How Can I Increase My Self Awareness?

23/08

#self awareness #noticing #confidence #success #happiness

Increasing Self Awareness

Self awareness is claimed to be the doorway to more of almost everything good. What then, is the doorway to increasing self awareness?

Some things are simple and not easy. Meditation is quieting the mind. Simple. Now try it. Yeah, a few seconds, maybe. Increasing self awareness is like that, simple though not necessarily easy. Take heart though, self awareness gets easier the more I tend to it.

What is the payoff? Why bother?

My personal values are the basis of my decision making. Those beliefs drive my behaviour. Behaviour drives results. When I am crystal clear on what I believe, my choice of behaviours also becomes clear. Those behaviours are designed to get me the results I want. Because I am so clear on all of this, my success rate in getting what I want is unusually high compared to others who are not clear. My clarity can attract comments like, ‘there goes a person with a mission’. Determination/tenacity, confidence, extra energy, comfort in the decisions I am making, and more, all grow from clarity about what I truly value, my deeply held beliefs.

The Impact of Crystal Clear Values

How can I become better connected to what I truly value? There are online surveys and Workshops, books and so forth that attempt to identify our values. Thing is, they can feel like a shopping list of what I want my values to be. Not that many people would admit to valuing ‘control’, for instance. Going the other way, we are kind of expected to value ‘love’, and all its cousins. There is a societal ‘should’ list when it comes to values. That means there is also a shouldn’t list. But what is my true internal list?

Values, the real ones, are often rather subtle. It is not until we are pressed up against hard edges of life that true values are expressed (in actions, words, thoughts, emotions). Yet, when we know someone well, have been present when they have gone through challenges, we, sometimes better than they, can name what they value. What a person values is expressed in what they do, not in what they say. It is well documented that when we evaluate ourselves we tend to bend things toward a more favourable than real rating. We also need the truth about us, as seen by others. Be deliberate about noticing yourself. One upgrade is to ask others what they notice about you. And an upgrade to that is to find yourself someone like a Coach to help you get curious about yourself, take you on a journey of self discovery.

Knowticing: The Key to Uncovering True Values

The doorway to noticing the truths about what we truly value is to notice our own actions, watch for and honestly name consistent behaviours (expressions of values). This can be a tough thing to do accurately. We need to be gently relentless in facing how we just behaved, what we truly did and with Acceptance of our human nature, to notice until we knowtice what is actually really true. Knowticing is noticing on steroids, without judgment, just clean, unvarnished, truth… and Acceptance. This is me, I am enough. This is just me being me. Real me.

One very valuable thing that happens when we knowtice is that we become more calm about ourselves. We become more clear about what is important and more willing to change in order to line up actions with our heart and Spirit, less with only our ego driving it’s logic at us all the time. Knowticing is the doorway to increased self awareness. Increased self awareness increases right decisions and right decisions increase right actions. Right actions (right for us) feeds greater success and ultimately greater happiness. Yes! Knowtice.

Joseph Seiler MCC 2011-2022

Ready to explore greater happiness? Let’s chat, join me for a free connection call here.