Self-Awareness Archives – Page 52 of 54

Self-Awareness Helps You Be Genuinely Happy

January 23, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Are you really happy or just pretending? Over many years of providing self-awareness consulting to individuals and groups, I’ve noticed that the less happy people are, the more vociferously they will claim to be happy. It’s as if they feel they have to put up a brave front so that nobody will know how much they’re really hurting inside.

You can’t be genuinely happy in life if you lack self-awareness and walk around with tons of unresolved or conflicting issues rattling around in your head. I’ve met many a “happy” person who is so quick to anger that it’s frightening. When you’re truly self-aware and content, you feel, think and behave in ways that are consistent with happiness, for example:

You treat others well.
You’re kind to people without expecting anything in return.
You don’t feel like you have to beat anyone.
You help others succeed.
You think and behave with empathy.
The various parts of your psyche aren’t fighting each other.
You don’t suppress your emotions.
You feel a sense of well-being and balance inside.
You smile and laugh genuinely and often.
You live life as the real you.

True happiness comes from a deep sense of peace and well-being inside you. It means that you’ve built up your self-awareness, worked on your hurts, and healed yourself to the point where pain doesn’t rule your life or you’re not trying to ignore it.

What will you do to to increase self-awareness and be genuinely happy?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Being Damaged

January 23, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Self-awareness is a quality that is in short supply in deeply damaged people because they tend to behave unconsciously, based on their inner pain. When someone is hurt at a core level and lashes out based on those inner wounds, it’s a visceral reaction rather than one based on careful deliberation. Here are some characteristics of a deeply damaged person:

Thinking, feeling and behaving negatively based on past hurts.
Lack of empathy toward others.
Rigid thinking and inability to consider other points of view.
Inability to heal.
Reluctance to change, stuck in current way of doing things.
Lashing out at others based on unresolved issues inside himself.
Unwilling to examine what causes his inner turmoil.
Lack of understanding of what will really make him happy.
Seeks approval from people who don’t really value him.
Pattern of negative relationships.
Harsh, hard, commanding personality on the outside, fragile on the inside.
Lies to self and others to justify incongruous, inconsistent thoughts and beliefs.
Treats other people poorly, a reflection of his inner feelings about himself.

If you’ve ever met a person like this, you’ve probably gotten a creepy feeling about them, unless you fall into this category, in which case the behavior seems normal. Thankfully, even deeply troubled people can change the course of their lives by replacing their old thoughts and behaviors with more positive ones. It’s a long and arduous process, but anyone with the will to let go of the damage and love themselves is capable of doing it.

The key to being genuinely happy in life is to think and behave positively to make the world a better place for yourself and others. Self-awareness allows you to take a careful, meaningful look at yourself and heal the hurts that keep you from being your true, shiny self. What will you do to move beyond the damage?

Cheers,

Guy

self-awareness consulting

Unhappy People Lack Self-Awareness

January 22, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Years ago, I had to interact with this unhappy person who was always stomping around in a state of heightened agitation and unease. I remember feeling drained and annoyed by what seemed to be a person who lacked self-awareness, was always in his own little world, and didn’t seem to care about anyone else but himself. I always wanted to tell him that there was so much more to life than being miserable and upset all the time, or that he didn’t have to get his stuff on others.

Then I realized that I was the unhappy person. Regardless of how he was behaving, it was I who was becoming upset about the things he was doing. For many years after this realization, I worked hard on calming and healing myself instead of focusing on others. Where once I would get perturbed by someone like him, I eventually learned to handle it.

The moral of the story is that we have within us the power to react any way we want to any person or event in our lives. Self-awareness means possessing the balance within you to find calm in the heaviest storm. What will you do about the unhappy person in your life?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Leads to Real Happiness

January 21, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

A lot of people claim they’re happy and then think, say, and do things that indicate they’re not. The thing I like so much about self-awareness is that it’s an actual path to happiness, not just some false assertion. Here’s how it works:

You take an ongoing, honest, candid look at yourself, examining your strengths and areas for improvement.
You identify the parts of your life that don’t lead to joy, these are often the remnants of your formative years when you were hurt in some way.
You feel all the emotions related to your past hurts and actively work on healing them. You go to therapy if necessary.
You begin forming a clear picture of your whole self.
What you feel, think, say, and do all follow the same path and don’t conflict with each other.
You identify who you genuinely are deep inside and what you really want to do with your life.
You take action every day to live life as the real you.
Your level of kindness and compassion toward yourself and others keeps growing.
You feel, think, and behave positively toward yourself and others; not just say you do.
You become so happy inside that you make the world a better place for everyone.

If you value self-awareness, you’re likely doing one or several of these things right now and you’re on your way to living a peaceful, loving, balanced, dynamic, fulfilling, healthy life. What does real happiness mean to you?

Cheers,
Guy

Live the One Life You Have with Self-Awareness

January 21, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

I always encourage people to live the one life they have with self-awareness because it will help them navigate all the challenges they will face. Once you understand your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you’ll be able to live a deeply fulfilling, meaningful existence.

Perspective frequently makes the difference in the choices you make in life. If you feel a sense of urgency, you are more likely to try to accomplish a task. People motivate themselves in different ways but a key characteristic of those who create movement is a sense that they have to get it done.

You only have one life to live so you might as well make the most of it. Why then is it that people spend incredible amounts of time and effort on everything but what is truly meaningful to them? It’s almost as if someone told them along the way that they couldn’t accomplish what they wanted in life. So they settle for what comes their way, focusing on subsistence rather than growth.

A positive way to improve self-awareness and begin redirecting your thoughts is to ask yourself, “If I only had one week to live, what would I want to do?”

Life is a precious and finite gift. Why would anyone choose to live it without doing something they really love? Think about your own situation and think about what you really want to do in life. Then put some thought into increasing self-awareness and what you can actually do to incorporate your dreams into your everyday life. As you begin working on your dreams, you will begin feeling happier and more balanced because you are connecting with who you really are. Life is just funner when you’re doing stuff you like.

Build in some urgency starting today. What will you do to improve your self-awareness and live the life you really want to?

Cheers,

Guy

Using Self-Awareness to Be Successful

January 20, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

You can use self-awareness to be successful because you’re able to clearly see what your strengths and areas for improvement are. People try to achieve success in different ways. Some people believe a workshop will create success in their lives, others rely on some outside person to make them successful, some think if they work way too many hours it will bring success. There are a couple of characteristics I have noticed in successful people that I thought I’d share with you.

Success Secrets of Self-Aware, Successful People

Have a goal in mind.
Keep going even when things get tough.
Believe in themselves even when others don’t.
Set realistic and manageable goals.
Set themselves up for success.
Do things to understand themselves honestly.
Are open to outside help and scrutiny.
Understand that success is something you create.
Work intelligently, not just to be busy.
Follow their passion.
Always work on improving their self-awareness.

Try a few of these ideas on for size and see what they do for your success quotient. Successful people are those who follow their dreams and keep walking even when the road seems impassable. What will you do to increase self-awareness and move toward success?

Cheers,

Guy

Getting Rid of Destructive Pride with Self-Awareness

January 20, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

A lot of people who lack self-awareness believe that pride means being as outwardly tough and invulnerable as possible. They’ll insist they’re proud of doing something or being a certain way even when they’re not. This type of thinking produces people who can never back down, admit being wrong, or change their minds. They present a strong facade but are internally shattered and don’t possess the self-awareness to change direction.

True pride is not how much bravado you project or how strong your shell is, it’s how you actually feel about yourself deep inside and how genuinely self-aware, balanced, and fulfilled you are. People who are willing to take a look at who they are and make the necessary adjustments are much more likely to live happily than those who only focus on projecting invincibility.

Being proud really means being at peace with yourself by living life as the real you, not just pretending you’re doing it. Constructive pride is the ability to feel great about who you are as a person at every level, without any rationalizations or qualifications. What will you do to develop self-awareness and move beyond destructive pride?

Cheers,

Guy