Choosing Safety or Self-Awareness and Courage - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Choosing Safety or Self-Awareness and Courage

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Do you choose safety in life or self-awareness and courage? Your decision will have a major impact on how your life will unfold.

A lot of wonderful people don’t pursue their dreams because they’d rather feel safe than experience heartache and setbacks. Sticking your neck out and showing the world your talent, no matter what happens, is one of the most difficult things for anyone to do. It takes an amazing amount of self-awareness and courage to be who you really are and share it confidently with everyone, including critics and detractors.

If you live for safety you’ll always take the route that leads to maintaining a feeling of being comfortable, and that’s rarely a creative or fulfilling path. If you’re actively striving to make your dreams come true, you know that it can be challenging but at least you’re proving that you have the courage to keep moving forward regardless of what anyone says or any obstacle that presents itself.

The difference between safety and courage is that playing it safe keeps you stuck and unhappy, often for a lifetime. Thankfully, you can always choose to build up your self-awareness, understand your strengths and areas for improvement, and take action each day to make your dreams come true. What will you do to choose self-awareness and courage instead of safety?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness, Team Building, and Building Better Workplace Relationships - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness, Team Building, and Building Better Workplace Relationships

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You can’t build great teams if you don’t possess self-awareness and the knowledge to promote successful relationships. Even some of the most well-intentioned leaders who really care for their employees have difficulty building great workplace relationships because they don’t know how.

I’m a big supporter of clarity in workplace relationships, where everyone involved understands what’s going on in the relationship. It does away with assumptions, secrets, guesses, misunderstandings and frustration because every person is on the same page.

How do you increase clarity? You work on increasing your self-awareness and gathering more information. The next time you encounter conflict in any workplace relationship practice the following ideas to really understand what’s going on:

1. Each person talks without interruptions about how they see the situation.

2. Each person listens carefully without judging, rebutting or giving advice.

3. Each person asks open-ended questions to clarify what is going on.

4. The people work together and develop a plan to proceed.

Dialogue is very important to achieving clarity. Make sure to practice listening skills and ask questions that allow people to share their perspectives in a safe environment. Open ended questions are questions that don’t lead to a yes or no answer and allow each person to meaningfully explain their point of view.

This is a style of interaction that doesn’t require confrontation, it focuses on people listening to each other and sharing their points of view. Try it sometime to gain clarity on what’s going on in your workplace relationships. What will you do to improve your self-awareness, team building, and workplace relationships?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Means Looking Inside Yourself - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Means Looking Inside Yourself

/ / Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / , , , / 2 Comments

Self-awareness means looking inside yourself rather than relying on outside influences, entities, or events to make you happy in life. Countless people spend inordinate amounts of time living based on what some outside person or entity tells them to do, or reacting to whatever circumstance they find themselves in, rather than charting a course based on who they are deep inside and what they find meaningful and fulfilling. The key to being truly happy in life is being able to look inside yourself and:

  • Define who you really are.
  • Discover your true inner voice.
  • Determine what you really want to do in life.
  • Figure out what you need to do to live authentically.

When you do these things you’ll live life based on what’s inside you rather than always reacting to outside people and situations. It’s up to you whether you live life consciously or passively. What will you do to look inside yourself?

Cheers,

Guy

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

Self-Awareness Quotes

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Here are a few quotes about self-awareness from some wise people:

Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade?
Benjamin Franklin

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.
Abraham Maslow

Most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love not what you are, but what you may become.
Cervantes

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.
Aldous Huxley

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Carl Jung

You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself.
Beryl Markham

In the last decade or so, science has discovered a tremendous amount about the role emotions play in our lives. Researchers have found that even more than IQ, your emotional awareness and abilities to handle feelings will determine your success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships.
John Gottman

You’re cordially invited to browse this site to learn more about self-awareness.

Cheers,

Guy

Are You a Competitive or Self-Aware, Collaborative Leader? - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Are You a Competitive or Self-Aware, Collaborative Leader?

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / ,

There are many well-meaning, talented and skilled leaders who feel like only they have the answers. They don’t ask for help and their competitive instinct kicks in whenever someone offers assistance or suggests working on a project together. There’s nothing horrible about wanting to excel on your own but it can limit your organization’s ability to grow and make valuable connections. You get to decide what kind of leadership style you practice, and that will predict what kind of results you get. To see what might work best, let’s look at some examples of competitive and self-aware, collaborative leadership and how you might benefit from practicing the latter approach.

Signs You’re a Competitive Leader

  • Always strive to be the best, above all others.
  • You’re a pioneer and enjoy doing things on your own.
  • Hesitant to share information or resources with other organizations.
  • Decline receiving help when another organization offers.
  • Miss or don’t seek opportunities for collaboration.
  • Feel threatened when another organization offers the same services.
  • Working with other organizations isn’t generally on your radar.
  • You think twice before referring a client to another organization.
  • You dominate any collaboration with another organization.

Many strong and successful organizations function on this model and do great things. What they may not yet realize is that they can add one component to become even more successful, collaboration. Here are some of the qualities of collaborative leadership.

Signs You’re a Self-Aware, Collaborative Leader

  • You call on other organizations to help you.
  • You look for opportunities to work with others.
  • You don’t hesitate to refer people to other organizations.
  • You don’t feel threatened when someone else offers similar services, you look for ways to compliment each other.
  • You build mutually beneficial relationships with other organizations.
  • You want all organizations, including your own, to succeed.
  • You build a network to improve service delivery to clients.
  • You’re able to grow and address larger problems because you have other organizations backing you up.

Think about which approach most closely matches your leadership style. Being competitive can help you strive for excellence and build a strong organization. Being collaborative helps you join with other organizations to increase your ability to serve people. When you merge the two you become a collaborative leader, which helps you in the following ways.

Benefits of Being a Self-Aware, Collaborative Leader

  • Positive relationships with other organizations.
  • Pooling of resources.
  • Greater capacity to serve clients because of expanded network.
  • You don’t have to do everything on your own.
  • You have access to the brain power and insights of many more people.
  • Reduced duplication of services.
  • Other professionals seek you out because they know you’re a person who brings people together.
  • You create a sense of community.

The shift from a competitive to a self-aware, collaborative approach is a big one for many people, often because they haven’t had a lot of experience connecting with other entities. Leaders can make the shift anytime they want, all it takes is a desire to leave the castle walls and be open to working with others. The effect of collaboration is profound. It helps organizations move from being a single player to being part of a larger team working together to make a difference. What will you do to encourage self-aware, collaborative leadership in your organization?

Cheers,

Guy

Lack of Self-Awareness Leads to Sick People and Sick Societies - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Lack of Self-Awareness Leads to Sick People and Sick Societies

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership, Self-Consciousness / , ,

Sick people build sick societies, which is the opposite of what self-aware, happy, healthy people do. Here are some of the signs of a lack of self-awareness that lead to a sick society:

  • People don’t like themselves and, by extension, each other.
  • People are territorial and against sharing.
  • Propensity toward violence to resolve disputes.
  • Us vs. them mentality.
  • Unable to build healthy relationships at every level, including with oneself, other people, and other nations.
  • Belief that improving one’s mental health is not possible or important.
  • Little value put on introspection or self-awareness.
  • Culture of materialism and greed.
  • Very little collaboration because everything is a competition.
  • Living in fear.

People in unhealthy societies will tend to lack self-awareness and believe that these types of behaviors are the only option they have, but there are countless other ways to build a more positive society; using impulses and skills that people have in them at this very moment. Picture a society where people make the shift toward being self-aware and building a healthy world, they might do things like:

  • Become as healthy as they can and help others do the same.
  • Share with others.
  • Resolve disputes without violence.
  • Embrace differences and diversity.
  • Build healthy relationships.
  • Value improving one’s mental health.
  • Value introspection and self-awareness.
  • Value kindness and compassion over greed.
  • Work together to build a better world for as many people as possible.
  • Live with courage and openness.

The irony of the second list is that, as human beings, we can do any of these things right this moment if we choose to do so. The only reason we don’t do them is because we’re stuck in the type of thinking that says we can’t be healthy at any level: personally, interpersonally, or globally. What will you do to increase your self-awareness and build a healthy society?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Better Team Building - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Better Team Building

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership, Self-Consciousness / , ,

Self-awareness leads to better team building because participants are able to look at how their own emotions, thoughts, and actions lead to creating a healthier, more high-functioning organization where people get along and work well together.

I facilitate many team building workshops and the participants sometimes get confused when they realize they aren’t going to be climbing a tree or catching each other as they fall backward. It’s a natural reaction because a lot of what is presented as team building might actually be team bonding. Here’s the difference:

Team Building

  • Focuses on behaviors and their effect on workplace functioning.
  • Helps people learn how to work with each other and get along well.
  • Builds skills like communication, planning, problem-solving and conflict resolution.
  • Builds empathy and compassion.
  • Encourages long-term behavior change.
  • Helps people build genuine connections.
  • Is practiced over time.
  • Encourages deeper discussion and processing.

Team Bonding

  • Focus on fun activities.
  • Brings people together by encouraging collaboration and teamwork.
  • Helps people see each other in a different light.
  • Allows people to connect in a different setting.
  • Usually a one-time activity.
  • Helps people get out of the workplace and relax.
  • Encourages people to have fun together.
  • Sometimes asks people to think about the implications of the activities on their workplace.

The major difference between the two approaches is that team building is a long-term process that encourages self-awareness and creates behavioral change while team bonding tends to be a short-term, fun experience. If you’re looking for a quick pick-me-up then team bonding is your thing. If you’re looking at foundation building and long-term change then team building will help you get there.

As a leader, you get to choose what kind of workplace you create. I’ve found that highly successful (and happy) organizations commit to a long-term team building approach that helps people build self-awareness to think and behave in ways that benefit them and their work environment. Learning effective team building takes time and effort but it creates lasting success and a company culture that encourages positive behaviors. What will you do to develop self-awareness and promote effective team building in your organization?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy