Examples of Self-Awareness

Self-Awareness Helps You Stop Reacting to Everything - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Helps You Stop Reacting to Everything

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Many people who lack self-awareness spend their lives reacting to perceived slights and conflicts. They have learned somewhere that the way you deal with anything is to jump into reactive mode and get mad at people. You’ve probably met someone like this: They see someone across the room and immediately assume that that person is talking about them, so they jump into a rage, get sad or shut down.

Reacting based on assumptions or our inner dialogue is one of the major behaviors that keeps people from connecting with one another. If we spend our time assuming that someone is trying to hurt us we live a very specific kind of life that is based on ongoing hurt and conflict. People live this way for a variety of reasons but mainly because they learned it at a young age and don’t know any other way of doing things, that and a lack of self-awareness. The good news is that you get to choose what kind of life you live starting right now. Here are some tips so that you can move from reactive to calm:

1. Assume people aren’t talking about you.
2. Assume that people aren’t trying to hurt you.
3. Live a life that helps you bring joy to others.
4. Seek professional help to work through why you react to others.
5. Learn to identify the feelings that come up inside you and calm them down.
6. Try not to pre-judge people’s motivations.
7. Have an alternate plan for how you will react positively.
8. Listen to people until they are finished talking; then act.
9. Practice patience.
10. Focus first on building your self-awareness and growing as a person.

There’s nothing wrong with experiencing emotions unless they limit our ability to interact positively with others. Try working on the steps we’ve mentioned and you’ll be on your way to seeing the world in a different light. What will you do to develop self-awareness and stop reacting to everything?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Means You Can Make Adjustments - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Means You Can Make Adjustments

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People who are self-aware understand that not everything goes as planned all the time. A crucial part of self-awareness is the ability to make adjustments. Take the time to consider what’s working and what needs to change in your life so you can get the results you want. Don’t be afraid to make changes to your routine that will help you move forward. Here are some examples of the kind of adjustments you might make:

  • Let go of what doesn’t work.
  • Heal the hurts from your past.
  • Invite people into your life who build you up.
  • Do things that help you learn more about yourself.
  • See a therapist or coach.
  • Do something different than what you do now.
  • Pursue your dreams.
  • Take the time to figure out who you are deep inside.
  • Live with courage.
  • Welcome change into your life.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Helps You Deal with a Difficult Boss - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Helps You Deal with a Difficult Boss

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Perhaps you’re in a situation where you have a difficult boss and feel powerless to do anything about it. A difficult boss is someone who uses power and control to intimidate, threaten or keep his (or her) employees off-balance. Even though it takes some effort, there are concrete things you can do to increase self-awareness, take charge of your own reactions, care for yourself, and lessen the impact your boss has on you. The following are some practical ideas to help you deal with a difficult boss:

1. Realize the boss’ behavior is not about you and not personal. He was that way before he (or she) met you. The only thing you can control is deciding whether his behavior will affect you. You, in effect, decide how much power you are going to give this person.

2. Find common ground. Use your listening and open-ended question asking skills to connect with the boss. Re-focusing your energy to learning about the other person has a way of moving the conversation in a different direction than simply getting into arguments.

3. Take care of yourself. Seek the comfort of people who can support and help you. A co-worker, a friend, a consultant, or a counselor can help you take care of yourself and take some of the negativity out of your brain. Do things that bring you pleasure at work and when you’re off rather than things that feed your boss’ issues.

4. Decide what is right for you. We sometimes reach points where we need to decide if the grief of a difficult boss is worth staying in the position. Only you know the answer. Remember that life is short and difficult bosses come and go. Only you have the power to control your destiny and life, so make the most out of it.

5. Tell your boss in a kind and respectful way how you like to be treated. Don’t use the word you, become emotional, or attack. Simply use “I” messages such as, “I like for people to talk to me respectfully,” that aren’t accusatory or single out the difficult boss. Do a web search for effective communication skills or work with a consultant to help you develop effective conversation strategies.

There is no written rule that you have to endure punishment or that you can’t become more skilled in dealing with difficult people. You have a lot of control if you are willing to practice the ideas listed above. What will you do to develop self-awareness and deal positively with a difficult boss?

Cheers,

Guy

You Decide What Self-Awareness Is - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

You Decide What Self-Awareness Is

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Self-awareness is whatever you decide you want it to be based on what’s important to you and how you want to grow. It’s often the process of identifying areas in your life that you want to improve and taking action to make things happen. Self-awareness is most challenging when you’re uncomfortable in some way and genuinely motivated to change your thoughts or behaviors. You have to be ready to address the issue and willing to work on it until you generate positive results.

It’s advisable to approach self-awareness as an ongoing process rather than a quick fix. Deeper change requires long-term commitment and effort but it doesn’t have to be complicated. All you have to do is be willing to take a look at yourself, warts and all. The process of getting to know who you really are is what eventually leads to happiness and fulfillment. A great way to get the process started is to picture what your ideal life would be and pursue one small thing each day to achieve your dreams. If you have emotions, thoughts, or behaviors that get in the way, be willing to examine them and work on shifting them in a positive direction. Self-awareness isn’t something that occurs overnight, it’s a journey of self-discovery where you make all the decisions about where you want to go.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Healthy Interactions - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Healthy Interactions

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / , , , , ,

Self-awareness helps you have healthy interactions with others because, when you’re comfortable with yourself, you’re able to set your personal issues aside and get along with people no matter what the situation.

Have you ever been around someone who always has to win or be in a dominant position? Have you worked with a boss who works out her personal stuff on her employees? Perhaps you’ve endured friends or family members who make everyone miserable or have a tantrum if things don’t go their way. Maybe you know someone who emotionally blackmails others to get what he wants.

These types of behaviors happen all the time and are symptoms of lack of self-awareness. They occur because people don’t feel good about themselves and don’t understand why they think and behave the way they do. When people are deeply in touch with who they are and are happy and balanced they tend to behave more kindly toward others. They have healthy boundaries and empathy for others because they understand that other people also have needs.

Interacting positively with others is a valuable skill to learn because it helps you live a genuinely happy life. It’s the difference between the boss who tramples all over his co-workers and employees and barks orders all day versus the boss who listens calmly and communicates respectfully. One of them is happier and more balanced. You get to choose how you interact with others. You can either let your stuff get all over everyone around you or you can honor who they are and treat them wonderfully.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and promote healthy interactions?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware People Avoid Tough Love - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware People Avoid Tough Love

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“Tough love” is a horrible concept because it contaminates and corrupts the whole idea of love. A huge part of self-awareness is self-love and the ability to love others. When you are self-aware, you have the courage to work through your toughest issues and you eventually arrive at a place of peace, calm, hope, and love, not some awful scenario of violence and harshness.

The term “tough love” completely destroys the empathy, kindness, healing, softness, and caring that comes with real love. I wish that the people who use the term “tough love” would switch to some more accurate definition such as, “Trying to help someone by imposing punitive and harsh measures for what we say is there own good.”

The problem with “tough love” is that it perpetuates the same hurt and pain that likely created the issue in the first place. Let’s take a teenager acting out as an example: The teen is behaving a certain way (barring medical or psychological issues) because of their experiences in life. I have yet to meet a person who is acting negatively who comes from a wonderfully functional home. When we impose harsh measures on that person to try to correct their behavior, we’re not loving them, we’re hurting them more, which usually leads to more negative behaviors whether internal or external.

What if we decided to build self-awareness and actually love people instead of getting tough with them? I don’t know about you, but I’ve consistently noticed that people prefer to be treated kindly rather than punitively. So many teen (and adult) problems would go away if people would take time each day to simply listen to the person without interruptions or judgments, and commit to doing it long-term.

Punishment only adds hurt to hurt. I firmly believe we should get rid of this whole toughness thing and replace it with self-awareness, empathy, and real love. People often fight me when I suggest that we can care for people, hug them, listen to them, show them they really matter, and let go of the need to control and dominate them. That’s how far we’ve sunk, we can’t even imagine a world where we treat each other with love.

I propose we establish a new pattern of love and unconditional regard instead of inflicting more pain. The only way we’ll ever heal one person, or the world, is to believe and act from a place of true love. Yes, it will take considerable time and effort to make the change, but everything worthwhile requires commitment.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and get away from tough love?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Helps You Not Limit Your Leadership Success - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Helps You Not Limit Your Leadership Success

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When I consult for leaders it’s often apparent that they have varying visions of what constitutes leadership. There are those who lack self-awareness and believe leadership is giving orders or getting things done single-handedly, while others believe in teamwork and delegating. There’s no right or wrong approach to leadership, but different actions lead to different results. Here are four things I’ve noticed tend to limit leaders’ success:

  1. They can only do it their way. Leaders come in with one vision or one methodology that they follow regardless of outcome.  This approach limits their ability to find new and more effective ways of doing things as well as using their employees’ input.
  2. They don’t use our employees’ talents. People who come in with a single-minded vision often forget that they’re sitting on a potential gold mine of talent and ideas. When leaders only use their own ideas and perspectives they limit their chances to do even more with the help of their employees.
  3. They don’t praise. Many leaders simply give directives and then wait for things to be done to their satisfaction. The key here is that they focus only on getting things done rather than encouraging and praising employees along the way.
  4. They don’t plan efficiently. Leaders often go in with plenty of good intentions but spend all their time putting out fires. This reactive approach to leadership ensures they will only focus on the latest emergency limits their ability to organize our workplace.

These practices aren’t evil but they are representative of many of our workplaces. Leaders who address the issues we’ve talked about here not only find they increase their chances of success but they also enjoy their jobs more. What will you do to develop self-awareness and increase your leadership success?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy