Self Awareness Series

This is the first part of  Self Awareness  ( Improving, In a Team, As a Leader/Mentor)

By definition according to Google 

self-a·ware·ness

/ˈˌself əˈwernəs/

noun

noun: self-awareness

1. conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires.

   "the process can be painful but it leads to greater self-awareness"

Now that you have read the definition let's take a ride down the road a bit, Conscious knowledge, Ok seems pretty easy. Is it though? How often do we as individuals think about anything we are doing with "Conscious Knowledge " or have we become so enthralled in our day to day activities that we are often on auto pilot not taking the time enough to really think of "One's Self"?

I know for some the answer very well might be an easy "I don't have a problem with that" however for many others the answer might be very different with me being included in the majority wondering how to really answer if I am going at a pace that I am not taking my self. How do I really feel about what is happening in my day at work or home. Am I going through the motions to get through the day? If that is the case then you really should think about the true reason you are where you are at in a job, career or relationship; this will be another topic we explore later.  

So back to being self aware individually. We all to often get mixed up in the example above of going to fast through our day to take a moment to step back and truly see how one's self has achieved all of the right components that you set out to when you jumped out of the sake this morning. I often put myself in another's shoes or point of view to evaluate myself asking a few simple questions.

1. Is that the person I want to truly be.

2. Am I pushing the envelope enough or too far?

3. Would my Father or Grandfather be proud or disappointed in the way I am doing things.

4. Am I happy or am I just showing happy. ( this is a tough one for me)

I can definitively say that I do not step back enough and take inventory of the 4 items above or take in consideration my own feelings as much as I should. It is not uncommon for me to sweep a situation or feeling under the rug just to keep the peace or not to disrupt the bigger picture. Many times it might be something small or of no real consequence if I were to bring it up or not. Unfortunately from my experience those items tend to stack up and build into a much larger issue in which I have to deal with resulting in the wrong people yielding the brunt of the frustration or venting.

What is the fix you may ask. There are likely a thousand different ways to answer how we can make being more self aware a higher priority. Everyone is going to be different based on personality and social ability or inability along with being able to Slow down just a little to look back over your shoulder and think about your own set of questions. Feel free to use mine.

This is just the surface of the question in this series. I would encourage you to provide me back some transparent feedback either directly to this post or email me at paul@paulrealini.com. I will keep everything anonymous should you prefer