Personal Awareness

5 Signs You're a Great Leader Who Possesses Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

5 Signs You’re a Great Leader Who Possesses Self-Awareness

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / ,

Think about a time when you worked for a great leader who possessed self-awareness. What did it feel like? What are some of the things that person did to become exceptional in your mind? There are many qualities that go into creating a great leader. Here are five elements:

  1. They listen well. Great leaders don’t feel they always have to be talking on top of others or having the last word. They are happy to listen to others and glean knowledge and wisdom from them.
  2. They use the skills of their employees. Great leaders are adept at identifying the skills and talents of their employees and use them to get things done. They believe in helping people shine.
  3. They inspire others. Great leaders don’t only bark orders, they actually inspire their employees to do better and grow. These leaders don’t mind when someone becomes more knowledgeable or skillful, they encourage it.
  4. They welcomes and generate new ideas. Great leaders have the ability to see things others might not and to encourage others to do the same. They aren’t afraid of change and value growth and fresh thought rather than the status quo.
  5. They put ego aside. Great leaders know that the workplace isn’t about them, it’s about the collective energy everyone creates together. They don’t worry about power trips, they enjoy helping other people feel great.

There is a certain feeling that self-aware leaders create in the workplace. It isn’t based on fear, intimidation or hierarchy, but rather on their ability to look beyond themselves and help others grow.

Are you a great leader? A reliable measure is whether people truly enjoy working for you and, without prompting, tell you and each others about their experience. We all know the difference between a workplace that inspires and one that only stresses productivity, make sure you create a wonderful one.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and become a great leader?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Feeling Better about Yourself - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Feeling Better about Yourself

/ / Self and Self-Awareness, Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / , ,

Sometimes event the most confident people in the world don’t feel amazingly great about themselves. We all have days when we think we don’t measure up to some ideal, some people stay stuck in this state for long periods. The good news is that you can do some practical things to increase self-awareness and feel better about yourself immediately.

Think about the following five questions and how they apply to your life and you’ll be on your way to feeling better about yourself:

1.  Do you do things you love?

2.  Do you fill your mind with negative messages about yourself?

3.  Do you have positive messages to replace the negative ones?

4.  What actions do you take to feel better and do positive things?

5.  How will you know that you feel better about yourself?

Think about these concepts for a while. Your answers will help you find ways to feel better about yourself and become more self-aware. So much of life (and your self-esteem) is about the messages you put in your brain. If you stuff yourself with junk you will likely not feel so great, if you fill your mind with ideas that build you up the results are much more positive. Either way, you have a choice which path you decide to stay on.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and start feeling better about yourself?

Cheers,

Guy

Mean People and Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Mean People and Self-Awareness

/ / Self and Self-Awareness / , , , ,

I talk with a lot of kind, thoughtful, self-aware people and a question that frequently comes up is, “Why are people so mean?” This type of question usually arises because someone has been treated poorly by someone else without provocation. Here are some of the reasons people who lack self-awareness are mean:

  • They have unresolved issues inside themselves that cause them pain and discomfort, so they take it out on others.
  • They haven’t learned how to be nice, perhaps never had a role model to show them what it’s like to kind and empathic instead of cruel.
  • They were hurt at some point in time and have never moved past it.
  • They had their feeling of safety taken away or betrayed by someone they trusted and they lash out at others to form a perimeter of safety.
  • They figure if they hurt others first, they won’t be hurt.
  • They don’t believe in going to therapy to figure out what’s really going on under all the fear and anger.
  • They’re unhappy with themselves but don’t know how to change it.
  • They surround themselves with people who enable their behavior.
  • They think everyone is out to get them.
  • They don’t know how to deal with their own emotions and thoughts.

It’s important to note that, if you said something rude to someone or poked them in the eye, it would be natural for them to be less than nice to you, but I’m referring to instances where you were treated meanly by someone without any provocation.

The main thing to remember when someone is mean to you without provocation is that it has nothing to do with you. You’re not at fault and you didn’t deserve it. It’s just that they have unresolved issues that boil up uncontrollably and you happened to be in the vicinity. If someone is mean to you, you have a lot of power because you can choose the self-awareness path: Realize that it’s not about you, and remove yourself from the situation.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and deal positively with mean people?

Cheers,

Guy

10 Ways Self-Awareness Can Improve Your Life - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

10 Ways Self-Awareness Can Improve Your Life

/ / Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / , , , , , ,

The whole point of getting to know yourself is to move past reacting unconsciously to whatever comes your way to being mindful of what you’re feeling, thinking, and doing. Here are ten ways self-awareness can improve your personal and professional life:

  1. You’re able to feel the entire range of your emotions and deal with them positively.
  2. You understand yourself well and are genuinely comfortable with who you are; not just pretending you are so you don’t look weak.
  3. You’ve worked out the negative issues from your childhood and formative years.
  4. You have a consistent pattern of thinking and behavior where all the areas of your life relate well to each other and aren’t in conflict.
  5. You do things that help make the world a better place, not just that benefit you and the people in your immediate social and professional circles.
  6. You’re able to empathize with other people; their joys, struggles, and day-to-day lives.
  7. You feel so good about yourself that other people aren’t a threat and you don’t have a need to compete with them or defeat them in any way.
  8. You build other people up instead of tearing them down.
  9. You feel like your life has a deeper meaning that comes from within you, not from the outside.
  10. You live life as the real you; following your dreams and doing what you really want to do in life.

When you possess self-awareness you’ll be actively working on issues like these at all times and continually discovering more about yourself. The goal is simple: Live a happy life, spread good vibes, and make the world a better place for as many people as possible. How has self-awareness improved your life?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and the Tough Love Myth - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and the Tough Love Myth

/ / Self-Awareness / , , , , ,

When you have a high level of self-awareness you tend to stay away from treating other people harshly, as in the so-called “Tough Love” approach to parenting, leadership or any other interaction where you’re trying to correct someone else’s undesirable or out of control behavior. Tough Love is practiced by millions and looks like this:

  • Inability to empathize with the other person’s situation.
  • Unnecessarily harsh or punitive approach to correcting behavior.
  • Resorting to punishment as first option.
  • Not connecting meaningfully with the other person.
  • Lack of listening.
  • Lack of patience.
  • Short-term thinking versus a long-term strategy.
  • Relying on ultimatums.
  • Dictatorial, telling someone what to do from the outside.

The perplexing thing about Tough Love is that there are so many other, more positive, ways to treat people, for example:

  • Empathizing with the other person.
  • Finding other options besides harsh behavior or punishment.
  • Negotiation and collaboration before punishment.
  • Building positive relationships.
  • Listening often and actively.
  • Being patient.
  • Interacting with people to build healthy, long-term relationships.
  • Realizing that change is an ongoing process.
  • Trusting and encouraging people to come up with their own solutions.

It’s really easy to make someone’s life miserable by punishing them, but it takes much more imagination and skill to encourage them to gain the insight necessary to overcome an obstacle. When you possess self-awareness, you have a choice as to how you interact with others regardless of how difficult their behavior or situation is: You can be kind, empathic, and resourceful, or rigid and draconian. Which approach will you choose?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Not Choosing the Safe Path in Life - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Not Choosing the Safe Path in Life

/ / Self and Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / , , , ,

There are people who lack self-awareness and spend their entire lives choosing the safe path, which means that they do what they’ve always done, how they’ve always done it. They value feeling safe and secure over all else, including self-awareness, no matter what the consequences. In the process, they lose their true selves and live middle-of-the-road, ordinary, as-uneventful-as-possible existences.

I’ve always wondered why people live like this, and the answer that often arises is: lack of self-awareness leading to fear. When people are scared of stepping outside their comfort zones or of being their real selves, they tend to do everything they can to remain in their cocoon. They never fly because they’re too busy worrying about everything that might possibly go wrong or be slightly different.

One of the reasons I love consulting for people who value self-awareness is that they live more courageously, striving to understand who they are and where they want to go. It’s not that they live dangerously, just that they’re willing to test their own thought processes and face their fears.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and avoid choosing the safe path in life?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware People Forgive - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware People Forgive

/ / Self and Self-Awareness, Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / , , , ,

A big part of self-awareness is learning to forgive, as in:

  • Forgive yourself.
  • Forgive others.
  • Forgive the past
  • Forgive the negative things that happen in life.

Forgiveness means that you are able to let go of the resentments and hurts that hold you back and consciously decide to move forward positively in life. When you forgive, you give yourself the opportunity to be the wonderful person you are deep inside.

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy