A Self-Awareness

Self-Awareness Helps You Succeed More - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Helps You Succeed More

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Self-awareness means that you understand how your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors impact your life. Over many years of helping individuals overcome challenges in their lives, I’ve found it striking how many things people unconsciously think and do that get in the way of their own success, for example:

  • They believe things about themselves and others that lead in an unfavorable direction.
  • They treat themselves and others poorly.
  • They base their entire lives on their inner hurts.
  • They don’t pursue their dreams.
  • They settle for whatever comes their way.
  • They’re afraid of feeling their emotions.
  • They make things harder rather than easier.

I often wonder what would happen if they would shift these types of beliefs and behaviors in a self-aware, conscious, positive direction, as in:

  • Believing in things that are beneficial to themselves and others.
  • Treating themselves and others well.
  • Basing their lives on their hopes, talents, and abilities.
  • Pursuing their dreams.
  • Taking action each day to live actively and deliberately.
  • Feeling their feelings and using them to learn and grow positively.
  • Thinking and behaving in ways that make things easier.

We each get to choose how we experience the world. We can think and behave as if it’s a dangerous, horrible, hopeless place or one that is full of goodness and opportunities. One of the reasons I love consulting for people who value self-awareness is that they live consciously and are willing to look deep inside for what will help them flourish.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and succeed more?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware People Ask for Help - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware People Ask for Help

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When I help people figure out what they want out of life they often ask me why some people achieve their goals and some don’t. The answer is that successful people have the self-awareness to ask for outside help so that they can learn new ways of doing things that break the patterns they’ve established. As a self-awareness consultant, I am familiar with people’s power to change their lives dramatically with the help of someone supportive helping them reach their goals.

It’s great to have friends and family but there is an additional valuable place for having someone helping us who does not know us. It introduces an objectivity and clarity we can’t get from people who know us. Some people look for help from a therapist, for others a consultant is a great option, for others a class or group of some kind helps them acquire new insight. The people who most succeed at changing things in their lives are those who actively build self-awareness and seek outside support that opens their minds to new possibilities.

An outside, supportive person can help us see things from a more neutral point of view and can identify things that people who know us don’t see. If we are stuck in the same rut it’s often refreshing to just have a neutral, outside perspective that gives us clear feedback. Try it sometime: think of something you want to work on in your life and then reach out to an outside helper who can help you get where you want to go. The only thing you have to lose are the negative things you endure now.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and ask for help?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Going Deeper - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Going Deeper

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Having self-awareness means that you understand what makes you tick and you’re willing to work on improving yourself. A lot of people spend their entire lives avoiding going deeper into what makes them think and behave the way they do. The irony is that you can’t live a truly authentic and fulfilling life unless you deal with the difficult issues inside you. In general, the more you want to avoid something the more attention it merits.

If you chronically avoid thorny issues you do yourself a disservice because you never get past them, which means you function day to day as if you were carrying a heavy piece of luggage or baggage. The key to living a great life is to heal your hurts. It may be unpleasant at first, but when you work past them you’ll experience life at its most satisfying.

The great thing about possessing self-awareness is that you’re able to look at all the things that make you the person you are, warts and all, and are open to fearlessly examining your innermost self. The more you know yourself, the happier you’ll be.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and go deeper?

Cheers,

Guy

Developing Self-Awareness: 2 Exercises - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Developing Self-Awareness: 2 Exercises

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Here are two exercises for developing self-awareness.

1. The Personal Inventory

The way this self-awareness exercise works is that it requires that you actively look at yourself and start working on the things that don’t lead in a positive direction in your life. The process of working on certain issues helps you gain better insight into the areas of your life that might benefit from some extra attention.

  • In a notebook divide a page into two columns, label one column “Positive” and the other “Other Than Positive.”
  • Write down all the positive things you feel, think, and do in the “Positive” column.
  • Write down the things you think, feel, and do that lead in an “Other Than Positive” column.
  • Read the items in the “Positive” column and praise yourself for each item.
  • Look at your “Other Than Positive” column and pick the one item that seems the easiest to deal with. Once you pick a single item, decide on one action you will do to improve that item. Each subsequent day keep picking something to deal with that same item until it is no longer an issue that leads you in a less than positive direction.
  • Once your “Other Than Positive” item is no longer an issue, go back to the first step and repeat the entire process.
  • Repeat this exercise until you have very few “Other Than Positive” items.
  • Remember that developing self-awareness takes months, years, and will likely require a lifetime of commitment to learning and growing.

2. Looking Deep Inside

In this self-awareness exercise you get to take a deeper look at your emotions. A key element of self-awareness is the ability to look deep within and understand who your really are deep down inside and why you feel, think, and do what you do. Here’s how it works:

  • Think of an issue that creates a lot of discomfort in your life.
  • Label that issue with one of these four emotions (whichever fits the best): Anger, Sadness, Happiness, Fear.
  • Once you have chosen a single label then allow yourself five minutes to think of the issue and the emotion attached to it. After five minutes, write down your impressions of what you felt.
  • Keep repeating this exercise until you have a strong sense that the discomfort is no longer there or is greatly lessened.
  • Pick another issue and repeat the entire process.
  • Remember that this isn’t a one-time activity, it requires long-term commitment to developing your self-awareness.

You’ll find these exercises are challenging, some people even find them nearly impossible at first, but that’s the whole point of self-awareness; it’s a gradual process that takes time and repeated effort. So that you don’t get overloaded, I would recommend you work on these exercises on alternating weeks until you get really good at doing them, at which time you can do them simultaneously; the idea is to keep working on them until they become second nature. You’ll find that your self-awareness will naturally increase as you do the exercises. Please feel free to share your progress in the comments section below this post or contact me directly, I’d love to hear how you’re doing.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware Parents Know How to Talk with Their Kids - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware Parents Know How to Talk with Their Kids

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Many parents who lack self-awareness forget the cardinal rule of talking with children: listen to them. We get so caught up in coaching and directing their behavior or protecting them that we forget that they are people. The single most important key to talking with your kids is listening.

How to Listen

  1. Don’t talk.
  2. Don’t judge.
  3. Invite your child to talk about anything her or she wants with no repercussions.
  4. No commenting or editorializing allowed from you. No stories about when you were their age.
  5. Invite them to keep talking to you anytime they want.
  6. The only things you are allowed to say are, “Tell me more,” “I understand,” and “Thank you for talking with me,” or “I love you.” Try nodding and smiling as ways to invite them to talk more.
  7. Try to avoid applying your beliefs to what they say.
  8. Thank them and tell them you love them. Then say nothing else.

Practice these skills over time (at least one month, or longer) and always remember to tell your child you love them and that you are open to listening to them. If they don’t want to talk, respect their wishes and let them know that you are there when they are ready. When they do finally trust you, they will open up and then you can apply the ideas above. Once you’ve established and modeled that you can listen they may even invite you to offer your wisdom. They have to believe that you care enough to listen to them first.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and listen to your kids?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Helps You Celebrate Yourself - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Helps You Celebrate Yourself

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A big part of self-awareness is being able to celebrate yourself. Treating yourself well is as much a habit as a state of mind. It’s a good idea to cut yourself some slack and celebrate the things you do well. We spend so much time beating ourselves up that we forget that we possess wonderful skills and abilities. Ask yourself the following questions to begin thinking about how great you are.

1. What do I do well?
2. What do I love to do?
3. What thing do I do that truly makes me happy?
4. What can I do to reward myself today in a positive way?
5. What am I an expert on?
6. What can I do today to take care of myself?

Practice one of these ideas each day and teach yourself how to live a life of self-awareness and positive self-reinforcement rather than negativity. Learn to be your own best supporter, a person who recognizes the amazing things about you. Don’t be afraid of doing something silly like saying affirmations to yourself out loud. You have a unique power to be your own best supporter. It just takes a little practice and perseverance.

Keep doing it and, over time, you will shift your way of thinking to one that celebrates the things that make you special. What will you do to develop self-awareness and celebrate yourself?

Cheers,

Guy

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

Self-Awareness and Flexibility

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When you possess self-awareness you’ll likely demonstrate a flexibility to adapt to different situations and change course in life when unforeseen obstacles present themselves. If you’ve ever interacted with someone who lacks flexibility, you know how tragically sad it is when they are unable to change no matter what the consequences or rewards.

One of the major characteristics of truly happy people is the ability to bend instead of break by being open to making changes, learning new things, and continually growing. Taking a candid look at yourself and making meaningful and sometimes difficult adjustments requires significant courage; being stubborn requires none.

The reward of being flexible is that you’ll understand what it is to be able to adapt and thrive regardless of the situation. The thing I love about providing guidance to people who value self-awareness is that they are open to moving in new and exciting directions instead of staying stuck in one place.

How does flexibility affect your life?

Cheers,
Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy