Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence

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Self-awareness and emotional intelligence are closely linked and when you have one, you’re likely to have the other. Let’s define the two, look at how they compliment each other, and how they can help you live a happier life.

The Definition of Self-Awareness

The ability to get to know yourself so well that you understand and are able to control how you feel, think, and behave in order to move your life in a positive, deeply meaningful direction with an intimate knowledge of who you really are deep inside.

The Definition of Emotional Intelligence

The ability to recognize, experience, understand, and modulate your own and others’ emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.

As you can see, these two concepts have a lot in common because they both refer to the ability to know yourself well enough to live a happy life instead of doing stuff that aggravates you and others. I’ve worked with a lot of people over the years to help them increase their self-awareness and emotional intelligence, here are some of the things they look at in order to grow and succeed:

  • Healing the unresolved, painful, or hurtful issues from their childhoods.
  • Taking an honest look at what they’re doing that doesn’t work.
  • Learning and practicing new, positive thoughts and behaviors.
  • Realizing emotions are positive and learning how to feel them.
  • Discovering who they really are deep inside and doing the things they love.
  • Living life authentically, from their hearts.
  • Practicing love, kindness, compassion, caring, both toward themselves and others.
  • Doing the hard work necessary to become healthy, including going to therapy for as long as it takes.
  • Having the courage to live life as their real selves.

Self-aware people possess emotional intelligence and vice versa. There is no mystery behind either concept, they just require work and a dedication to learn how to deal with emotions, thoughts, and actions. The end result of developing both is that you get to enjoy a wonderful life being the real, healthy you.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Balancing Your Work and Personal Life - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Balancing Your Work and Personal Life

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People who lack self-awareness often spend so much time at work that other areas of their lives suffer. It’s not uncommon for people to spend every waking moment toiling on some task related to the workplace. They spend much of their time scrambling around putting out fires rather than planning ways to do things more efficiently and enjoyably.

You can implement some basic steps that can help you increase self-awareness, bring your life into balance, and allow you to focus on what really needs attention. It all starts with prioritizing. Think about the following questions as you begin your workday:

1. What are the things I absolutely have to do right now?

2. What are the things I can do later?

3. What are the things I can have someone else do for me?

When you ask yourself these questions you begin to move away from emergency response mode and into self-awareness and planning deliberate actions each day. My consulting clients often tell me that, when they learn how to prioritize more effectively, they actually increase the time they have to focus on ways to grow their business.

The next area is your personal life. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a healthy personal life. A healthy personal life will improve your general outlook and performance. Think about the following ideas and how they apply to you:

1. How much time have I set aside for my personal life today?

2. What can I postpone doing at work to spend more time on my personal life?

3. What have I done to take care of myself today?

Thinking about these questions allows you to pay more attention to yourself and the things you need to keep you feeling great. If you work too much, dial in a little more personal time. If you have too much free time, do a few more things to further your career. When you achieve work and personal life balance you will feel invigorated in all parts of your life and will be ready to take on any challenge that comes your way.

Ultimately, I would recommend that you pursue your dreams and do what you really want to do in life. When you live life authentically you don’t have to worry about work/life balance, you just get to be the real you each day. What will you do to develop self-awareness and enjoy life more?

Cheers,

Guy

Finding Inner Peace through Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Finding Inner Peace through Self-Awareness

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Self-awareness leads to inner peace because it means you’re working through your fears and hurts and sharing who you really are with the world. I was talking with a dear friend recently and mentioned how peaceful I feel each day when I’m doing what I love. I don’t have to worry about doing things I don’t like or pretending to be someone I’m not, I just have to show up and be me.

Inner peace comes from resolving your issues and following your authentic path in life. Self-awareness is a great tool to heal yourself because there are no limits to how much you can grow. You can explore as much or as little as you wish and all you have to do is be open to sharing your real self with the world. When I’m not helping people build self-awareness, I write poetry. It helps me connect with who I am at my core and express my innermost thoughts and feelings. When I’m writing poetry, nothing else matters because I’m just enjoying being the real me.

I enjoy helping people achieve self-awareness because I’ve made the journey from being clueless to being rather more enlightened. Along the way, I’ve learned how to be myself and enjoy life on a deeper, more harmonious level. What will you do to develop self-awareness and find inner peace?

Cheers,

Guy

What Self-Awareness Isn't - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

What Self-Awareness Isn’t

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A lot of people think self-awareness happens simply by saying you have it. This leads to people insisting that they understand themselves well while leaving a trail of destruction wherever they go. Here are some examples of what self-awareness isn’t:

  • Saying you do one thing and then doing another.
  • Having various parts of your life in conflict.
  • Saying you care about people but treating certain ones poorly.
  • Insisting you’re happy and balanced when you have a lot of unfinished inner business to deal with.
  • You say you love yourself but you do things that hurt you.
  • Thinking and behaving in ways that hurt others.
  • Saying that other people don’t have self-awareness and then doing things that demonstrate you don’t.

Getting to know yourself well is an ongoing process where you comprehend why you think and do certain things and continuously move your life in a positive direction. You become so comfortable with yourself that you treat others with great care and compassion because you’re deeply happy inside. What will you do to keep building self-awareness?

Cheers,

Guy

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

Self-Awareness and Self-Love

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Self-awareness leads to self-love because, when you understand your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you are able to celebrate the wonderful things about you and improve the areas that need attention.

If you’re looking for someone who really cares about you, you need look no further than inside yourself. You’re the only person who can love you and answer the questions you have. A lot of people spend their entire lives looking for some outside entity to love, comfort, and take care of them. It’s natural to want to put all the difficulties in your life in someone else’s hands but it doesn’t help you resolve your own issues or be truly happy.

Try asking yourself these questions to start building your self-love:

  • What do I love about myself?
  • What are five things I do well?
  • What is my passion in life?
  • In what ways do I make the world a better place?
  • What are five things that are great about my personality?
  • What are some things I do to take care of myself?
  • What is one thing I can do today to love myself?

When you ask yourself questions like these, you begin the process of caring for yourself which, in turn, will help you to build self-awareness and attract healthy people into your life. Finding a caring person begins with you, you are the one who will love you like no one else can.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and practice self-love?

Cheers,

Guy

Self Awareness and Saying I'm Sorry - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self Awareness and Saying I’m Sorry

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The ability to say, “I’m sorry,” is a big part of self-awareness. Countless misunderstandings and conflicts arise because people are unwilling to back down or admit that they made a mistake. The irony is that, in trying to avoid being wrong, people make the situation worse. When something goes awry, it’s much more productive to think in these types of terms:

  • There’s nothing wrong with making a mistake.
  • You don’t have to be right all the time to be a good person.
  • It’s positive to take the other person’s feelings into account.
  • You can learn and grow by examining what you did.
  • You don’t have to win.
  • You don’t have to save face.
  • Admitting you made a mistake is a positive sign of self-awareness.
  • You take responsibility for your actions and how they affect others.
  • You’re healthy enough to not have to dominate or control others.

Saying, “I’m sorry,” doesn’t mean that you let people step all over you, it’s simply an acknowledgement that you’re willing and able to reflect on what you did and work on improving the situation. Self-awareness allows you to step back, evaluate your thoughts and behaviors, take responsibility, and make corrections. What will you do to say, “I’m sorry,” more freely?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Leads to Believing in Yourself - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Leads to Believing in Yourself

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When you possess self-awareness, you trust yourself to be your own guide through life. So many people put all their energy into believing in someone else or some abstract entity that they spend their entire lives neglecting their own inner voices.

The key to living a profoundly meaningful life is to stop looking outside for answers and turn inward instead. You have every answer you need inside you right at this very moment. They may sometimes be hidden somewhere in the recesses of your mind, but they’re in there, and all you have to do is be willing to put in the effort to find them.

Believing in yourself means that you take an honest, candid look at the person you are, keep what’s positive and change what isn’t. This process requires considerable courage because you have to look at the issues you normally try to avoid. Fortunately, after you do the hard work and build up your self-awareness, you’ll be rewarded with being able to let go of the things that hold you back and live authentically.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and believe in yourself?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy