Awareness of Emotions

Insecurity Is a Normal Part of Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Insecurity Is a Normal Part of Self-Awareness

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Insecurity is a normal part of developing self-awareness because it indicates that you understand that some area of your life that needs improvement. No one feels 100% confident all the time and everyone has doubts. The trick is to use those feelings as inspiration to keep learning and growing instead of letting them affect you and others in less that wonderful ways.

People who are always insecure lack the self-awareness to move past those feelings. The key to getting rid of insecurity is to determine what’s causing it and continue taking action even when it feels difficult. As you keep doing positive things, you’ll gradually feel more confident and less insecure.

Here are some signs you’re moving past insecurity:

  • You feel happier and more balanced.
  • You’re able to overcome obstacles.
  • You like yourself more.
  • You feel more confident but not in an arrogant or fake way.
  • You don’t feel the need to compete to prove how great you are.
  • You help other people succeed.
  • You behave with kindness and empathy.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware Leadership and Dealing with Emotions in the Workplace - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware Leadership and Dealing with Emotions in the Workplace

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Self-aware leaders know how to deal with emotions in the workplace because they are in touch with their and others’ ways of experiencing the world. They’re comfortable with themselves and able to connect with others on a deeper level.

Emotions in the workplace can be a challenging subject because, as leaders, we haven’t been taught what to do with them. The increase in our understanding of emotional intelligence now helps us deal more effectively with emotions in the workplace. We can do this when we understand what emotions mean and how we can create a workplace that encourages people to use them in a positive way.

Where does our discomfort with emotions come from? Many leaders I consult for tell me their stories about not being allowed to express emotions in their families or how there were only certain feelings that were allowed. In some families people aren’t allowed to show fear, in others they can’t be joyful, still others don’t permit sadness. Our parents and their parents before them going back generations didn’t realize that emotions aren’t something to suppress and avoid. Emotions are a natural part of being human. We were designed to feel joy, sadness, anger, fear, affection, loss, numbness and many variations on those themes.

Why did this happen? People lacked the self-awareness to realize that it’s OK to experience emotions. They kept hanging on to assumptions like sadness is weak or joy should be tempered. Oftentimes, it was due to having to survive and not appear weak.  There just weren’t that many alternatives available to our ancestors.

We now have studied the human mind enough to know that experiencing our emotions thoroughly and freely is actually beneficial to us and is a natural part of being a healthy person. It’s when we try to deny that emotions exist that we start making ourselves and each other miserable and creating problems in our lives and workplaces.

The paradox is that it’s  normal to be sad, happy, angry, scared or any feeling you have. If you think about it, they’re your feelings and you’re allowed to experience them. They’re part of being a healthy, self-aware individual.

When you get in touch with your emotions you become stronger and you get to experience life on a deeper level and connect with your colleagues and employees in a different way. Emotions are here to help you. They signal when you are doing great and when you’re not. They aren’t scary or undesirable, they’re just there. Think of all the leaders and employees in the world who work in pain because they deny their emotions. Now think how different their lives and workplace might be if they would just let themselves experience them.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and deal with emotions in the workplace positively?

Cheers,

Guy

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

Define Self-Awareness

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My clients often ask me to define self-awareness clearly so they can begin working on it. Here are some of the key elements of self-awareness:

  • Understanding of how your thoughts affect you and others.
  • Realizing how your emotions affect you and the people around you.
  • Recognizing how your behaviors affect you and other people.
  • An ability to evaluate what you do well and what needs some strengthening.
  • Living consciously instead of unconsciously.
  • Knowing who you really are deep inside.
  • Following your true path in life.

There’s no mystery to self-awareness, it just means that you understand where your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors come from and that you’re able to move them all in a positive direction. What would you add to this list?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Managing Emotions - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Managing Emotions

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Need help managing emotions? You’re not alone. It can be difficult to deal with your own emotions, or other people’s, and it can deeply affect your and their quality of life. Thankfully, increasing self-awareness helps you manage emotions because, when you understand yourself and others better, you’re able to more effectively deal with what you and they are feeling.

Managing emotions begins with building up your self-awareness in order to increase your emotional intelligence. Here are some tips to help you get started:

  • There are four basic emotions: Happiness, Anger, Sadness, and Fear. Learn how to identify each of these when they are happening inside you. Ask yourself, “What is this feeling?” and pick one of the four. Keep practicing until you get good at recognizing what you’re feeling.
  • Once you know what emotion you’re experiencing, you can begin managing or dealing with it. To do this, take five deep breaths and give yourself five minutes to just feel the emotion. It may be difficult to do this at first but, over time, you’ll become more comfortable with any emotion that arises, even the unpleasant ones that you’ve been trying to avoid.
  • Realize that emotions are a normal part of life and you can use them to improve yourself. There are no bad emotions, each one is simply telling you what’s going on inside. When you stop seeing emotions as threats, you can act on them in a calm and balanced way. For example: If you’re scared about a new change in your life, take five deep breaths and five minutes to feel the emotion. Once you’ve done that calmly, take some time to plan a positive path forward. Think of one step you can take to improve your situation and, when you’re done with that one, try another.
  • Keep practicing. Nobody is great at managing their emotions the first time they try. It takes a lot of conscious effort to get to the point where you are able to feel your emotions and use them in a positive way. Don’t give up, if you keep working on experiencing your emotions, you’ll eventually become an expert at it.

Managing emotions is simply the act of recognizing what’s going on inside you, making sure not to react negatively, and then finding positive steps you can take to move your life forward. Anyone can do it, but it requires work and commitment.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and manage your emotions?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and the Definition of Emotional Intelligence - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and the Definition of Emotional Intelligence

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Self-awareness leads to emotional intelligence because people who understand themselves well are able to cope positively with whatever they’re feeling at a particular moment.

Here is an emotional intelligence definition I’ve developed over years of working with people: The ability to accurately identify and feel the emotions inside you and deal with or manage them in such a way that you live a happy, balanced life.

Emotional intelligence also refers to the ability to deal with other people’s emotions in a positive, supportive way. It means that you can handle what other people are feeling without falling apart or letting it affect you negatively.

When you are self-aware and emotionally healthy, you are able to deal with any emotion that arises inside you. You are able to name it (happiness, fear, anger, or sadness) and use it to become a more fully-functioning human being. You don’t run away from your emotions or live in fear that you can’t handle them.

The reason emotional intelligence is important is because it can make the difference between living a wonderful life and an endlessly difficult one. If you understand and are comfortable with what you feel deep inside, you’ll be able to live your life to its fullest.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and emotional intelligence?

Cheers,

Guy

The Secret to Developing Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

The Secret to Developing Self-Awareness

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Developing self-awareness means moving from living unconsciously to thinking, feeling and behaving intentionally. Countless people live their lives stuck in their comfort zones, repeating behaviors that don’t make them happy and not realizing they have other options. Here are five ideas to help you develop your self-awareness and improve the quality of your life:

  1. Be willing to look at yourself. You can’t live deliberately if you don’t take a look at and understand who you are as a person. Make it a habit to continuously assess what you do well and what areas need some strengthening.
  1. Examine your thoughts. Which of your thoughts help you succeed or make you happy? Which ones hold you back or keep you from living authentically? Evaluate how your thinking affects your life, keep what works and get rid of what doesn’t.
  1. Examine your emotions. Learn how to acknowledge and feel all of your emotions, not just the ones you’re comfortable with. Heal and bring closure to challenging issues or past hurts in your life. The more you learn how to feel and appropriately manage your emotions, the healthier and more balanced you’ll be.
  1. Examine your behaviors. There are things you currently do that yield excellent results and some that keep you from working on your dreams. Keep the behaviors that help you live meaningfully and let go of the ones that lead you off course.
  1. Be willing to make changes. It’s very difficult to grow in any way if you don’t believe change is possible or vital to your personal development. There is always something you can fine tune so you can become stronger and better able to live a fulfilling life.

Self-awareness matters because, when you understand yourself deeply, you’re able to live consciously instead of haphazardly. It’s the difference between stumbling through life repeating the same patterns and creating your own destiny. What will you do to keep developing your self-awareness?

Cheers,

Guy

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

Self-Aware Leaders Possess Emotional Intelligence

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Emotional intelligence and self-aware leadership are intimately linked because leaders who are able to deal with and manage their (and other people’s) emotions get more work done with less effort and build healthier workplaces.

Many leaders and employees get nervous when the topic of emotions in the workplace comes up. Emotions are important in the workplace because they affect how we all function and relate to one another. Emotions matter because we aren’t robots, we’re human beings who have feelings whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.

The mistake many leaders who lack self-awareness make is trying to ignore, redirect, or suppress their employees’ natural feelings. This creates workplaces where people aren’t sure how to express their emotions and where things can quickly go out of control.

The officially sanctioned workplace feelings are: anger, numbness and fake happiness. Beyond that, people quickly become uncomfortable. Here are some ideas to help leaders and employees develop their self-awareness and emotional intelligence; welcome all the emotions they experience; and deal with them openly and comfortably:

  • When someone has an emotion let it happen and be there for them without reacting negatively or defensively.
  • Listen to what people have to say when they’re feeling an emotion.
  • Avoid ignoring or pretending the emotion isn’t happening.
  • Stay away from saying things like, “Get over it,” “Everything’s OK,” or “Calm yourself down.” Phrases like these tell the person that their emotions don’t matter.
  • Move past the, “This isn’t appropriate in the workplace,” mentality to, “What can we learn from this situation and how can we validate people.”
  • Deal with emotions when they are manageable to avoid having to try to contain them when they’re out of control.
  • Institute a true open-door policy where people can talk with you about what they’re feeling without any fear of retaliation or punishment.
  • Work on your own ability to deal with any emotion that comes your way, including the ones you feel.
  • Set a positive example of how to express emotions appropriately.

The goal at work (and in life) is to view emotions as an indication that something is going on rather than a threat that has to be avoided at all costs. When you and your employees understand that emotions are a normal part of work life, you’ll all build a happier, more balanced workplace where people feel safe to express themselves honestly and openly.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and be an emotionally intelligent leader?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy