Personal Awareness

7 Examples of the Importance of Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

7 Examples of the Importance of Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is an important tool to help you succeed at a higher level. When you understand yourself well, you live your life consciously rather than just letting it happen to you. Here are seven examples of the importance of self-awareness:

  • You can connect more easily with other people.
  • You treat people with kindness and compassion and have them do the same for you.
  • You follow your true path in life.
  • You build a career you love based on your natural talents and abilities.
  • You live authentically and openly.
  • You resolve your inner issues so they don’t get in the way of your progress.
  • You can be yourself at all times instead of pretending to be someone else.

Imagine if you did all these things, think of the positive impact it would have on your life. When you build self-awareness, you give yourself the opportunity to enjoy who you really are and experience things at an entirely different level. What would you add to this list?

Cheers,

Guy

 

Self-Awareness and the Key to Achievement - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and the Key to Achievement

When I help people figure out what they want out of life a common theme arises time after time: that every movement in our lives starts with us. This seems like a basic concept but it can have profound implications. We can choose to build self-awareness and move in a different direction at any time, but we have to start. Here are some steps you may try to get going:

1. Think of something you want to achieve in your life.
2. Think of one thing you can do today to achieve your goal.
3. Take action and do it.
4. Praise yourself for actions you complete.
5. Ask yourself, “What did I learn about myself?”
6. Repeat.

People just like you create amazing change in their lives by being self-aware and taking action. It’s incredible how much control we have over our lives if we consciously do things to change it. All it takes is deciding that we are going to do something and then following through.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and achieve what you want in life?

Cheers,

Guy

Finding Meaning in Life with Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Finding Meaning in Life with Self-Awareness

Countless earnest people put a lot of time and effort into finding meaning in life but don’t actually experience it because they look to outside sources rather than looking inside themselves. A major element of self-awareness is developing the ability to understand yourself so well that the meaning of life becomes clear to you because you’re living from the core of your being.

When you’re looking for meaning, it’s important to build self-awareness and examine the inner workings of your mind and heart, where the answers reside. Take the time to find out who you genuinely are and what you really want to do in life and you’ll become more fulfilled from the inside out. For example: I found great significance when I finally decided to be a poet because I knew it reflected the authentic me. Now I live each day full of joy and purpose.

You can spend a lifetime looking outside yourself for happiness but it won’t be as satisfying as simply following your true path. As you increase your self-awareness, you’ll find that the answers you’ve been looking for will reveal themselves. What will you do to develop self-awareness and find meaning in life?

Cheers,

Guy

10 Signs You Lack Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

10 Signs You Lack Self-Awareness

Here are ten signs you lack self-awareness:

  • You always feel off-balance.
  • You can’t seem to control your emotions: You’re angry, or sad, or scared a lot of the time.
  • You do things to not feel your emotions.
  • You have unresolved issues in your life that affect you and others adversely.
  • You feel like you’re living life as someone else.
  • You don’t know who you really are deep inside.
  • There is a lot of conflict in your life, within yourself and with others.
  • You feel like you’re not following your true path in life.
  • You’re unhappy with how your life is going.
  • You listen to others instead of listening to your inner voice.

If you recognize yourself in any of these items then you have a great opportunity to take an honest look at yourself and start working on being the best version of you possible. Self-awareness isn’t something that happens automatically, you have to identify the areas in your life that require some attention and work on them so you become a healthier more well-rounded person.

Cheers,

Guy

Stubborn Leaders Lack Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Stubborn Leaders Lack Self-Awareness

Leaders who lack self-awareness sometimes think that being stubborn is the same as being right about something. They hang on to their position no matter what happens because they just don’t see any other option. There’s nothing terribly wrong with this behavior but it does affect the leader and team involved; usually in less than positive ways. Here’s a couple of things to think about if you know someone who is amazingly stubborn:

Being Stubborn is a Defense Mechanism

People who are stubborn hang on to their beliefs at all costs because they feel they are defending something very important. Even if the issue doesn’t seem important to others, it is to them.  People in this situation frequently believe that if they give up their position, something terrible will happen.

Being Stubborn is a Dead End Street

Once someone decides to be stubborn they have painted themselves into a corner because they severely limit any options to fix anything. They hang onto their point of view no matter what and literally can’t explore other options because they don’t allow for any.

What is Right?

Stubborn people frequently think they are right but, if you think about it, what’s right and what’s wrong? We can usually measure what’s right by whether the results of a given behavior leads to positive outcomes. Yet most stubborn behavior just leads to entrenchment. I’m not certain most people would say that being stuck is the same as being right or happy.

So What Can We Do?

Stubbornness can be a daunting challenge. Some people are so stubborn that they will live a miserable life just to prove their point. The only real way to alleviate stubbornness to practice self-awareness and get help to interrupt the behavior patterns and beliefs that led to the current situation. There’s not much other people can do except make themselves available to talk with the person and set limits and boundaries.

Being stubborn rarely leads to positive results and it isn’t very effective at creating inspiring workplaces. The good news is that the cycle can be interrupted by taking a good look at oneself and slightly shifting the behaviors that lead to being stubborn. The result?  Greater happiness and more successful leaders.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and avoid being a stubborn leader?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and the Secret to Success in Life - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and the Secret to Success in Life

The secret to success is that there’s no big mystery to it, all you have to do is increase your self-awareness and do three basic things: follow your dreams, have a plan, and take action. These are the hidden secrets that influence the people who are self-aware and lead happy and fulfilled lives. As you actively work on these vital steps you will find yourself unraveling the mysteries of your own success.

1. The first secret is following your dreams. At the very core of every person who reaches unlimited success is a powerful connection with his or her dreams. We can spend a lot of time making huge sums of money or acquiring influence and status but it can leave us empty at the end of the day. The one thing that makes people feel consistently successful is the ability to do what they want in life, something that speaks to them on a very deep level. When you begin pursuing your most personal desires you start the process of validating yourself. This relationship is far more important than the accumulation of wealth and status. It relates to your natural talents and the amazing abilities you were born with. When you are functioning from your innermost dreams you are connecting with something bigger than any obstacle you could ever encounter. You suddenly open up the doors of opportunity because you are moving in the direction you were put on this earth to follow. Suddenly people will recognize you for your gifts and talents rather than based on the stuff you merely do to get by.

2. The second secret is taking action. Every single endeavor in human history required that someone take some kind of action. Nothing ever happens on purpose unless someone actually does something. While this may seem like a simple concept, millions upon millions of people wake up every morning and do nothing to advance their goals and dreams in any sort of organized manner. They get up and work hard and dream a lot about how things might be but they never take that first deliberate step toward their dreams. It may sound basic, but all it takes to move in any direction you want is your commitment to actually do something instead of just thinking about it. You unlock an amazing amount of power when you move from simply thinking or hoping something will happen to taking action in some way. Taking action means doing something that proves you are moving toward your objectives.

3. The third secret is having a plan. We all need a way to keep our momentum going when we are pursuing our dreams. There is a certain power to writing things down and committing to follow them that is absent when the ideas are simply bouncing around in our head. A coherent plan helps us keep moving and increases the likelihood that we will reach our goals. Make sure you create a document that is brief, clear and to the point. Keep things simple and remember to only include a manageable amount of tasks. Also keep in mind that you don’t have to do everything at once, one specific task at a time is enough. Design your plan so that you fully complete one part of it before moving on to the next. Take time to celebrate when you finish one part and then proceed confidently to the next. When you have a coach for what you are going to do the world suddenly becomes less scary because you have an actual series of steps you can follow.

The powerful secret of success is that you can be successful if you have the self-awareness to follow your dreams, formulate a plan, and take action. When you follow these basic steps you open up the door to opportunities you never knew existed and weren’t available to you until you decided to start the process. Achieving your dreams requires conscious thought, deliberate action and consistent practice. The secret is that you get to decide when you start courageously moving toward success.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and be successful in a way that is meaningful to you?

Cheers,

Guy

How to Build Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

How to Build Self-Awareness

Here are some ideas on how to build self-awareness:

  • Decide to get to know yourself at a deeper level.
  • Let go of thoughts and behaviors in your past that haven’t led to positive results.
  • Think of an area of your life you’d like to improve.
  • Brainstorm ideas of how to work on that area.
  • Pick one of your brainstorm items and start working on it.
  • Monitor your progress as you go along.
  • Repeat the process.

A lot of people think that self-awareness is something you acquire by chance or as you age, but it really requires recognizing and interrupting negative patterns in your life and consciously moving in a different direction. What will you do to build self-awareness?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy