Examples of Self-Awareness

Signs of Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Signs of Self-Awareness

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I’m often asked whether one can tell when someone has self-awareness. When you’re working on understanding yourself well you might be doing some of the following things:

  • Becoming the most effective you possible.
  • Functioning well in life.
  • Achieving what you want.
  • Finding happiness and balance.
  • Letting go of negative behaviors.
  • Being comfortable with who you are.
  • Resolving personal issues.
  • Enjoying your career.
  • Loving yourself and others.
  • Living consciously.
  • Being proactive rather than reactive.

Many people let life happen to them because they feel they can’t change or develop in any way. The good news is that anyone can move in any direction as long as he or she is willing to put in the effort to make things happen. You decide what happens in your life and whether you believe in using self-awareness as a tool to help you grow and succeed.

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-Awareness and Communication in Your Family - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Communication in Your Family

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Self-awareness can improve communication in your family because, when people understand their own and others’ emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, they are able to interact positively.

Families are interesting entities in that they can be a source both of great strength but also amazing frustration. The people I’ve worked with have taught me many things about families and I’d like to share a few so that you may find self-awareness, happiness, and balance in your family:

1. It’s OK to ask for what you need from your family.
2. It’s OK to speak up in your family.
3. It’s OK to challenge things you don’t agree with in your family.
4. It’s advisable to talk with family members with the same care and respect you would show to anyone else.
5. We should talk about our family’s challenges and do away with secrets.
6. It’s OK for families to talk about difficult things and try to find ways to function more effectively.
7. Families can change any time they want.
8. Families often benefit from having an uninvolved, outside person give them a fresh perspective on what’s going on and how to fix it.
9. We owe it to ourselves and our families to be as healthy as possible.
10. Why live in misery when we can work toward joy and balance?

Families often get stuck doing things a certain way because they don’t know about any other way to do things. It’s been my experience that there is always hope for happiness and reconciliation. All it takes is some courage and some work.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and improve the communication in your family?

Cheers,

Guy

12 Ways to Increase Your Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

12 Ways to Increase Your Self-Awareness

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Here are some practical ways to increase your self-awareness starting today:

  • Make a list of the things you do well.
  • Think about how you might use your natural talents to live authentically.
  • Make a list of the things you do that might benefit from some improvement.
  • Think about what you can do right now to become wiser and healthier.
  • Decide on one thing you want to improve about yourself and do one small task each day to work on making it happen.
  • Keep an open mind about learning new things and changing.
  • Treat yourself and others well.
  • Be completely honest with yourself about the things you do that lead in a positive direction and the ones that hold you back.
  • Learn how to be comfortable with all your feelings.
  • Work on healing your hurts.
  • Decide that you’re going to live consciously.
  • Listen to your inner voice.

You don’t have to do all these things at once, try doing one at a time until it feels natural and move on to the next. The idea is to get to know yourself really well and live a life that reflects who you are deep inside. What will you do to increase your self-awareness?

Cheers,
Guy

Self-Awareness and the Horrible Neighbor - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and the Horrible Neighbor

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If you’ve ever had a horrible neighbor you’re familiar with someone who lacks self-awareness. People who behave negatively don’t know what else to do so they work out the hurts from their past and present on everyone they encounter. Here are some of the characteristics of horrible neighbors:

  • Pursue self-gratification before thinking of others.
  • Don’t consider other people’s needs.
  • Lack empathy.
  • Poor boundaries.
  • Arbitrary rule setting, what’s OK for them to do is not tolerated from others.
  • Act like bullies.
  • Lack basic interpersonal skills like communication or problem solving.
  • Refuse to change behavior, don’t believe in change.
  • Think the world is a tough, hard place and that everyone is out to get them.
  • History of poor relationships.

The reason I’m writing about this topic is that it’s a powerful test of your ability to take care of yourself rather than getting sucked into another person’s negativity. For example, you have the ability to steer clear of your neighbor’s negative behavior by:

  • Realizing it’s not about you.
  • Learning how to manage your emotions.
  • Reminding yourself how great you are.
  • Healing your own hurts.
  • Deciding that you’re not going to react negatively.
  • Living your life positively.
  • Behaving with kindness and compassion.
  • Continuing to pursue your dreams.
  • Making plans to leave this mess behind.
  • Focusing on your own personal growth.

You have a lot of power to behave any way you want when you encounter people who try to make things difficult. What will you do to move past the horrible neighbor?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware People Listen More Than Talk - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware People Listen More Than Talk

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A lot of people who lack self-awareness have been conditioned to believe that they need to talk a lot. We’ve all met a person who seems to be in love with the sound of their voice and rarely lets people into the conversation. What we sometimes forget is that communication is over 90% non-verbal which means that talking is just a small part of what we’re supposed to be doing.

Yet millions of people wake up every day ready to tell the world something rather than learning something from the world. We spend our time trying to tell our story rather than gaining more insight into others’ experiences. Think about your own style: Do you talk more or do you listen more? What would happen if you shifted your style just slightly. Self-aware people understand that getting their point across is often as much about understanding someone else’s point of view as it is putting one’s own opinion into the mix.

Here are some tips to help you add to your communication skills:

  1. Try to listen more than you talk.
  2. Ask open-ended questions.
  3. Try not to think of the next thing you’re going to say.
  4. Try not to think of the perfect rebuttal.
  5. Stay away from questions that lead the conversation in a certain direction.
  6. Let people say what they want and give them the space to do so.
  7. Listen.
  8. Did I mention listening?

The key skill we ignore in life is listening. It’s incredible what we learn when we take the time to really listen to someone. Suddenly we understand people better and can make decisions based on rich information. We avoid misunderstandings and we connect with people on a deeper level.

Perhaps the most powerful proof that listening helps improve our lives is that it allows us to breathe. We don’t have to fill up space, we don’t have to think of witty things to say and we get to learn all kinds of interesting things about others and relax more.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and listen more than talk?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Leadership Examples - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Leadership Examples

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People frequently ask me to give them examples of self-aware leadership. A good way to demonstrate the difference between leaders who possess self-awareness and those who don’t is to describe how they behave during a training session. Imagine someone who behaves this way:

  • Doesn’t listen.
  • Interrupts.
  • Gets angry.
  • Confrontational.
  • Talks too long.
  • Tells others what to do.
  • Has an opinion on everything.
  • Seeks attention.
  • Uncooperative.

When someone practices these behaviors in a training setting you can pretty much guarantee what they’re like in the workplace. They likely are people who don’t listen, interrupt others, get angry, confront people, talk too long, tell others what to do etc. Very often these individuals don’t realize how they’re behaving because they’re so used to doing things a certain way.

This is why I emphasize self-awareness in my training programs. It’s the ability to take a look at your own behaviors so that you can keep what works well and modify what doesn’t. It’s the capacity to examine who you are and behave in different ways. It means that you understand how your behaviors affect both you and other people. The goal of self-awareness is to become a more effective person and leader. Effective leaders practice the following behaviors the majority of the time:

  • Listen.
  • Don’t Interrupt.
  • Moderate emotions.
  • Communicate instead of confront.
  • Listen more than they talk.
  • Encourage people to work independently.
  • Value other people’s opinions.
  • Give people attention.
  • Cooperate and collaborate with others.

Leadership is often about consciously setting an example of positive behaviors in the workplace. A leader who behaves based on the first list will get predictable results in the form of a dysfunctional workplace while one who practices the behaviors on the second list will move in a more productive direction. There’s no mystery to this process, positive behaviors lead to positive results. What do your behaviors say about you?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy