A Self-Awareness Archives – Page 15 of 52

Self-Aware Guys Are Nice and Finish First

If you’ve ever heard the tired old saying that nice guys finish last, and believed it, then you might be surprised to find out that it’s profoundly wrong. For some unhealthy reason, our culture has decided that being self-aware and nice is an awful thing and that aggressive jerks are much happier. We’ve also convinced ourselves that whoever amasses the most stuff is naturally the winner. Perspectives like these ignore the things that really bring joy to people’s lives:

Possessing self-awareness.
Working through one’s unresolved issues.
Being comfortable with one’s emotions.
Treating people with kindness and empathy.
Doing things that make the world a better place for everyone.
Caring for the vulnerable.
Letting go of the need to win.
Not having to be on top of someone else to feel good about oneself.
Building positive relationships.
Helping everyone succeed.

No amount of money, power, or material possessions can make someone meaningfully happy. As you’ve probably read time after time, many extremely wealthy and powerful people are as miserable as can be, they just have a lot of stuff. They sit surrounded by their extravagant things in their expensive houses and have to work that much harder to convince themselves that it all means anything important.

Finishing first in life means that you’ve achieved the pinnacle of self-awareness where you are so healthy and comfortable with yourself that you spread peace and joy within yourself and throughout the world. The only things that really matter in life are how you feel deep inside about yourself, how well you treat others, and what nice things you do to improve everyone’s well-being; everything else is just window dressing. Nice guys finish first because they’ve done the hard work necessary to become so self-aware that they’re genuinely happy with themselves and are able to spread that joy. If you want to find out who really finishes last, look for the miserable person trying to make another million or billion so he can feel safe for another ten minutes.

What will you do to develop self-awareness, be nice, and live a great life?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness, Congruence, and Happiness

June 15, 2023 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self and Self-Awareness, Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / A Self-Awareness, Define Self-Awareness, Personal Awareness

Congruence is a big part of self-awareness and simply means that your thoughts and actions match each other. A lot of people live lives where they think one thing but behave in ways that aren’t consistent with those thoughts. This creates tension and inner conflict.

One of the best ways to achieve congruence is to act in ways that are consistent with what you think. For example: If you say you’re going to do something, do it; if you believe something, make sure your actions match. You’ll feel happier and more balanced once you bring your thoughts and actions together.

So many people live terribly unhappy lives because they pretend to be someone they’re not or believe things that don’t stand up to any kind of reasonable scrutiny. Save yourself a lot of pain and misery by working on healing the hurts from your past and educating yourself so you can live a life of courage and joy.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and congruence so you can be happier?

Cheers,

Guy

What Is Self-Awareness and Are You Self-Aware?

June 14, 2023 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self and Self-Awareness, Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / A Self-Awareness, Examples of Self-Awareness, Personal Awareness, Self-Aware, What Is Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is a significant part of personal development and it refers to being aware of how your thoughts and behaviors affect you and others. Many people are aware enough to identify things that need attention in their lives but they forget to take action to make it happen. There’s a big difference between knowing you do something and understanding it well enough to move it in a positive direction. Here are some signs you’re self-aware:

You’re able to deal with and direct your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.
You build positive relationships, including the one you have with yourself.
You genuinely like yourself and others do as well.
You live life based on what you really love doing.
You know yourself well.
You treat yourself and others with kindness and empathy.
You understand how the things you feel, think, and do affect you and others.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Emotional Depth

June 14, 2023 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / A Self-Awareness, Awareness of Emotions, Examples of Self-Awareness, Personal Awareness, Self-Knowledge, Work Environment and Self-Awareness / 2 Comments

When you enjoy a high level of self-awareness you’re also likely in touch with your emotions, which helps you relate well to others and live a happier life. Here are some of the characteristics of emotional depth:

You recognize and understand other people’s feelings.
You understand how your emotions affect others.
You don’t work out your personal hurts on other people.
You don’t blindly run over people because you’re trying to ignore or placate some deeper emotional issue inside you.
You don’t pretend emotions don’t exist or put down people who are “too emotional.”
People like you.
You’re successful because you’re a nice person.
You live a life of empathy.

Many people think that being emotional is something to be avoided at all costs when it’s really just a natural part of being a human being. It’s how you deal with your emotions that impacts how balanced and at peace you are. What will you do to increase your emotional depth?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Living Consciously

June 13, 2023 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / A Self-Awareness, Awareness Meaning, Personal Awareness, Self-Knowledge

Most people live unconsciously, without much self-awareness, bouncing around from one event to another and reacting based on whatever they feel at that particular moment. They automatically repeat the patterns and roles they learned in their families or wherever they grew up and never move past them. That’s why you see so many adults who behave like children or are perpetually stuck in high school.

Living consciously is an entirely different approach to life. It means building up you self-awareness by getting to know yourself so well that you can deliberately feel, think, and behave positively. It means that you don’t react to things based on your hurts, you actively choose an affirmative path. You’re able to think not only about yourself, but about others and the greater good. You move past reacting to people and events and become a creator and promoter of beautiful things.

There’s no secret to living consciously, it just takes deliberate effort. Be mindful of the things you do each day and take small actions to move in the direction of your dreams. Heal the hurts from your past and move forward courageously to live the life you really want to. What will you do to develop self-awareness and live consciously?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness, Empathy, and Effective Communication

June 12, 2023 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness in Leadership / A Self-Awareness, Awareness of Emotions, Examples of Self-Awareness, Leadership Self-Awareness, Personal Awareness

Leaders who lack self-awareness often become so consumed with their own day-to-day experiences and perceptions of their environment that they forget that other people exist and have needs too. This behavior leads to a communication style based on a lack of meaningful connection and understanding between leadership and employees.

A frequently overlooked element of effective communication is empathy; the ability to understand what other people are going through from their perspective. When you master this skill, you communicate on a much deeper level because you’re being self-aware and connecting below the surface. It’s the difference between having civil but superficial conversations and genuinely understanding people.

My consulting clients often ask me why people behave the way they do and what they can do about it. That’s where self-awareness, empathy, and effective communication come in. When you communicate on a deeper level you move from being surprised by what people do to understanding their behavior. That’s because you’ve made a shift from assuming you know what they’re thinking and feeling to finding out what they’re really going through. How can you develop this skill? Try the following ideas:

1. Stop talking and listen actively instead.

2. Put yourself in the other person’s situation and imagine you’re experiencing the same thing from their vantage point.

3. When the other person is done talking, ask open-ended questions to encourage him or her to tell you more.

4. Remind yourself that what they’re saying isn’t about you, it’s about how they experience the world.

5. Strive to accept anything the person says as their perception rather than something that threatens you or must be changed.

When you use empathy as part of effective communication you move beyond being in the room with someone and saying words. You connect with them in a more meaningful way. Think in terms of how you feel when someone really values and appreciates what you’re thinking and feeling.

Empathy is about demonstrating that you value other people’s perspectives. They may not think exactly as you do but their thoughts mean as much to them as yours mean to you. Once you can empathize with someone else’s experience, you’re communicating in a way that shows them you respect where they’re coming from.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and empathy and practice effective communication?

Cheers,

Guy

Lack of Self-Awareness and Ignoring Facts

June 12, 2023 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / A Self-Awareness, Awareness of Emotions, Lacking Self-Awareness, Personal Awareness

Building your self-awareness leads to living a more cohesive, integrated, happy life. I’ve noticed over the years that some people make life more complicated than it needs to be because they ignore facts. It takes a huge amount of time and energy to pretend that something false is true, and all the while you’re trying to support something inaccurate, you’re wasting your life.

The much easier and more satisfying path in life is to stick to demonstrable facts, which will keep you from bending yourself into a pretzel shape to explain things. A big reason I enjoy providing life guidance for people who value self-awareness is that they tend to be open to all kinds of facts and ideas and are comfortable with exploring new avenues of knowledge and understanding.

Life becomes infinitely more complex when you lack self-awareness and try to pretend that facts don’t matter. If you don’t believe in verifiable data then you have to create a whole alternative reality that requires constant rationalization and explanation. The easier route is to just make sure that your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors align with actual evidence so you can live wide awake.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and base your life on verifiable facts?

Cheers,

Guy