Personal Awareness

Self-Awareness and Moving Your Life in the Direction You Choose - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Moving Your Life in the Direction You Choose

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A big part of self-awareness is knowing yourself well enough to consciously move your life in any direction you choose. The way you behave each day predicts the results you will get, whether you succeed or stagnate. Here are some practical things you can do to start your journey:

1. Focus on the thing you want to happen, this is your goal.
2. Determine three actions you can take to achieve that specific goal.
3. Pick one action and start following through on it today.
4. When you’ve achieved one goal, move on to the next.
5. Take time to celebrate yourself and your accomplishment.

The purposeful act of following through and taking action trains your mind to take on challenges. When you achieve a goal it gives you strength and courage to keep moving forward in life, you begin to see the power you have over your circumstances, and it also increases your self-awareness.

The key to success in life is going from the thinking phase to the doing part. Try working through the five steps we’ve outlined and keep doing it until you succeed. Along the way you will be practicing the skills necessary to move your life in any direction you choose.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and move your life forward positively?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware People Realize Things Can't Make Them Happy - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware People Realize Things Can’t Make Them Happy

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I frequently consult with people who lack self-awareness and genuinely believe that buying things will make them happy. Time after time they realize that buying stuff really doesn’t affect their long term happiness. Sure, there is a buzz that comes from buying something you like but it doesn’t resolve the underlying things that are vital to fulfillment. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be happy buying things, it just requires that you put some thought into why you buy stuff. If you buy objects with the hopes of feeling better about yourself, I have some basic questions you can ask yourself to build self-awareness and help you focus on what’s really going on.

1. Do I really need this object?
2. How am I focusing on fixing the deeper issues in my life?
3. Do I feel less whole when I can’t shop?
4. In what ways does buying things affect my emotions?
5. Does shopping help me postpone feeling emotions?
6. Do I hide the fact that I buy stuff from others?
7. Do I have to buy other stuff to keep the buzz going?
8. In what other areas of my life could I devote more energy and thought?
9. Could my money be used for long-term success?
10. How am I defined by my things?

The answers to these questions will help you get some perspective on how your buying habits affect your life. There’s nothing wrong or horrible with buying nice things unless it prevents you from looking at the deeper stuff in life.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and be happy from sources other than buying things?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Helps You Do What You Love in Life - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Helps You Do What You Love in Life

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Self-awareness helps you do what you love in life because, when you comprehend why you feel, think, and behave the way you do, you’re able to identify a meaningful path and live authentically.

It’s really normal to want to figure out what you really want to do in life. It’s much more fulfilling to do things you love than things you have to do. Much of the discomfort you feel comes from not following your true path.

When I consult with people, we frequently talk about how they can tell if they are following their path. The answer varies from person to person but I’ve found that people just feel better, happier, stronger, more motivated and productive when they build self-awareness and do things they love. It’s the feeling you get when you’re doing things you actually enjoy doing rather than things that bring you discomfort. Think of the millions of people toiling in jobs they hate because they haven’t yet connected with what they really want to do. What would their lives look like if they incorporated more of the activities that bring them joy?

Think about the following questions in order to figure out what you want to do with your life:

  1. What do I love doing more than anything?
  2. Am I doing that thing?
  3. What am I doing to pursue my dreams in general?
  4. Am I settling for a life that does not include my dreams?
  5. What am I afraid of?
  6. What specific action can I take today to move toward my dreams?

You deserve to live a great life and you have the power to move toward your goals and dreams at any moment you choose to. Doing what you love isn’t automatic, it requires conscious thought and persistence. The good news is that you can do concrete things to move in any direction you want. Start today and you could be on your way to doing the things you’ve always dreamed of.

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

Cheers,

Guy

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

Self-Awareness and Being Unhelpful

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The more self-awareness you have, the happier you are and the more you move away from being unhelpful when others need assistance. There are many instances where people don’t help each other very much or choose to interact negatively, for example:

  • Pointing out what’s going wrong instead of what is going well.
  • Criticizing instead of offering solutions.
  • Talking over people.
  • Making sarcastic or sardonic remarks.
  • Taking a lot of time to explain why they can’t do something rather than doing it.
  • Finding ways to not help.
  • Acting like a know-it-all and making people feel inadequate.

As you gain more self-awareness you move away from these types of behaviors because you realize that other people are valuable, and you do things like:

  • Highlight what is going well.
  • Offer solutions.
  • Listen.
  • Make positive remarks.
  • Do something helpful instead of talking about what you can’t do.
  • Find ways to help.
  • Behave in ways that are kind and helpful.

There is a vast difference between the first list and the second list; one hurts people and creates conflict and the other encourages relationship building. You get to choose which path you take. Self-awareness means you understand how important it is to treat everyone with respect and care. What will you do to be more helpful?

Cheers,

Guy

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

Self-Awareness and Regaining Hope

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Self-awareness helps you regain hope because, when you understand why you feel, think, and behave the way you do, you are able to move your life in a positive direction and move past the barriers that used to hold you back.

Many of us reach points in our lives where we feel like nothing is going right. I ask people to continue building self-awareness and focus on the things that are going right. It may sound simplistic but much of how we see the world is based on perspective.

Why is it that one person sees an event as a tragedy while another sees it simply as a bump in the road? Perspective. Why is it that one person crumbles when faced with adversity but others thrive? Perspective.

When you give up hope you give up believing that you can affect the world around you. This is only a perception because, in fact, you can always do something to move your life in a different direction. Try these simple techniques to overcome the challenges in your life.

1. Take an inventory of the things you do well.
2. Pick one of the things you came up with to work on.
3. Take steps to finish the work.
4. Move on to the next thing you want to do.

Regaining hope is often about finding your inner confidence. You reconnect to your inner hope and confidence by actually doing things and experiencing the challenge of completing tasks. Doing things literally impels you to do something besides dwell on your loss of hope. Try these steps and move in a direction that satisfies you. You deserve it.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and live hopefully?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Being an Independent Thinker - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Being an Independent Thinker

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Self-awareness means understanding who you are and why you think the way you do so you can be your own person. Every time I’ve let other people think for me, I’ve felt powerless and have been unhappy with the results. It’s very common in our society to undermine people’s natural gifts and talents by telling them what to do. There’s no shortage of “helpful” advice to guide those who are seeking something or are just used to getting their answers from the outside, but it robs them of their ability to control their own destinies.

The key to living a meaningful, fulfilling life is to listen to yourself and follow your own path rather than one prescribed by someone else. When I discovered that I could think for myself, I began honoring the person I really am and following my own natural course. I now wake up each day and do what I want to do instead of what someone else tells me to.

People who value self-awareness tend to be independent thinkers who listen to their own inner voices. They do their own thing, arrive at their own conclusions, and live more genuinely happy lives.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and be an independent thinker?

Cheers,

Guy

How to Resolve Conflicts with Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

How to Resolve Conflicts with Self-Awareness

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People who lack self-awareness often ask me how to resolve conflicts. Many individuals think that letting conflict build up, followed by an explosion, followed by another build-up period is the natural cycle of conflict. The only difficulty with this approach is that the conflict continues and doesn’t get resolved. The only real solution is to increase self-awareness and fix the conflict by taking action. Follow the following steps to begin working on resolving rather than perpetuating conflict.

1. Each person identifies what the they think the conflict is.
2. Both people agree together on one definition of the conflict to begin resolving.
3. Each person comes up with two or three possible solutions.
4. Both people agree together on which solution to implement.
5. If the parties can’t work together find a mediator.

Resolving conflict is about having the self-awareness to work with the other person to actually fix the situation. The act of doing all the previous steps (always in order) allows us the chance to work with the other person rather than against them. Make sure you start at the first step and do not progress to the next if you haven’t finished the previous step. We are conditioned to rush to solutions but frequently forget that it the working through the issue that gets us the most permanent and satisfactory results.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and actually resolve conflicts?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy