Personal Awareness

Self-Awareness Means Looking at the Difficult Things in Life - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Means Looking at the Difficult Things in Life

A lot of times self-awareness is about looking at the difficult things in your life. These are the areas that perhaps you don’t want to bring up or examine. The challenge is to find a way to deal with the difficult issues in your life so you can move past them and live without their influence. It’s like finally healing a wound that’s been hurting for a long time.

The vast majority of people live their entire lives without resolving the pain from their past. This limits their ability to grow and succeed. Think of how amazing your life would be if you became self-aware to the point that you genuinely loved yourself and were able to live as the real you. Too many people get stuck living a life that they settle for instead of doing the hard work necessary to live a conscious, fulfilling life. Self-awareness requires effort but it allows you to let go of all the junk that holds you back.

If you’re afraid of looking at the difficult things in life, that’s normal. The choice you have is whether you decide to move past those things or you let them dictate what you should do. Self-aware people choose to deal with the challenges so they can live wonderfully healthy and expansive lives.

Cheers,

Guy

Characteristics of Someone with Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Characteristics of Someone with Self-Awareness

People frequently ask me to describe the characteristics of someone with self-awareness, here are some examples:

  • They’re in touch with their emotions and are comfortable with them, even when they’re unpleasant or difficult.
  • They’re comfortable with other people’s emotions.
  • Their thinking matches objective reality; they don’t make up scenarios that aren’t based on demonstrable fact.
  • They’re able to manage their thinking patterns and move even their most difficult thoughts in a positive direction.
  • Their actions lead in a positive direction for them and for others.
  • They deeply understand their strengths as well as their areas for improvement.
  • They’re always working on becoming the best version of themselves possible.
  • They work hard to heal their inner hurts, preferably by going to a professional therapist.
  • They’re genuinely happy with who they are deep inside.
  • They follow their dreams.
  • They live as themselves.
  • They’re open to new people, ideas, challenges and changes.
  • They relate well to others and build positive relationships.
  • They treat themselves and others with kindness and compassion.
  • They make the world a better place because they’re so comfortable with themselves that they’re able to freely help others.

Imagine your life if you possessed any number of these qualities. The wonderful thing is you can achieve them all if you choose to actively develop your self-awareness.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness, Team Building, and Autocratic Leadership - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness, Team Building, and Autocratic Leadership

I was reading a discussion on a business site about team building recently. Two vocal contributors talked about how team building was only a fluffy, superfluous activity that could only lead to coddled, lazy employees. What was needed, they contended, was discipline and a strict adherence to rules and directives. They added that employees were there only to carry out the leader’s vision and not to have a good time.

I said to myself, “Where do I sign up?  Sounds like a great place to work.”

Many leaders lack self-awareness and still function under the paradigm that the only thing that matters in business is to drive people until they break. They genuinely believe that organizations are solely about their leaders and the rest of the employees are just there to carry out their vision. Everything is wrapped around one charismatic disciplinarian who leads his flock bravely off the cliff into glory.

This style would be much more effective if people had no minds, no dreams, no independence, no skills and no need to grow or be fulfilled in any way in the workplace. In the real world, there are very few people willing to have someone boss them around mercilessly all day. So what’s a budding autocrat to do? I might look at developing my self-awareness, relaxing a bit, and letting people be who they are. I don’t say this to make leadership more difficult, I offer it as a way to create workplaces that run better because people feel better about themselves and the organization.

Feeling good is a difficult concept for leaders bred on discipline and order. Many equate feeling good with being weak but I tend to think that it’s about people performing well while feeling like they’re important individually and collectively. There’s a big difference between doing work because you have no other choice or because you want to intrinsically. When leaders are self-aware and motivate their employees from within, they can count on them using their natural talents and abilities to greater advantage. The trick is finding a way to encourage people to succeed based on their own inner motivators rather than those imposed from someone on the outside.

Team building requires the ability not only to have people produce but also to move beyond simply requiring people to perform tasks in some predetermined way toward a single goal. It’s about providing choices and opportunities and recognizing that people are able to think for themselves when given the chance. It’s easy to boss people around but much harder to have them direct themselves. How will you develop your self-awareness and practice excellent team building?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware Leadership and Developing a Clear Vision for Your Organization - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware Leadership and Developing a Clear Vision for Your Organization

There are countless leaders who let their organizations drag them along as they hold on for dear life. For them, every workday is another exercise in reacting and trying to manage chaos. There’s a significant difference between letting your organization happen to you and having the self-awareness to make things happen proactively.

Do you have a clear vision at this moment of where you want to take your organization? If the answer is no, then ask yourself these questions:

1. Am I doing what I really want to do in my organization?

2. Do I feel successful and fulfilled when I leave work?

3. Does my organization build me up as a professional?

4. Do I have clear goals for the future of my organization?

5. Do I have a strategy or plan for how I will lead?

The answers to these questions will give you an idea of where your leadership could take your organization. Sometimes the only difference between leaders who succeed and those who don’t is their ability to plan proactively.

When you are actively working on developing your self-awareness, you’ll be able to asses your strengths and areas for improvement, thus making it easier to come up with a plan that moves your organization in a positive direction.

Take a moment this week to ask yourself these questions and to start planning your future success rather than reacting to whatever comes your way.  You’ll enjoy having a clearer vision of your organization’s progress. What will you do to practice self-aware leadership and develop a clear vision for your company?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Your Quality of Life - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Your Quality of Life

Your level of self-awareness greatly affects your quality of life. The more you’re in touch with why you think, feel and do the things you do, the more consciously and happily you can live. Consider these two examples of people with different perspectives:

  1. Person A goes through life appearing to be confident, is outwardly successful, seems to have everything anyone would dream of having but is deeply insecure and realizes it’s all a mirage.
  2. Person B lives life with confidence, sometimes has doubts and shows vulnerability, but when he (or she) looks in the mirror, he knows he’s looking at a real person who is living authentically.

The difference between these two examples is that one person has to pretend to be someone else. Genuine fulfillment and happiness arise from looking at your strengths and areas for improvement and continuously working on being the real you inside and outside. What will you do to live a quality life?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Can Help You Change Your Life - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Can Help You Change Your Life

People often ask me how to change their lives. The answer is to build up your self-awareness, which enables you to heal the hurts from your past and focus on positive emotions, thoughts, and behaviors to move forward. Changing your life requires deliberate action over time, there are no quick fixes.

The next time you are wondering how to change your life, try using the following steps to transform your situation.

1. Think of what you want to change.
2. Devise a strategy to change it.
3. Pick one goal.
3. Pick one task you can do to start achieving your goal.
4. Check in with yourself in a week to see if you achieved the goal.
5. If the goal needs revising, do so. If you’ve completed it, move to the next goal.
6. Reward yourself each time you complete a goal. No overindulging please.

It’s one thing to want to change your life, it’s quite another to actually do it. It requires a plan and conscious action over time. Put one foot in front of the other and strive to complete your goals. It’s normal to feel like giving up, just keep taking one small step at a time. You’ll eventually see the results.

No life change is easy. They all take deliberate effort but people achieve their goals all the time. There is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to do so as well. What will you do to develop your self-awareness and change your life?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Your Thoughts on Diversity - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Your Thoughts on Diversity

When I train leaders and organizations I often listen for their thoughts and attitudes on diversity. Leaders who possess self-awareness tend to welcome diversity and are open to finding ways to use it to improve their workplaces. If leaders believe that diverse people can get along and work together well, then they promote diversity; if they think that people can’t be trusted and don’t welcome a variety of viewpoints, then they will be suspicious or fear it.

You get results based on the thoughts you bring to workplace. Some of the words (which come from thoughts) I’ve heard people say that may hinder diversity practices include:

  • They’ll never get along.
  • They are different than us.
  • It’s always been that way.
  • Diversity’s a joke, let’s just do it my way.
  • I don’t trust that person.
  • I bet they’re talking about me.
  • I’ve tried everything and nothing works.
  • They have an attitude.

As thinking human beings, we have a choice as to how we approach almost any topic including diversity. Think about the phrases above and what kind of results you might get in the workplace if you thought that way. Now think about what kind of results you might observe if you increased your self-awareness and thought along the following lines:

  • We can work on this.
  • We’ll figure out a way to bring them together.
  • I’ll start a conversation with him/her.
  • I value different opinions.
  • We value all people in this workplace.
  • We focus on promoting collaboration, not conflict.
  • I’m going to trust that person.

What kind of results would you get if your thoughts were more like these? Think of the effect that might have on your workplace. Diversity is really just a state of mind. What you think about ends up being what you see in your workplace. If you’re self-aware and open to new things, then diversity will be an excellent tool to help you build a high-functioning organization. How will you improve your self-awareness and use diversity as an asset?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy