Self-Consciousness

Self-Awareness, Team Building, and Healing Your Workplace - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness, Team Building, and Healing Your Workplace

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Self-awareness, team building, and healing are strongly linked in the workplace because teams can’t function well if everyone is walking around carrying personal grudges and hurts. It often falls on the team leader to help everyone function effectively but it’s nearly impossible if he or she is carrying around a lot of negative energy.

There are many negative workplace experiences that affected people negatively. Individuals sometimes hold on to these feelings for a long time even when they realize intellectually that they would be better off letting them go. I consult with leaders and employees about how they can end this cycle of negative feelings and thoughts and build stronger teams and it almost always begins with healing.

Healing your workplace is one of the most important concepts for you and your employees’ well-being and it begins with having the self-awareness to heal yourself. If you think about it, you deal with people very differently when you are healthy rather than hurt. If you want to create a work environment that is free of hurts from the past, then think about the following questions.

1.  What do I need to heal?

This question will help you define what it is that you need to look at. There is no right or wrong answer, you get to decide what part of you or your workplace is hurt and then you get to heal it. No issue is to small or trivial, if you need to heal it it is a valid starting point. You can have several issues but try to pick one to start on.

2.  How will I heal myself?

There are many avenues you can take to heal yourself and they almost always involve getting help from an outside person who can help you get a clear perspective. You benefit from realizing that you need help and then reaching out to someone who can partner with you to make it happen. There is no right or wrong approach to healing, look for an approach that works for you. Some people talk to a friend, others a therapist and others HR.

3.  How will I know that I am healed?

The goal of healing is to come to terms and feel at peace with the issues you face. You will know you are healed when an issue no longer stirs negative feelings inside you. You will also see improvements in your day to day work life because that issue won’t be affecting you in the same way.  Healing can take time so be patient and keep working on taking care of yourself. Take it easy on yourself and only work on healing one thing at a time. Once you feel better about one thing then you are then ready to move on to the next issue.

Do some careful thinking about these three questions and you will begin the process of building self-awareness and discovering what hurts and how to heal it. The idea is not to reopen terrible wounds and relive those moments, it’s to acknowledge that you have an issue and work on it. Once you heal yourself you’ll be in a great position to help your team do the same. The result is a workplace where people aren’t working out their personal stuff on each other.

How will you increase your self-awareness and start healing your workplace?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware People Are Open-Minded - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware People Are Open-Minded

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People who possess self-awareness tend to be open-minded because they are able to examine, reflect upon, and even critique themselves. When you’re open-minded you do things like:

  • Examine yourself.
  • Welcome new points of view.
  • Change your mind.
  • See things from various perspectives.
  • Venture into the dark side as well as the light.
  • See each day as an opportunity to explore something.
  • Share your deeper self with the world.

If you’re closed-minded you do the opposite of these things and you live a very different kind of life. One of the reasons I love providing life guidance, workshops, and retreats for people who value self-awareness is that they are receptive to new and interesting ways of seeing things.

Cheers,

Guy

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

Self-Awareness and Being Nice

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Self-awareness leads to being nice because the more comfortable you are with yourself the less you’ll get your stuff on other people. It’s really easy to get caught up with the things going on inside your head and acting out on others in an unconscious manner. Maybe you’ve seen a boss fly off the handle at someone or a significant other shout at her partner. These are examples of actions that aren’t self-aware because people are doing them automatically rather than with careful forethought.

Self-awareness means that you’ve taken the time to know yourself so well that you don’t do things unconsciously. You’re happy, balanced and able to treat yourself and others kindly. There’s a myth in our society that being nice is being weak when it’s actually a positive sign that someone is healthy and balanced. Please keep in mind that I’m not talking about the syrupy-sweet niceness of someone who really isn’t happy or is trying to manipulate others, I’m referring to the kind of niceness that comes from someone who feels genuinely and deeply great about themselves. What will you do to be authentically nice?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware People Treat Others Well - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware People Treat Others Well

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A big part of self-awareness is to be so happy with yourself that it influences your interactions with others positively. It means that you’re healthy, balanced and able to treat others well. When people are unhappy they tend to put their problems on others and interact in less than optimal ways. The better you feel about yourself, the better you’ll treat others and the more positive results you’ll experience.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware People Can Tell When They're Not Really Happy - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware People Can Tell When They’re Not Really Happy

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Self-aware people can tell when they’re not really happy because they have the ability to monitor and manage their emotions, thoughts, and actions. There are a lot of people out there who lack self-awareness and pretend they’re happy when they’re actually miserable. Here are twelve signs you’re not happy:

  • You put other people down.
  • You compete with others to boost your own self-image.
  • You say negative things.
  • You look stressed out or ill at ease.
  • You dedicate your life to causes that hurt people.
  • You defend reprehensible behaviors.
  • You have a history of poor relationships.
  • You say one thing and do another.
  • You live in fear.
  • You do what other people tell you to do.
  • You lack self-awareness.
  • You insist you’re really happy to hide how you really feel.

The key to being truly happy in life is to practice self-awareness and be the person you are at your core, the real you. One of the reasons I love connecting with people who value self-awareness is because their energy comes from a place of introspection, genuineness, creativity, and abundance. The easiest way to tell whether someone is happy is by just watching what they do. Happy people behave kindly, spread joy, and make the world a better place for themselves and others.

What will you do to be self-aware and truly happy?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Dismissing the Difficult Questions in Life - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Dismissing the Difficult Questions in Life

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Many people who lack self-awareness make a habit of dismissing the difficult questions in life like:

  • Why am I here?
  • Who am I?
  • What do I really want to do in life?
  • What is the meaning of life?
  • Why do I have to die?
  • What happens when I die?
  • What brings me deeper meaning in life?
  • What issues do I need to heal to live more fully?
  • How do I find inner peace and balance?
  • What kind of a person am I?
  • How can I help resolve the formidable issues facing humanity?

When people are confronted with daunting, complex, challenging questions that make them uncomfortable, they often stick their heads in the sand. Some individuals spend their whole lives avoiding even thinking about these issues, not realizing that it’s crucial to find the answers in order to live meaningfully and happily.

The more you know yourself, the easier it is to contemplate even the most mystifying conundrums because you can draw upon a deep reservoir of inner knowledge, understanding, and insight which allows you to think creatively and expansively. What will you do to answer the difficult questions in life?

Take care

Guy

Self-Awareness and Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone

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When you possess a high level of self-awareness you’re able to step outside your comfort zone more easily because you understand your strengths and abilities as well as your areas for improvement. The reason so many people have a difficult time with change is that they only know how to do things one way and don’t realize that there may be other equally or more viable options available to them. Here are some tips to build your self-awareness and move in a positive direction:

  • Recognize that you’re uncomfortable.
  • Remind yourself that you can handle anything.
  • Remind yourself that you have options.
  • Make a list of positive alternatives to what you are doing right now.
  • Pick one of the alternatives and start working on it.
  • Practice your new approach until you get good at it.
  • If you run into another wall, repeat the process.

Discomfort often comes from not realizing that there are many other opportunities available to you. The next time you feel like you can’t do something or it’s too daunting, take a deep breath and deliberately walk yourself through this process instead of doing what you’ve always done. What will you do to begin consciously stepping outside your comfort zone?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy