Awareness of Emotions

Self-Awareness and Hope

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Self-awareness gives you hope because you’re able to live proactively and consciously rather than enduring whatever comes your way. If you don’t know yourself very well you might see the world as a vast, unknown, scary entity that has total control over you, which might lead you to say things like:

  • Life is hard and it will always be.
  • I have no opportunities.
  • I can only rely on myself.
  • Things will never change.

Fortunately, you have a lot of control over your thoughts, feelings and behaviors and you can view even the most difficult situations from whatever perspective you choose. For example, you could convert the statements above to ones that indicate you understand how much power you have:

  • Life may be hard at times but I can decide to move forward positively.
  • I’m going to look for the opportunities in this situation.
  • I know I can rely on myself but I can also connect with others.
  • I can make change happen.

Each of these sets of examples represents a different worldview: One is based on the assumption that the world is harsh and negative and the other suggests that you can affect your environment even if things are difficult. When you understand yourself really well, you shift from living passively to choosing how you experience the world. What will you do to increase your hopefulness through self-awareness?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Thinking of Others

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One of the most difficult tasks for human beings is being able to think of others. It takes a significant amount of self-awareness and lack of ego to consider the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of others.

Why even worry about others? We don’t live alone in this world, there are billions of other souls we impact both directly and indirectly through our thoughts and actions. Do something negative and it ripples not only inside you, but through the cosmos. Do something positive and the effects build a better world.

Paradoxically, thinking of others allows us to become more well-rounded, balanced human beings. When we treat others with kindness and compassion, we become more caring toward ourselves.

People who are actively building self-awareness often find that they are able to think beyond themselves to the plight of humanity. As they become more and more happy with who they are, they are better able to understand and feel what others are going through.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and think of others?

Cheers,

Guy

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

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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

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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

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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

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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 Self-Awareness Guy