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I talk with a lot of kind, thoughtful, self-aware people and a question that frequently comes up is, “Why are people so mean?” This type of question usually arises because someone has been treated poorly by someone else without provocation. Here are some of the reasons people who lack self-awareness are mean:

  • They have unresolved issues inside themselves that cause them pain and discomfort, so they take it out on others.
  • They haven’t learned how to be nice, perhaps never had a role model to show them what it’s like to kind and empathic instead of cruel.
  • They were hurt at some point in time and have never moved past it.
  • They had their feeling of safety taken away or betrayed by someone they trusted and they lash out at others to form a perimeter of safety.
  • They figure if they hurt others first, they won’t be hurt.
  • They don’t believe in going to therapy to figure out what’s really going on under all the fear and anger.
  • They’re unhappy with themselves but don’t know how to change it.
  • They surround themselves with people who enable their behavior.
  • They think everyone is out to get them.
  • They don’t know how to deal with their own emotions and thoughts.

It’s important to note that, if you said something rude to someone or poked them in the eye, it would be natural for them to be less than nice to you, but I’m referring to instances where you were treated meanly by someone without any provocation.

The main thing to remember when someone is mean to you without provocation is that it has nothing to do with you. You’re not at fault and you didn’t deserve it. It’s just that they have unresolved issues that boil up uncontrollably and you happened to be in the vicinity. If someone is mean to you, you have a lot of power because you can choose the self-awareness path: Realize that it’s not about you, and remove yourself from the situation.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and deal positively with mean people?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Not Choosing the Safe Path in Life - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Not Choosing the Safe Path in Life

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There are people who lack self-awareness and spend their entire lives choosing the safe path, which means that they do what they’ve always done, how they’ve always done it. They value feeling safe and secure over all else, including self-awareness, no matter what the consequences. In the process, they lose their true selves and live middle-of-the-road, ordinary, as-uneventful-as-possible existences.

I’ve always wondered why people live like this, and the answer that often arises is: lack of self-awareness leading to fear. When people are scared of stepping outside their comfort zones or of being their real selves, they tend to do everything they can to remain in their cocoon. They never fly because they’re too busy worrying about everything that might possibly go wrong or be slightly different.

One of the reasons I love consulting for people who value self-awareness is that they live more courageously, striving to understand who they are and where they want to go. It’s not that they live dangerously, just that they’re willing to test their own thought processes and face their fears.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and avoid choosing the safe path in life?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware People Forgive - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware People Forgive

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A big part of self-awareness is learning to forgive, as in:

  • Forgive yourself.
  • Forgive others.
  • Forgive the past
  • Forgive the negative things that happen in life.

Forgiveness means that you are able to let go of the resentments and hurts that hold you back and consciously decide to move forward positively in life. When you forgive, you give yourself the opportunity to be the wonderful person you are deep inside.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Helps You Figure out Who You Are - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Helps You Figure out Who You Are

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A big part of self-awareness is discovering who you are and what you want to do with your life. Take some time to think about what’s important to you and where you see yourself going. Make sure to be truthful with yourself. Don’t settle for whatever life throws you, choose to move your life in the direction of your dreams.

Why do any of this? Because you’re worth it. Countless people all over the world spend their entire lives living as someone else or doing what others expect them to do. You can be one of the very few who actually breaks the mold and moves forward authentically.

It takes courage to consciously decide to live life as the real you. There is always the chance that you’ll encounter setbacks. Don’t be discouraged. You’re an amazing person who deserves to do meaningful things and follow your own path. All you have to do is determine who you really are and do small things each day to simply be yourself.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and figure out who you are?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness, Empathy, and Better Relationships - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness, Empathy, and Better Relationships

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Self-awareness helps increase empathy which, in turn, helps people build better relationships. When you understand your own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors well, you’re better able to get along with others.

It’s easy to become so focused on our own experience that we forget that other people exist. In relationships, walking in someone else’s shoes is a great approach to really understanding other people and helps us build empathy for others. Empathy is the ability to understand someone else’s experience and point of view.

People who lack self-awareness often ask me why it is that someone does such and such or this and that. I suggest that we can figure out what people are going through and understand them much better if we just put ourselves in their situation. In this way, we can learn about them without projecting our own needs and opinions on them. Try a few of the following things to increase your empathic ability:

1. Listen actively without talking.
2. Put yourself in that person’s situation and imagine you are going through the same thing.
3. Ask questions that allow the person to tell you more about themselves instead of yes and no questions.
4. Keep in mind that what you are hearing isn’t about you; it’s about them.
5. Try to accept anything the person says as simply their reality rather than something you have to react to.

Try these a few times over a period of time. Empathy is about really understanding that there are other valid points of view in the world. Those perspectives may not be ours but they mean as much to that person as our worldview does to us. Once you can connect with someone else’s reality, you’re own your way to really understanding other people and showing them that you respect where they are coming from.

What will you do to develop self-awareness, increase your empathy, and enjoy better relationships?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy