Self-Awareness Meaning

Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

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

Self-Awareness and Balancing Your Work and Personal Life - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Balancing Your Work and Personal Life

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People who lack self-awareness often spend so much time at work that other areas of their lives suffer. It’s not uncommon for people to spend every waking moment toiling on some task related to the workplace. They spend much of their time scrambling around putting out fires rather than planning ways to do things more efficiently and enjoyably.

You can implement some basic steps that can help you increase self-awareness, bring your life into balance, and allow you to focus on what really needs attention. It all starts with prioritizing. Think about the following questions as you begin your workday:

1. What are the things I absolutely have to do right now?

2. What are the things I can do later?

3. What are the things I can have someone else do for me?

When you ask yourself these questions you begin to move away from emergency response mode and into self-awareness and planning deliberate actions each day. My consulting clients often tell me that, when they learn how to prioritize more effectively, they actually increase the time they have to focus on ways to grow their business.

The next area is your personal life. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a healthy personal life. A healthy personal life will improve your general outlook and performance. Think about the following ideas and how they apply to you:

1. How much time have I set aside for my personal life today?

2. What can I postpone doing at work to spend more time on my personal life?

3. What have I done to take care of myself today?

Thinking about these questions allows you to pay more attention to yourself and the things you need to keep you feeling great. If you work too much, dial in a little more personal time. If you have too much free time, do a few more things to further your career. When you achieve work and personal life balance you will feel invigorated in all parts of your life and will be ready to take on any challenge that comes your way.

Ultimately, I would recommend that you pursue your dreams and do what you really want to do in life. When you live life authentically you don’t have to worry about work/life balance, you just get to be the real you each day. What will you do to develop self-awareness and enjoy life more?

Cheers,

Guy

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

Self-Awareness and Self-Love

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Self-awareness leads to self-love because, when you understand your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you are able to celebrate the wonderful things about you and improve the areas that need attention.

If you’re looking for someone who really cares about you, you need look no further than inside yourself. You’re the only person who can love you and answer the questions you have. A lot of people spend their entire lives looking for some outside entity to love, comfort, and take care of them. It’s natural to want to put all the difficulties in your life in someone else’s hands but it doesn’t help you resolve your own issues or be truly happy.

Try asking yourself these questions to start building your self-love:

  • What do I love about myself?
  • What are five things I do well?
  • What is my passion in life?
  • In what ways do I make the world a better place?
  • What are five things that are great about my personality?
  • What are some things I do to take care of myself?
  • What is one thing I can do today to love myself?

When you ask yourself questions like these, you begin the process of caring for yourself which, in turn, will help you to build self-awareness and attract healthy people into your life. Finding a caring person begins with you, you are the one who will love you like no one else can.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and practice self-love?

Cheers,

Guy

Self Awareness and Saying I'm Sorry - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self Awareness and Saying I’m Sorry

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The ability to say, “I’m sorry,” is a big part of self-awareness. Countless misunderstandings and conflicts arise because people are unwilling to back down or admit that they made a mistake. The irony is that, in trying to avoid being wrong, people make the situation worse. When something goes awry, it’s much more productive to think in these types of terms:

  • There’s nothing wrong with making a mistake.
  • You don’t have to be right all the time to be a good person.
  • It’s positive to take the other person’s feelings into account.
  • You can learn and grow by examining what you did.
  • You don’t have to win.
  • You don’t have to save face.
  • Admitting you made a mistake is a positive sign of self-awareness.
  • You take responsibility for your actions and how they affect others.
  • You’re healthy enough to not have to dominate or control others.

Saying, “I’m sorry,” doesn’t mean that you let people step all over you, it’s simply an acknowledgement that you’re willing and able to reflect on what you did and work on improving the situation. Self-awareness allows you to step back, evaluate your thoughts and behaviors, take responsibility, and make corrections. What will you do to say, “I’m sorry,” more freely?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Going beyond the Family - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Going beyond the Family

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People who possess self-awareness tend to chart their own courses instead of following rules imposed by outside influences, including their families. A lot of individuals are bound by a sense that they have to adhere to family rules and expectations, but I’ve often noticed that they often live more fulfilled lives when they follow their own inner voices.

Yes, the family is an important social structure that can provide a sense of meaning and belonging, but it is a human construct that has held countless people back. How many people have had to live their lives a certain way because their family tells them to? How many people have had their dreams extinguished because well-meaning family members suggested they follow a certain path? Far too many.

A major reason people are profoundly miserable in life is that they pretend that they enjoy doing what others tell them to do. Trying to be someone we’re not is always a recipe for disaster because the only way we can be truly happy is to do what we love to do, in a way we love doing it, for the reasons we find meaningful. This kind of courageous self-determination often goes against the rules and expectations of our families, but it is the only path toward true fulfillment.

At its very core, being happy means having the self-awareness to be who you really are: an individual who does his or her own thing regardless of what any other person or group says. What will you do to develop self-awareness and go beyond the family?

Cheers,

Guy

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

Self-Awareness Can Help You Completely Change Your Life

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Self-awareness can help you completely change your life because it allows you to take an honest look at yourself and make adjustments based on who you really are deep down inside. Here are some practical steps you can take that will help you change your life:

  1. Think of the thing you want to change.
  2. Think of three things you can do to achieve what you want.
  3. Pick one of those items and start taking action to make it come true.
  4. Check in with yourself to see how you’re progressing. If you’re not seeing results, pick another item and work on it.
  5. Once you’ve achieved what you want, start the process again from the beginning.
  6. Celebrate your accomplishments in a positive way.

The purposeful act of choosing to do something and then following through helps you achieve whatever you want. It’s the act of taking action that, over time, helps you become an entirely different person.

The key to changing completely in life is to move from wishing it would happen to actually doing stuff that will make it come true. Try these steps today on any goal you want to achieve and follow through until it happens. Along the way you will be experiencing change.

Cheers,

Guy

7 Self-Awareness Examples - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

7 Self-Awareness Examples

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Here are seven self-awareness examples:

  • Self-awareness is the ability to understand how your thoughts and behaviors affect you and others.
  • Self-awareness is being able to deal positively with all your emotions.
  • Self-awareness means you’re working on healing your inner hurts.
  • Self-awareness means you believe that you can learn and grow.
  • Self-awareness means you see the possibilities in life beyond what you’re currently doing.
  • Self-awareness is the ability to understand yourself so well that you feel healthy and balanced at the deepest levels of your consciousness.
  • Self-awareness means living in a way that brings you joy and does the same for those around you.

Self-awareness isn’t some nebulous, unattainable concept, it simply means that you understand your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors well enough to treat yourself and the people around you well. Try working on any of the items we’ve listed here and you’ll start feeling what it’s like to be self-aware.

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy