Personal Awareness

Self-Awareness and Why Your Voice Matters - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Why Your Voice Matters

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Your voice matters because no one else in the world thinks exactly the same way as you do. An important part of self-awareness is the ability to understand who you are deep inside and share the real you with the world in a positive way. Your point of view is valuable and your insights can enrich other people’s lives.

A lot of people are scared to use their real voices because they think they’ll be judged or not fit in with their social groups. In my experience, showing the world who you really are deep inside is part of being a fully developed, sensitive, compassionate, courageous human being. It means you’ve reached a point where you’re so comfortable with yourself that you’re able to be vulnerable and share your authentic thoughts and feelings.

You have the potential to use your voice to positively impact the world around you rather than falling into the trap of using it to perpetuate negativity and misery. The more self-awareness you possess, the more likely you’ll be to use your voice to help others, and the happier you’ll be.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and make your voice matter?

Cheers,

Guy

The Importance of Self-Awareness in Social Work - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

The Importance of Self-Awareness in Social Work

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As someone with a family services, program management, and personal/professional development background, as well as an MSW, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a wide range of people, both self-aware and otherwise. A question that often crossed my mind as I worked with social workers is whether they understood the importance of self-awareness in social work. It’s vitally important for social workers to possess a high degree of self-awareness because it directly impacts their clients. I’ll share some real-world examples of social worker behaviors that are both self-aware and unaware. Here are some things social workers who lack self-awareness do:

  • They become enmeshed with clients to the point that they hamper the client’s progress.
  • They are unable to determine where they end and the client begins due to a lack of healthy boundaries.
  • They aren’t aware of how their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors affect them or their clients.
  • They function based on the need to dominate or control instead of facilitating.
  • Their self-esteem is derived from their clients liking or looking up to them.
  • They enable their clients’ less-than-positive behaviors.
  • They prolong the worker/client relationship way past its expiration date.
  • They make clients dependent on them.
  • They are in constant conflict with co-workers, subordinates, and colleagues.
  • They make things more difficult than they have to be.
  • They refuse to work with other professionals due to their own personal issues.
  • They work out their personal issues on their clients.
  • They lack empathy.
  • They like power a little too much.
  • They make things difficult for others, often acting as a gatekeeper.
  • They yearn for public recognition.
  • They set up fiefdoms and zealously guard their power.
  • They haven’t healed their own hurts before trying to heal others.
  • They’re personally unhappy.

Although these behaviors are common in many fields, they are especially counterproductive in client/worker relationships because the client’s wellness and success in life is at stake. On the other hand, social workers who possess self-awareness do things like:

  • Constantly work on healing their own hurts so they can be as healthy as possible for their clients.
  • Establish and adhere to healthy boundaries.
  • Do things that encourage collaboration with other professionals to help the client.
  • Possess empathy.
  • Are deeply aware of and are able to manage their own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors and understand how they affect their clients.
  • Are not interested in power, control, or having to appear special in some way.
  • They make things easy for people, going the extra mile to be helpful in a professional way.
  • They understand clients’ issues are not theirs.
  • They have healthy, professional relationships with clients.
  • They facilitate the process of clients’ finding their own answers.
  • They know how to help someone and get out of the way.
  • They’re balanced, happy, healthy people.
  • They enjoy healthy personal and professional relationships.
  • They understand, value, and possess self-awareness.

One of the main reasons I write this blog is that I’ve seen my fair share of people damaging other people and I told myself many years ago that I would do what I could to help people become more aware of what they were feeling, thinking, and doing so they could live positively and build a better world for everyone. Ultimately, the importance of self-awareness in social work is that it greatly increases the well-being and chances of success for the social worker, the client, and the world.

Cheers,

Guy

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

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 - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

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

Self-Awareness and Believing In Yourself - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Believing In Yourself

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One of the most important elements of self-awareness is believing in yourself. That means that you take action because you deeply value who you are and want to improve the quality of your life. It requires that you appreciate your innate ideas, talents and gifts and have the confidence to share them with the world.

Having confidence in yourself doesn’t happen overnight, it requires taking action over time so you can eventually get to the point where you truly love yourself. Thankfully, anyone can embark on this journey and build up their confidence, all it takes is doing things like:

  • Healing the hurts from your past.
  • Doing one small thing each day to move in the direction of your dreams.
  • Saying positive things to yourself.
  • Treating yourself well.
  • Following your own inner voice.
  • Continue increasing your self-awareness.

When you believe in yourself, you are willing to do things to improve your life and take care of yourself. It allows you to move in any direction you wish and follow your inner voice.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and believe in yourself?

Cheers,

Guy

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

10 Signs You Practice Self-Awareness

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It’s easy to tell who values self-awareness because they behave in ways that are uplifting for them and the people around them. Here are ten signs that you practice self-awareness:

  1. You know where you end and others begin.
  2. You behave positively toward yourself and others.
  3. You have compassion and empathy for others.
  4. You are able to see other people’s points of view.
  5. You keep your personal stuff out of your interactions with others.
  6. You heal your own hurts.
  7. You know who you really are deep inside.
  8. You live authentically.
  9. You help yourself and others grow and succeed.
  10. You get up each morning and think, feel and behave like the real you.

If you do these things habitually, you’re a person who possesses healthy self-awareness. If you don’t, no worries, just pick one area to strengthen and practice until you become good at it. The key to building self-awareness is to always be cognizant of what you’re doing and whether you’re living positively and genuinely. What will you do to keep building self-awareness?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Helps You Find Your Own Answers - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Helps You Find Your Own Answers

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Self-awareness helps you find your own answers in life because, when you understand your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you’re able to move forward consciously and take action more confidently based on the knowledge you have of yourself.

I often get questions from people who are genuinely trying to figure out what to do in a difficult situation. While I can give people examples of what other people have done to be successful, it is difficult to give people advice on what they should do. Each person will have their own way of arriving at a solution and a self-awareness consultant is there to help them arrive at whatever end they see fit.

I encourage people to think in terms of building self-awareness and finding their own solutions to tough issues. If you don’t know what to do, spend some time thinking about the following points:

1. What would I name this issue?
2. What are some possible solutions for the issue?
3. Which solution makes the most sense to me?
4. What do I need to do to start working on the solution?

I help my clients take charge of their lives and gain the confidence necessary to work through tough challenges. We all have the answers we need inside; it just takes a bit of effort to find them. Outside people can give us their opinion but only we can arrive at the resolution that makes the most sense to us.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and find your own answers?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy