Self-Consciousness

Self-Awareness Can Help You Change Your Life

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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 Means Treating Yourself and Others Well

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As you build your self-awareness, you’ll likely understand that how you treat yourself often predicts how you will treat others. If you feel horrible about yourself, chances are you’ll treat others the same way. There are countless cautionary examples of people who don’t feel healthy inside and the destruction they wreak on their own psyches, the people they interact with, and the world. If you feel great, then you’re bound to create good vibes in the world, which is what happy, balanced people do.

A great way to feel wonderful about yourself is to increase your self-awareness by consciously looking deep inside and deciding who the real you is. Who are you at your very core? What do you really want to do with your life? Once you answer questions like these you can start doing things to live authentically. As you become a more fulfilled and balanced person, you’ll naturally treat yourself and other people wonderfully for all the right reasons.

How do you treat yourself and others?

Cheers,

Guy

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

Leadership, Lack of Self-Awareness, and Workplace Communication

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Most leaders will tell you that communication is vital to a well-functioning workplace. Then they demonstrate their lack of self-awareness by screaming, ignoring, dominating, misunderstanding or annoying their employees. There is a huge gap between what leaders say they know about effective communication and what they actually practice. Here are five of the biggest workplace communication mistakes.

1.  Not listening. How can you gather the information you need or figure out what is going on in your workplace if you don’t listen? You can’t. Listening is the most vital skill to acquire information, promote collaboration and build trust in the workplace.

2.  Assuming you know what the other person is going to say. Cutting people off because you’ve “heard it all before” or you’re irritated is a great way to tell your employees they don’t matter. Try listening to your employees without interrupting before you decide you know what they’re talking about.

3.  Thinking of the next thing you want to say instead of what the other person is saying. Many leaders are obsessed with the next wonderful thing they’re going to say. Fight this urge by clearing your mind before and while you’re listening to your employees and focusing on understanding what they’re saying.

4.  Getting angry or upset and reacting negatively to what you’re hearing. Your employees will be much less likely to share information or ideas with you if you always fly off the handle. Communication doesn’t have to be a constant struggle. Work on controlling your own emotions so you can communicate on a deeper level with your employees.

5.  Not setting aside time to talk. Hurried conversations often end up in misunderstandings because the participants haven’t devoted the time necessary to get on the same page. Make sure your important conversations are carried out with plenty of time for each participant to understand what’s being said.

Do you recognize yourself in any of these five concepts? If so, no worries, simply make small adjustments to develop your self-awareness and move toward a more balanced communication style that will get you better results. Effective communication is about practicing positive behaviors every day, not just saying you do. What will you do to increase your self-awareness and practice effective communication?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Helps You Choose Courage over Fear

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Self-awareness helps you choose courage over fear because life has a way of creating challenging situations whether you want them or not. When these difficult circumstances present themselves you have a choice as to whether you think and behave based on fear or courage. Each approach leads you in a different direction and only one helps you live a more balanced, happy life. Lets look at a few examples of the difference between the two:

Fear: I’ve always done it this way.
Courage: I can try something new.

Fear: I hate change.
Courage: I see change as an opportunity.

Fear: That issue is too daunting and complex.
Courage: I can resolve the issue little by little.

Fear: I need to control everything and everyone around me.
Courage: I’m fine with letting go of control.

Fear: That’s unfamiliar and strange.
Courage: I can learn something from it.

Fear: Self-awareness is for people who eat granola.
Courage: I’m willing to learn about myself and others.

Living in fear limits your opportunities while thinking and acting with courage helps you deal with any situation that comes your way. The idea in life is to think and behave in ways that help you be more flexible and resilient, not less. What will you do to develop self-awareness so you can choose courage over fear?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Can Help You Practice Effective Team Building

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A lot of leaders and organizations want to practice effective team building but don’t have the self-awareness to actually do it. I often hear people in workplaces saying things out loud that illustrate why they aren’t building teams, but they’re not aware they’re doing it. People have beliefs hardwired inside them that they don’t even realize get in the way of bringing employees together and encouraging them to collaborate. Here are ten of the most prevalent beliefs that show a lack of self-awareness and that block team building.

  1. They’ll never get along. If you believe people won’t get along they’ll prove you right almost every time.
  2. We’re rugged individualists. Individuals functioning in this way aren’t as adept at working in teams as people who believe in collaboration.
  3. If you want it done right do it yourself. If you’re doing everything it leaves your team stranded and feeling like they can’t do anything right.
  4. Teams must have a strong leader. It’s often the strong leader that gets in the way of everyone having a voice and participating actively.
  5. Collaboration was fine in kindergarten but this is the real world. If you believe this then I know how you practice team building.
  6. Everybody has a specific job. This keeps people firmly in their boxes and discourages creativity.
  7. Team building is secondary to productivity. Many leaders overlook the idea that if you build a strong foundation of high-functioning teams you become more productive.
  8. Team building is too touchy-feely. Leaders who believe this create workplaces that only allow three feelings: forced happiness, fear and anger.
  9. I don’t have to participate. Nothing says you lack commitment to team building than not participating in it with your employees.
  10. I don’t have time for team building. This is like saying you don’t have time to build a roof over your building because you’ve got to get to work and then it rains and soaks everything.

Self-aware leaders understand that team building is a vital building block to create workplaces where people interact positively and help each other get things done. The way you actually build teams is to have the self-awareness to objectively review and understand the team building strengths and areas for improvement in your workplace and take action in small increments over time. You might offer ongoing team building training or provide opportunities for people to work together to solve problems. Some organizations form brainstorming groups that tackle thorny issues. The idea is to gradually build a workplace where working collaboratively is encouraged. What will you do to create a culture of self-awareness and team building in your organization?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Can Help You Talk about Difficult Topics

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Self-awareness can help you talk about difficult topics with others because, the more you know yourself, the better able you are to have complex conversations with others.

There’s a frequently recited adage that you shouldn’t talk about religion and politics in polite company, advice created by people who don’t know how to talk about charged topics without getting angry or hurt. The key to effective communication is for the participants to have the self-awareness to realize that other people’s ideas, beliefs, values and opinions aren’t necessarily an attack on their own, just another perspective. Here are some ideas that will help you talk about difficult issues in your personal or professional life:

  • Go in with good intentions. Keep an open mind and engage in the conversation with the idea that you’re going to learn something and that you’ll do everything you can to make sure things go well.
  • Assume the other person isn’t trying to hurt you. Interact based on the premise that you’re having a positive two-way conversation, not that you’re walking into a life-threatening ambush.
  • Listen to the other person. Don’t talk, interrupt or give your opinion, just listen actively and learn about the other person’s point of view whether you agree with it or not.
  • Practice self-awareness. Be aware of your own thoughts, feelings and actions and manage them so you don’t get angry or defensive.
  • Stay calm. Communication doesn’t have to be a contact sport, it can be calm and pleasant.
  • Resist the urge to fight back. Increase your chances of interacting positively by keeping yourself under control.
  • Avoid participating in an argument. Look at the conversation as an opportunity to learn about another perspective instead of creating conflict.
  • Realize the other person’s point of view is just a point of view. No matter what someone says, it doesn’t mean that you have to change your values or beliefs.
  • Know when to back off. Sometimes people aren’t ready or able to talk about a certain topic. Let them know you’re available to talk when they’re ready.

Individuals who understand and master these skills are able to talk about any issue because their communication style shifts from confrontational to actively listening to what other people are saying. Virtually nothing someone else says merits an explosive reaction unless you decide it does. The key to effective communication is to move from reacting viscerally to consciously working on listening, learning and getting along with the other person. What will you do to increase your self-awareness so you’re able to talk about difficult topics?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy