Examples of Self-Awareness

Self-Awareness Is the Opposite of Submission

I’ve always been profoundly puzzled by people who give up all their power to some authority figure. Self-awareness is the opposite of submission: It means speaking your mind and talking about what’s meaningful to you, even when it’s uncomfortable. It’s exploring parts of the universe that other people don’t dare examine and saying and doing things that upset the status quo. It’s living genuinely and questioning the established order. It’s the opposite of submitting to some outside entity.

When you give up your own decision-making ability you give away your self. What does that leave you? Nothing. No amount of riches or status can make up for not living authentically, the voice inside you will always be reminding you of who your really are, regardless of how hard you try to silence it. I love connecting with people who value self awareness because they chart their own course rather than submitting to rules imposed by others who are completely out of control.

How do you emphasize self-awareness over submission?

Cheers,
Guy

Welcome to The Self-Awareness Guy Ver1

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, http://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

Beginning Your Self-Awareness Journey

Beginning your self-awareness journey requires examining what you actually think, feel and do in the physical world. It’s one thing to say that you do something but it’s quite another to understand how it affects you and others and consciously decide to direct it. A lot of people recognize that they do certain things but don’t take the additional step of working toward improving what they do or creating change in their lives.

When you’re genuinely building self-awareness, you’re in an ongoing process of examining what you do in life and consciously moving in a positive direction. You listen to your inner voice, let it guide you toward who you really are deep inside, and the rest of your life follows. You can begin this process at any time, all it requires is your decision to look at yourself as objectively as possible. What will you do to begin your self-awareness journey?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Dealing with Complex Issues

A big part of practicing self-awareness is being able to examine the complexities in the world through thinking critically and considering issues from more than one perspective.

It’s easy to look at everything from one point of view, you just make a quick decision based on what you’ve always thought, but I prefer living in a world where things don’t always have an immediate answer.

A lot of people are afraid of dealing with complex issues like death or self-awareness, but it’s in those types of difficult topics that we discover the meaning of life. It’s simpler to subsist avoiding the deeper issues in life but we stay stuck at that level, which doesn’t lead to great meaning or fulfillment. I’ve found it far more productive to welcome ambiguity and discomfort and use them to learn and grow.

Life is full of complicated, uncomfortable, difficult situations, but you’ll be better able to deal with them if you understand who you really are at your core and are willing to use self-awareness to move forward positively.

What will you do to become more self-aware and deal with complex issues?

Cheers,

Guy

12 Examples of Self-Awareness

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

2 Self-Awareness Exercises

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

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

The Self-Awareness Guy