Work Environment and Self-Awareness

Welcome to The Self-Awareness Guy Ver1 - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Welcome to The Self-Awareness Guy Ver1

/ / Self-Awareness / , , , , ,

I’m self-awareness consultant, workshop and retreat facilitator Guy Farmer. I love helping kind, creative people take a deeper look at their thoughts, emotions and behaviors and learn how to live consciously and deliberately. It’s wonderful to see open-minded, courageous individuals let go of what doesn’t work and discover new ways to enjoy deeply fulfilling and meaningful lives.

I wrote about self-awareness for many years at my previous website, Self-Awareness Workshops, https://www.theselfawarenessguy.com, and decided to apply my knowledge and experience to transition from a corporate training based practice to a person-centered approach.

Self-awareness is the process of discovering who you really are and living your life authentically, based on who you are deep inside. I started this blog as a resource for anyone interested in taking a candid look at themselves and understanding why they think, feel and behave the way they do. Your comments and questions are welcome.

Cheers,

Guy

2 Self-Awareness Exercises - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

2 Self-Awareness Exercises

/ / Self-Awareness / , , , ,

Self-awareness refers to your ability to understand how your emotions, thoughts, and actions affect you, the people around you, and the world in general. Here are two self-awareness exercises to help you start getting to know yourself better:

The Writing about an Emotion Exercise

  1. Sit in a comfortable, quiet area with paper and pen and think of some emotion that pops up in your life and causes you some kind of discomfort.
  2. Name the emotion by using one of these four words: happiness, sadness, anger, fear.
  3. Once you’ve named the emotion write it down.
  4. Under the emotion write down three undesirable results that emotion has created in your life.
  5. After each result you’ve written, jot down the actual results you’d like to see, the positive side of things.
  6. Once you have the positives written down, pick one of the positives you’d like to work on and decide on one small thing you can do to make it happen.
  7. Keep taking small actions to reach the positive result you would like.

This exercise works by encouraging you to focus consciously on what emotions you feel and to direct them in a positive direction instead of letting them run your life. The idea is to repeat this exercise for any emotion that is causing you discomfort. It builds self-awareness by asking you to carefully examine what you feel. At first, it will seem hard but, with practice, you’ll get good at repeating these steps.

The What I Did Exercise

  1. Think of a time when you did something that hurt someone, write it down.
  2. Write down how you feel about hurting that person.
  3. Write down what they might have felt.
  4. Write down ten positive things you could have done instead.
  5. Picture the the scenario in your mind again and insert each of the alternatives into the scenario. Repeat the process through all ten positive alternatives.
  6. Write down what you would do differently if that kind of situation arose in your life again.

This exercise encourages you to examine some action you did in the past that hurt another person and think about what you might have done differently. It raises your self-awareness by asking you to consider what you did and provide a positive alternative. It also asks you to think about other people’s perspectives and how they might have seen the event.

Try doing these two exercises a couple of times a week until they seem second nature. The idea is to continue becoming more self-aware by carefully examining what you feel, think, and do.

Cheers,

Guy

5 Quick Ways Self-Aware Leaders Improve Their Workplaces - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

5 Quick Ways Self-Aware Leaders Improve Their Workplaces

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / , , ,

I help leaders improve their workplaces through thinking and behaving in positive ways, starting with increasing self-awareness. Sadly, I see a lot of practices that lead in the opposite direction. It’s amazing how much time and effort many leaders spend doing things that don’t work simply because they’ve never done it any other way. Most leaders mean well and want to create happy workplaces but lack self-awareness and just haven’t found out how to do it yet. Here are five quick ways to improve your workplace starting today.

1.  Praise Employees

Start praising your employees today for the work they do well and they’ll be much more likely to repeat the behavior and want to do other things.

2.  Start Listening

Listen to what your employees say without jumping in or offering advice and you’ll have access to richer and more complete information so you can make better decisions.

3.  Don’t Micromanage

Step back and let your employees do their thing.  Don’t offer unsolicited advice but be there for them if they ask for help.

4.  Be Kind

Behave kindly, treat people well, appreciate everyone and do things that build employees up so they feel great about themselves.

5.  Interview Your Employees

Find out what the talents and abilities are of each of your employees.  Use this knowledge to work with them to find ways they can do work that fits what they enjoy doing.

Try these five ideas starting today and you will notice that your workplace will become a more enjoyable environment. There’s no magic to this process, you’re simply building a foundation based on valuing employees and encouraging them to do a great job.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and improve your workplace?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware Leaders Know How to Keep Their Employees Motivated - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware Leaders Know How to Keep Their Employees Motivated

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / , ,

It can be challenging to keep employees motivated in any organization in the face of deadlines, workloads, interpersonal conflicts, rules and directives. Self-aware leaders are able to motivate their employees even when times get tough because they understand how to help people inspire themselves instead of forcing them to think and act a certain way. Here are some practical ideas on how to keep your employees motivated:

1. Praise employees. Catch people doing things well and let them know that you value their work. Praise desirable behaviors, it will increase the likelihood that people will behave that way in the future. Reinforce positive behaviors rather than correcting people when they’ve, “Done something wrong.”

2. Design and implement motivational activities. Create a weekly program in your workplace where people celebrate each other. You’ll appreciate how much you can boost morale by setting aside twenty minutes weekly so people can praise each other for a job well done.

3. Assign people meaningful work. Learn what your employees’ talents and interests are and give them duties based on things they enjoy doing. People feel more energized and important when they are given work that means something to them rather than being required to do unfulfilling tasks.

4. Value people equally. Stay away from having a favorite employee who gets special treatment or extraordinary attention. Treat everyone equally and emphasize that each person is vital to your organization’s success. Show people they matter by appreciating their unique input and efforts.

5. Have a plan to keep people motivated. Motivation doesn’t happen unless you commit to creating a culture that builds and supports it over time. Focus on a long-term process and have key people continue training others and motivating people throughout the organization.

Keeping your employees motivated requires commitment, attention and ongoing support. Try the five ideas we’ve talked about here, practice them over time and you’ll enjoy the benefits of a motivated workforce.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and keep your employees motivated?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness, Effective Communication, and Interviewing for the Ideal Candidate - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness, Effective Communication, and Interviewing for the Ideal Candidate

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / , , ,

Self-aware leaders and organizations can use effective communication skills like active listening and open-ended questions to increase their chances of hiring excellent people. Let’s look at how you can use these skills to understand your job candidates better and increase the likelihood that you’ll find a person who is a good fit for your organization.

Open ended questions area a valuable tool to help you get more information in less time. When you’re developing open-ended interview questions, think in terms of asking questions that allow people to answer without saying yes or no such as, “In what ways does your previous experience relate to A or B,” or “Tell me more about your philosophy on A or B and how it would impact C and D,” or “How would you deal with A, B, C?”

Open-ended questions allow the candidate to demonstrate proficiency in whatever area you would like to highlight. They also help you steer the conversation away from proscribed questioning that tends to elicit yes or no or canned answers. They make your job easier because the candidate is required to show you what they know and tell you about himself or herself without you having to guess.

Active listening is another key skill to help you obtain information that you might not get in a standard interview. Practice asking a question and then not talking at all. Let the candidate tell you about their perspective and only prompt when absolutely necessary and, then, only to encourage them to keep expanding on the subject. You don’t have to direct the conversation so it makes the process more enjoyable. Remember that you can’t listen actively if you’re busy talking.

Practice these skills and you’ll get to the core of what you want to learn about the candidate and make better hiring decisions. It’s remarkable what happens when we simply listen to people telling us about themselves.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and practice effective communication in your interviews?

Cheers,

Guy

Leaders Who Lack Self-Awareness Decrease Workplace Morale - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Leaders Who Lack Self-Awareness Decrease Workplace Morale

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / , , ,

A prevalent leadership style in our culture is to lack self-awareness, run around all day telling people what to do and, in the process, decrease workplace morale. Some innovators ignore beneficial advice and keep doing things that lead in a negative direction. Other visionaries hover over their employees to make sure they’re, “Doing it the right way.” These types of leadership behaviors are the same as telling people that they aren’t smart enough and can’t possibly do things on their own which, in turn, leads to sagging morale. Here are ten tips to help you keep this kind of workplace going and make sure you all enjoy low morale.

  1. Don’t praise people unless you’re trying to get them to do something for you.
  2. Always point out what people aren’t doing correctly and use it as an opportunity to tell them what to do again and again.
  3. Behave inconsistently: be stern one minute, angry the next and occasionally nice but not too nice because that shows weakness.
  4. Always stick to the rules regardless of extenuating circumstances or common-sense concerns.
  5. Focus on practicing behaviors that don’t work like micromanaging, forcing people to do things they don’t want to do or shouting at them.
  6. Tell people they mean a lot to you and your organization and then pay them inadequately and expect them to work like machines.
  7. Stifle creativity by discounting people’s ideas and telling them to stick to the way things have always been done.
  8. Let people know how lucky they are to work for your organization and remind them that it’s a tough world out there if they can’t handle it in here.
  9. Value profits and productivity over people at all times.
  10. Stay away from letting people use their genuine talents and abilities or do work that’s meaningful to them.

Many well-meaning leaders design workplaces very similar to this. It’s not that they’re evil or mean, it’s just that this is the way things have been done for a long time. Your challenge as a leader is to find ways to be self-aware and do the opposite of the examples we’ve mentioned here in order to create a workplace where people feel valued and morale soars. The process starts by examining your own behavior and taking action to move in a positive direction.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and improve morale in your workplace?

Cheers,

Guy

How to Increase Self Awareness in Communication - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

How to Increase Self Awareness in Communication

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / , , ,

Here’s how to increase self-awareness in communication:

  • Listen actively.

It’s that simple. The problem is that our culture teaches us to interrupt, interject, dispute, cajole, get angry, become defensive, fight back, and any number of things that absolutely do not improve communication. Active listening is an excellent tool used by self-aware people who understand that communicating with another person is not about imposing one’s will, it means learning about the other individual and gathering information. Here’s how you listen actively:

  • Try to communicate with people one on one or in small groups.
  • Communicate at times when everyone is able to participate fully.
  • Set aside a quiet place to talk about meaningful things.
  • Sit on the same level, not separated by a desk or other objects.
  • Make time to talk thoroughly, without interruptions.
  • Decide with the other person what the topic at hand is, both of you agree on what it is, no one imposes the topic.
  • Once the topic is decided, let the other person tell their story.
  • While the other person is talking, the only thing you should do is listen carefully to everything they have to say. Don’t think of how to rebut, or argue, or contradict, or direct the conversation. Just listen intently.
  • When the other person stops talking, and only then, ask any open-ended questions you might have and then let the other person talk again.
  • Repeat this whole process every time you talk with someone.

Active listening is the opposite of our standard way of communicating where we pile on each other and hope someone understands something. People who possess self-awareness are healthy and comfortable enough to give the other person the space to simply talk. This process will seem difficult at first but, over time, it will become your new way to communicate much more effectively.

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy