Personal Awareness

Do You Feel Insecure? Self-Awareness Can Help You Gain Confidence - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Do You Feel Insecure? Self-Awareness Can Help You Gain Confidence

If you feel insecure, self-awareness can help you gain confidence because, once you know yourself well and are comfortable with your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you’ll be able to lead a healthier more fulfilling life.

Perhaps you feel insecure about yourself and wonder if people are judging you or don’t like you. Insecurity is not about other people, it’s about you. When you feel insecure you are looking at the world through your fears. Some helpful things to think about when you’re feeling insecure are:

  • What difference does it make what that person thinks of you?
  • Nothing anybody says can affect you unless you let it.
  • Insecurity goes away when you practice doing things and become more proficient over time.
  • Take a moment to take it easy on yourself.
  • There are great things about you that you can feel secure about right now.
  • You can start healing yourself any time you decide to.
  • You’re a wonderful person.
  • You have unique talents and abilities.

Practice helps you build self-awareness, confidence, and competence. The next time you feel insecure ask yourself, “Why am I feeling this?” and consciously decide to move in a positive direction. Only you have the power to get rid of insecurity, by thinking and behaving differently. What will you do to increase your self-awareness and feel less insecure?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Means You Value Ongoing Progress - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Means You Value Ongoing Progress

Ongoing progress means that we strive to develop self-awareness and expand our knowledge and understanding of ourselves, others, and the world around us. We consciously work on growing and are open to new experiences and insights. It’s the opposite of saying we’re fully cooked or that we can’t be taught new tricks.

It’s been my experience that people are capable of doing anything they decide to do as long as they keep an open mind. If someone wants to follow a certain path or reach a given goal, all it takes is deliberate action over time to make it happen. The tragedy is that, even though people have the ability to follow their dreams, they often settle for a version of themselves that stopped evolving in high school.

Although it’s more difficult, the key to being truly happy in life is to continue developing as a person and becoming more self-aware. It’s the difference between staying stuck doing the same thing over and over, and constantly exploring new and exciting horizons. What do you do to keep progressing?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Helps You Improve Your Communication Skills - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Helps You Improve Your Communication Skills

People who possess self-awareness usually practice positive communication skills because they’re able to put aside their own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors and really connect with other people.

Have you ever suffered through a long conversation where the other person spent the whole time talking at you? That kind of communication style lacks self-awareness. Our society conditions us to believe that we need to talk a lot and fill up all the free space in the universe with words in order to demonstrate competence or credibility. This encourages people to speak up first, continue speaking and then speak some more at the first sign of any lull. We end up enduring conversations that are complete traffic jams of people all trying to outdo each other with bigger and better stories and facts.

We’ve all interacted with people who seem to be in love with the sound of their voice and rarely let others into the conversation. There are many reasons for this type of behavior but the main one is that they aren’t self-aware enough to realize communication isn’t only about them and that they can learn how to do it better. They don’t realize 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.

Excellent communication begins with us. We each have the ability to either open the doors to a two-way exchange of information or slam them shut. We have a choice as to whether we spend our time spitting out our stories rather than gaining more insight into others’ experiences. Think about your own communication style: Do you talk more or do you listen more? What would happen if you shifted your style just slightly?

Highly effective communicators understand that getting their point across is often as much about understanding someone else’s perspective as it is putting one’s own input 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 and give the other person time to answer.

3. Please stay away from questions that lead the conversation in a certain direction or only lead to a yes or no answer.

4. Try not to think of the next thing that you want to say.

5. Avoid thinking about the perfect rebuttal or your next magnificent story.

6. Allow people to say what they want and give them the space to do so.

7. Listen actively. Search online under “active listening.”

8. Did I mention listening?

We spend so much time talking that we ignore the most important element of communication. Listening opens up amazing new doors we never knew existed when we were flapping our gums. 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, detailed information. We avoid misunderstandings and we connect with people on a deeper level. People also tend to trust us more because they can confide in us without being steamrollered.

In the end, it is up to us how we communicate. Self-aware communicators understand the value of listening and use it to communicate more effectively. Listening improves our interactions and allows us to breathe. We don’t have to fill up every space and constantly think of witty things to say. We get to learn all kinds of interesting information about others and relax more, and that makes our lives easier.

What will you do to build your self-awareness and improve your communications skills?

Cheers,

Guy

People with Self-Awareness Understand That Feelings Are Normal - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

People with Self-Awareness Understand That Feelings Are Normal

A big part of self-awareness is realizing that feelings are a natural part of being human. It’s normal to have feelings, although countless numbers of people do everything possible to avoid them. This leads to individuals who only allow themselves to feel certain things and try to ignore the remainder.

I knew a person years ago who had a really tough time admitting any vulnerability or fear. He lived a life where he seemed invincible but was falling apart inside, and it eventually began to show. He gradually fell apart, behaving erratically and distancing himself from others. He thought he was protecting himself but he was really isolating himself from meaningful human interaction, all because he was avoiding feeling fear.

Feelings are a normal part of life, no matter how difficult they may appear to be. They are signals from out minds and bodies that something needs attention. They tell us how we’re doing. When I have uncomfortable feelings of any kind, I try to acknowledge them and feel them fully. I honor what my body is telling me and experience it as much as possible so I can heal and move forward positively.

We can only be truly happy in life when we have the self-awareness necessary to be at peace with all our emotions. What will you do to increase your self-awareness and get in touch with your feelings?

Cheers,

Guy

Conflict Resolution Requires Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Conflict Resolution Requires Self-Awareness

I recently facilitated a workshop on conflict resolution and I found it fascinating that almost no one possessed the self-awareness to understand their own role in conflict. I heard many comments about how the other person would be so much easier to get along with if they only did this or that but very little about what each participant would do himself or herself to improve the situation.

Conflict can be a horrible mess or it can be an opportunity for growth and increased understanding. The challenge for many people is that it requires putting their own issues aside in order to connect with someone else, which requires a high level of self-awareness. So how can you become more self-aware and resolve conflicts more easily? Try thinking of the following ideas the next time you feel a conflict coming on.

1. Be aware of your personal triggers. What sets you off?

2. Remember that you decide how you react to situations.

3. Only you can let someone make you mad.

4. Understand it’s not personal, people aren’t trying to slight you in general.

5. Learn to recognize exactly when someone is getting to you.

5. Where do you feel it? Identify where you feel the conflict in your body.

6. Do something different to interrupt the pattern.

If you deliberately give some thought to these areas you will find that you can increase your self-awareness, reduce the way conflict affects you, and move toward more positive interactions. It takes some discipline but it also affords you a way to not let conflict consume your life.

What will you do to develop your self-awareness and decrease the conflict around you?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Experiencing Kindness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Experiencing Kindness

Self-awareness plays a big part in how we treat ourselves and others. People who are self-aware tend to be mentally healthier and able to treat themselves and other people with kindness. The more whole you are, the more likely you are to be able to empathize and care for other human beings.

Experiencing kindness as a child is a major part of being able to practice compassion as an adult. People who have not had families where kindness was the norm tend to be skeptical that it exists because they didn’t experience it in their formative years.

Kindness is really just another way of saying that you’re self-aware and mentally healthy enough to treat people with love, you care for them as if they are precious and deserve great tenderness and respect. It’s the only way to live a truly fulfilling life because, when you treat others well, it tends to create positive vibes in the universe.

People who value self-awareness often think in terms of how to increase the kindness in the world, whether it is by writing about love or challenging injustice. How will you develop your self-awareness and spread kindness in the world?

Cheers,

Guy

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

Self-Awareness and Finding Meaning in Life

Self-awareness is a vital to finding meaning in life because when you understand and are able to manage your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you can live more consciously, deliberately, and meaningfully.

If you’re searching for meaning in your life, you’re not alone. It can feel scary and uncomfortable to not know what direction your life is going in but you can find your path by asking yourself questions like:

  • Who am I deep inside?
  • What do I really want to do in life?
  • What brings me deep joy and fulfillment within myself?
  • What things am I doing to take care of myself?
  • In what ways am I following my true path in life?
  • What am I doing to love myself?
  • What resources am I using to help get me where I want to be?

When you ask yourself questions like these, you’ll be building self-awareness and moving toward finding the answers you’re looking for. It all starts by looking deep within yourself and doing the work necessary to live the life you want to.

What will you do to increase your self-awareness and find meaning in life?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy