Self-Awareness Definitions

Define Self-Awareness

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My clients often ask me to define self-awareness clearly so they can begin working on it. Here are some of the key elements of self-awareness:

  • Understanding of how your thoughts affect you and others.
  • Realizing how your emotions affect you and the people around you.
  • Recognizing how your behaviors affect you and other people.
  • An ability to evaluate what you do well and what needs some strengthening.
  • Living consciously instead of unconsciously.
  • Knowing who you really are deep inside.
  • Following your true path in life.

There’s no mystery to self-awareness, it just means that you understand where your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors come from and that you’re able to move them all in a positive direction. What would you add to this list?

Cheers,

Guy

What Is Self-Awareness? The Definition of Self-Awareness

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People frequently ask me, “What is self-awareness,” or what the definition of self-awareness is. Here are a few important elements of self-awareness I’ve noticed over years of coaching and facilitating workshops:

  1. The ability to understand how your thoughts, feelings and actions affect not only you but also the people around you.
  2. The ability to heal your hurts.
  3. The ability to think, feel and behave consciously instead of unconsciously.
  4. The ability to live authentically.
  5. Understanding yourself at a deeper level rather than superficially.
  6. Forging deeper relationships.
  7. Making the world a better place for as many people as possible because you feel great about yourself.
  8. Living life as the real you.
  9. Integrating the various parts of your being.
  10. Transcending your ego.

What is self-awareness? You get to decide and you’ll know you’re achieving it when you experience both the struggle and the elation that comes from looking within.

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence

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Self-awareness and emotional intelligence are closely linked and when you have one, you’re likely to have the other. Let’s define the two, look at how they compliment each other, and how they can help you live a happier life.

The Definition of Self-Awareness

The ability to get to know yourself so well that you understand and are able to control how you feel, think, and behave in order to move your life in a positive, deeply meaningful direction with an intimate knowledge of who you really are deep inside.

The Definition of Emotional Intelligence

The ability to recognize, experience, understand, and modulate your own and others’ emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.

As you can see, these two concepts have a lot in common because they both refer to the ability to know yourself well enough to live a happy life instead of doing stuff that aggravates you and others. I’ve worked with a lot of people over the years to help them increase their self-awareness and emotional intelligence, here are some of the things they look at in order to grow and succeed:

  • Healing the unresolved, painful, or hurtful issues from their childhoods.
  • Taking an honest look at what they’re doing that doesn’t work.
  • Learning and practicing new, positive thoughts and behaviors.
  • Realizing emotions are positive and learning how to feel them.
  • Discovering who they really are deep inside and doing the things they love.
  • Living life authentically, from their hearts.
  • Practicing love, kindness, compassion, caring, both toward themselves and others.
  • Doing the hard work necessary to become healthy, including going to therapy for as long as it takes.
  • Having the courage to live life as their real selves.

Self-aware people possess emotional intelligence and vice versa. There is no mystery behind either concept, they just require work and a dedication to learn how to deal with emotions, thoughts, and actions. The end result of developing both is that you get to enjoy a wonderful life being the real, healthy you.

Cheers,

Guy

How to Tell If Someone Is Self-Aware

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How to tell if someone is self-aware? They do things like:

  • Behave with kindness and compassion.
  • Follow their dreams in life.
  • Are comfortable in their own skin.
  • Don’t feel a need to put other people down.
  • Feel great about themselves but not in an arrogant or fake way.
  • Get along well with others.
  • Put out good vibes.
  • Believe in themselves.
  • Understand their strengths and areas for improvement.
  • Live a life that reflects who they are deep inside.

People who possess self-awareness feel good about themselves and help others do the same; they’re genuinely happy and do things to make the world a better place; they’re the kind of people that build others up and do kind things for others. It all comes from their inner balance and well-being. What would you add to this list?

Cheers,

Guy

Why Self-Awareness Matters

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You’ve probably met people, even very successful ones, who behave like they’re clueless or unbalanced in some part of their lives. Perhaps they don’t deal with others very positively, can’t get past some childhood trauma or have ideas about the world that aren’t grounded in reality. What they’re often missing is self-awareness, the ability to understand how their thoughts, emotions and behaviors affect them and others.

People avoid looking at themselves because they’re afraid of what they might find. It takes courage to admit that they’re not perfect, that they’ve made mistakes, that they’ve been wrong in the past or that there are areas that need improvement in their lives. Those who do decide to take a candid look at themselves soon discover that they can live deeply satisfying, meaningful, healthy and balanced lives.

Self-awareness matters because you’re worth it. You deserve to live a fully conscious life that reflects the real you rather than doing all the other garbage that makes you (and the people around you) unhappy. When you understand who you are and why you think and behave the way you do, you get to live an authentic life being yourself rather than trying to be someone you’re not or relying on outside sources for your happiness.

Increasing your self-awareness gives you the opportunity to live the life you were meant to live without restrictions. It’s a journey that begins with your willingness to look at yourself honestly and become the most healthy, balanced you possible. How will you start building your self-awareness?

Cheers,

Guy

12 Examples of Self-Awareness

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Here are twelve examples of self-awareness:

  • You’re in touch with your feelings and comfortable with them.
  • You know who you are deep inside.
  • You’re not afraid to examine and work on resolving the difficult issues in your life.
  • You consistently work on improving your understanding of yourself.
  • You treat yourself and others kindly.
  • You’re living your dreams.
  • You behave consciously and mindfully.
  • You heal your hurts.
  • You feel like your life is genuinely meaningful and fulfilling.
  • You understand that self-awareness is an ongoing process.
  • You contribute positive things to the world that benefit as many people as possible.
  • You live authentically.

Self-awareness is a state of being where you deeply understand yourself and live based on who you really are deep inside. Each of the examples I’ve mentioned here are things you can work on starting today in order to help you live a happy life. All you have to do is decide to work on one of them and keep going until you’re good at it, then move on to the next item. Over time, you’ll develop your self-awareness.

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy