Self-Consciousness

Self-Awareness Begins with Self-Reflection - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Begins with Self-Reflection

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True self-awareness begins with self-reflection, the process of examining and understanding what you think, feel and do. A lot of people are able to recognize that they think or do something but are unable to consciously change or modify it. Self-reflection means that you do the following:

  • Be willing to take a candid look at yourself.
  • Recognize your strengths.
  • Identify your areas for improvement.
  • Learn how to experience your full range of emotions.
  • Find ways to identify and heal your deepest hurts.
  • Stop doing things that don’t work.
  • Think, feel and behave consciously and positively.
  • Move from being reactive to proactive.
  • Be willing to learn, grow and change.
  • Be open to new experiences.

There’s a big difference between saying you’re self-aware and actually knowing who you really are. Genuine self-awareness requires constant, ongoing reflection, exploration, and an openness to new perspectives and ideas. What will you do to start your journey of self-reflection?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Helps You Deal with Conflict - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Helps You Deal with Conflict

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Many people who lack self-awareness go through life putting out fires and reacting to whatever conflict comes their way rather than trying to prevent it. We often spend much of our time focusing on the issue on the surface but don’t do anything to resolve the underlying situation. Think about the last time you had a fight with someone you loved. What was it about? Did you fix it? Did it go away permanently? Think of the following points next time you are in conflict with someone

  • What is this conflict really about?
  • What am I feeling inside and where does that come from?
  • Do I really care whether the toilet seat is up or is it about something else?
  • What is it about me that compels me to fight about this?
  • What do I need to do to fix this situation?

When you ask yourself questions like these you begin the process of understanding yourself. It is this self-awareness that helps us figure out who we really are at a deeper level. We spend so much time fighting about things that are only the tip of the real problem that lies below. Think about it next time you get upset. Am I really mad about the lid being left off the jar or is it that I feel like no one cares about me?

Once you figure out what’s really going on you can begin doing the important work to actually fix your relationship and life conflicts. What will you do to develop self-awareness and actually deal with conflict?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware People Keep Moving Forward - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware People Keep Moving Forward

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The only way to make anything happen in your life is to build up your self-awareness and keep moving forward. Many people give up on their dreams because things get difficult or don’t work out the way they thought they would. They don’t realize that they’ll always encounter some type of roadblock, things rarely unfold exactly like we wish they would. The key to success is to keep going instead of staying stuck.

When you possess self-awareness, you’re able to take a candid look at yourself and realize that you have the ability to move in the direction of your dreams. A positive approach that works for me is to just take small steps each day toward something I want to achieve. Each day I build my body of work and my connections to other people who appreciate what I do. It’s a gradual, low-stress, ongoing process that builds over time.

What do you do to keep moving forward?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Changing Your Life - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Changing Your Life

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Self-awareness can help you change your life because, when you understand your own and others’ emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you’re able to navigate life consciously and confidently.

We all reach transitional points in our lives where we are motivated to move in a different direction. For some of us it may be a career change, for others a relationship transformation or a shift that helps us develop personally. Regardless of what change you are looking to make in your life it all starts with increasing self-awareness, deciding what the change is, and taking a step toward your goal and sticking to it over time.

Here’s what some smart people have to say about the subject:

Alice Walker:

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

Charles DuBois:

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.

Anais Nin:

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Andy Warhol:

They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

Epictetus:

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.

The prospect of change can both create fear in us or energize us through the promise of growth and potential. Remember that you’re a valuable person who deserves to leave the fear behind and move forward courageously and joyfully.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and change your life for the better?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Helps You Find Happiness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Helps You Find Happiness

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My clients frequently ask me how to find happiness. Over the years I’ve noticed that a common characteristic of people who are happy is self-awareness.

Self-awareness is a deep understanding of who we are. It literally impacts how we treat ourselves and others and what kind of life we live. Let me give you a real world example to illustrate what I’m talking about.

Person A says he is a happy go lucky person that always is having a great time. He has a lot of friends and says he’s confident and an optimist. He lives a life that looks great to everyone on the outside but, when he has to think about it, Person A is deeply unhappy. He has unresolved issues in his life that are so difficult that he refuses to look at them. So person A appears happy on the outside but inside he is constantly struggling to ignore and cast aside the demons he carries. This type of person is not living a life of self-awareness because he won’t even begin the process of understanding who he is in order to move forward. He chooses instead to live a live of superficial happiness based on appearances.

Person B, on the other hand, also has issues that hurt him deeply and made him unhappy. He also appears happy to the outside world but his happiness comes from a very different place. Person B decided years ago to look at the things that brought him pain. He worked very hard to acknowledge his past and create a plan to move beyond the hurt. When person B is alone he feels genuinely happy because he has actually moved past the challenges in his past. This type of happiness is far more genuine because the person has literally worked through the things that made them unhappy. His happiness is real because it’s based on his deep self-awareness based on facing his hurts.

Genuine happiness comes from deep inside us. It is a level of existence that we achieve only when we work through the challenges from our past. I’m not suggesting that we live in the past, only that we acknowledge the things that hurt us earlier in life and then develop a plan to move forward.

Everyone deserves to live a life of genuine happiness, the kind that comes from deep inside. Those who are truly happy have left the burdens of the past in the past. Think about it as the difference between living your life with the burden of carrying a giant monkey on your back and never getting rid of it versus letting it go and living a much lighter and energized existence.

Self-awareness is not about being selfish or self-indulgent, it’s about understanding who you are and constantly working on becoming the best person you can be. Those who choose to be aware of whom they really are reap the benefits of living a genuinely happy life.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and find happiness?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and the House of Cards - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and the House of Cards

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I you aren’t actively building self-awareness your run the risk of spending your entire life carefully constructing a house of cards that could come tumbling down at any moment and for any reason. Thankfully, you don’t have to live precariously perched on the edge of disaster, there are much more balanced and fulfilling ways to live, such as:

  • Spending time finding out what you love doing in life.
  • Deciding which of your thoughts and behaviors genuinely reflect who you are deep inside.
  • Thinking, feeling and behaving positively.
  • Living genuinely and authentically.
  • Being happy with yourself deep down inside.
  • You don’t pretend you’re something you’re not.
  • You attract people who know and appreciate the real you.
  • Your life is in balance, no one area dominates all the time.
  • Your happiness isn’t based on defeating others or being on top of them.
  • Other people describe you as a self-aware, kind, wonderful person.
  • You help others feel great about themselves.

The idea in life is to have the self-awareness necessary to consciously move your life in a direction that reflects the real you rather than pretending you’re someone else. What will you do to avoid the house of cards and show the world the amazing authentic you?

Cheers,

Guy

The Unlimited Opportunities Self-Awareness Offers - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

The Unlimited Opportunities Self-Awareness Offers

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Self-awareness offers you unlimited opportunities to create whatever kind of life you want. The more you understand yourself, the more you’ll be open to new and exciting ways of thinking and behaving rather than getting stuck looking at things from only one perspective. For example: If you’re having trouble finding a job, you can keep doing what you’ve always done or ask yourself questions like:

  • What do I really want to do in life?
  • What would bring me great meaning?
  • Who am I deep inside.
  • What floats my boat?
  • How can I share the real me with the world?
  • Who can I connect with as I begin my journey?
  • What kind of people care about the real me?
  • What is one thing I can do today to create an opportunity?

The wonderful thing about being human is that you don’t have to settle for the crumbs that come your way, you can deliberately work on shaping how you think and behave in relation to your environment. What will you do to create unlimited opportunities for yourself?

Cheers,
Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy