Personal Awareness

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

Self-Awareness and Prioritizing

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When you’re working on developing self-awareness it’s important to prioritize. You get to decide what’s most important to you and what actions you want to take. You have a lot of power to move your life in any direction you want by choosing to work on things that will create positive results. Spend less time on minor details and focus on what really matters and you’ll be on your way to success. For example: Would you rather heal one of your inner hurts so you can be genuinely happier or do something superficial that just puts a band-aid on everything?

Prioritizing means that you get to choose what you work on and when. A big part of self-awareness is knowing yourself well enough that you can tell the difference between meaningful and superficial work. I always recommend that people work on the deeper things in life, the ones that will bring them meaning and fulfillment rather than just getting by or pretending things are okay. What will you decide to do today?

Cheers,

Guy

4 Steps to Build Your Self-Esteem through Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

4 Steps to Build Your Self-Esteem through Self-Awareness

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Building your self-awareness leads to higher self-esteem because, when you know yourself well and are able to positively manage your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you’ll feel much better about yourself and live a happier life.

Have you ever met someone who seems to have strong self-esteem but who does things to sabotage himself or herself? We all do things that keep us from succeeding and we do it at an unconscious level. Oftentimes, the messages we learned early in life keep holding us back and telling us that we can’t achieve what we want in the workplace. The good news is that you can change those inner messages by following some practical steps.

1. Identify the message. Ask yourself, “Where did this message begin.”

2. Ask yourself if the message is true. For example, do you really not deserve to succeed?

3. Think of the opposite of the message and do that instead. Make it a positive message that gets you where you want to go.

4. Every time a negative, limiting message comes into your head repeat these steps until it is gone.

As your self-awareness increases, so will your self-esteem, but it requires concerted effort. It will take you some time to become an expert at changing your inner messages but you will do it if you stick with it over time. Plan on spending at least 30 days practicing the new behavior and then check in with yourself to see how you’re doing. You’ll be happy with the results because you’ll be moving in a positive direction. If you’re not, it’s likely you have another message to work on. What will you do to start building your self-esteem?

Cheers,

Guy

Benefits of Self-Awareness in the Workplace - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Benefits of Self-Awareness in the Workplace

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There are a lot of benefits of self-awareness in the workplace, including building a happier, more productive workplace where people interact positively and get more done. Self-awareness is a vital skill for everyone in any organization because it helps things run better.

Self-awareness is defined as the ability to recognize, understand, and deal positively with one’s own (and others’) emotions and thoughts, which leads to positive behaviors and the ability to interact well with other people. It’s important in workplaces because it makes things easier for everyone.

Here are some of the most important benefits of self-awareness in the workplace:

  • Leadership treats people well because they aren’t behaving out of fear or ego.
  • Leaders are mentally healthy and model positive behaviors.
  • Employees are better taken care of and are treated as the valuable members of the organization that they are.
  • People don’t work out their problems on each other, they have the ability to understand their own strengths and weaknesses and interact positively.
  • Communication is much easier because people know how to get out of the way and listen to each other.
  • People get more done with less effort because they don’t waste time with power struggles or the need for dominance or power.
  • Less conflict.
  • Fewer arguments.
  • People are able to work well with each other.
  • People understand each other better.
  • Everyone is more motivated because leadership encourages them to do what they do best.
  • People treat each other with empathy and kindness.
  • The organization functions as a cohesive whole.

Imagine what your workplace would look like if you and your employees did all or even some of these things, you might actually enjoy being there instead of having it be a constant struggle.

Self-awareness is vital in the workplace because people are happier and work better when they feel healthy inside. What will you do to enjoy enjoy the benefits of self-awareness in your workplace?

Cheers,

Guy

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

Self-Awareness and Retirement

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Retirement can be both an exciting and challenging time in life but you can retire with self-awareness and foresight. The key to living the next faze of your life meaningfully is to ask yourself questions like:

  • Will I continue working?
  • What is my passion in life and am I pursuing it?
  • What unresolved issues do I need to fix in my life?
  • How is my relationship with those I love?
  • What are my skills and talents?
  • What will I do with the rest of my life.
  • What brings me great joy and am I doing that?

Take a moment to think about who you really are as a person and what you want to purposefully do with your life. When I coach people, I help them clarify what they want out of life and plan for the future. I’m always amazed at the wonderful things that people can do when they follow their dreams.

As you think about retirement, try to include things you love and that have great meaning to you. Retirement can be a wonderful time to show the world who you are and leave your mark as the great person you are.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Can Help You Find Inspiration in Life - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Can Help You Find Inspiration in Life

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Developing your self-awareness can help you find inspiration in life. The more aware you are of how your emotions, thoughts, and actions affect you, the more open to inspiration you’ll be because you won’t have unresolved issues blocking your path.

People have told me over the years that they feel most inspired when they are doing the things that really move them in their hearts. Have you ever had the experience of doing something you really love and suddenly hours have passed and you didn’t even realize it? This is what being inspired is about.

Being inspired is living the life we are supposed to. If you love to dance, dance. If you love sports, play sports. If you love writing, write. It’s all about finding that thing that calls to you and incorporating it into your life. It doesn’t matter if you don’t become famous, it just matters that you are doing that which you love.

When you live a life that includes the things that really inspire you, you begin a fascinating process where your life moves in the direction of your inspiration. People start to recognize you for who you are and your gift touches them because they can tell it means something to you.

Try devoting some time in your life to your inspiration. You’ll feel more grounded and balanced when you build your self-awareness and ursue what you love.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness, Leadership, and Achieving Your Goals - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness, Leadership, and Achieving Your Goals

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When I help leaders achieve their goals they often encounter certain transition periods where it’s difficult to make it to the next level. This is perfectly normal because there is a natural ebb and flow to achieving your goals. Sometimes there is a lot of movement and in other instances there is little change.

Being an excellent leader and achieving your goals requires self-awareness, which means that you understand how your emotions, thoughts, and actions affect you, the people around you, and your organization. Being self-aware means that you really know yourself and are able to set and meet goals that are healthy and positive for you and others.

Once you build up your self-awareness, there are five steps you can take to increase your chances of success and avoid feeling stuck:

  1. Set a clear goal and keep it simple.
  2. Take one small action per day to achieve your goal.
  3. Review the result of your action and either do another or move on to the next action.
  4. Keep doing things.  It doesn’t matter what you do, just keep taking small actions.
  5. Celebrate along the way.  Pat yourself on the back when you notice a positive development.

The major elements that will help you achieve your goals are to build up your self-awareness and keep taking action. Many leaders get discouraged and give up too soon because they don’t keep moving forward. Success comes from constantly and consistently working on things. Try these five steps and measure where you are a month from now, you’ll likely appreciate what you’ve been able to achieve.

What will you do to develop your self-awareness and achieve your goals?

Cheers,

Guy

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

Self-Awareness and Perseverance

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Perseverance is one of the most important traits a person can possess and is part of self-awareness. People who are able to understand and manage their own emotions, thoughts, and actions persevere more and move past the challenges in their lives.

To me it means having the self-awareness necessary to move forward and trust my inner voice no matter what happens. Very often, talented people will stifle their work or choose a “safer” career path because of what they heard from well-meaning people as they were growing up. I’ve found it helpful to keep going in spite of any inside and outside disparagement and just do my thing.

It doesn’t take superhuman effort to keep going, simply do one small thing each day that helps you continue your journey. Keep building your self-awareness so you can continue clarifying what you really want to do in life. Repeated modest actions will eventually add up to a great body of work and deep fulfillment. How will you build up your self-awareness and keep persevering?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy