Self Awareness 2

On my previous post I asked you to see if you could find space in your life. I hope you did, because this post  is about using that space you separated to have a meeting with yourself. Now, the following diagram looks funny, unprofessional, crooked and just too  simple; but that's the idea! When you start to think of something, of a goal, a plan or a strategy, at first it looks funny, unachievable, unorganized , it's unprofessional and crooked in many ways. But it starts simple. The steps to go through are the difficult part and are often hard to overcome if you don't focus. That's why we have to go step by step.

 

Ok, so the diagram says you are inside, that means you found space to be by yourself whether it was in your room, the kitchen, a park or a library, at an office, in the car; no matter where you found your space try to make sure no one is gonna come and poke your bubble. Once there whatever it is that you want, you have to put it out. This works one thing at a time. From the previous post, the situation was that Mr. Troubled  wasn't happy with his job and the fact that he lived check by check. Now, that's two things that he can't fix at the same time. He has to fix the easiest one which of course is  his check. By pointing out the things you want to solve and highlighting  the easiest one you are actually getting out of the big red circle. Once you have chosen what you want to work with, the rest are  specific short steps that you can't skip:

• Plan: you plan with a goal in mind. In our example Mr. Troubled needs to find out how to manage his financial situation so he won't have to live check by check. This is his goal. He may start by preparing a list of expenses, setting a budget and following that budget until he catches up with his debts and can spare some money for fun without affecting his payments. The planning will present to you many options. Mr. Troubled can order his finances in many different ways but he has to choose the best one that fits him or the one he can follow more easily with the best results.
• Options: what do we do if we have 2,3,4 ways to achieve what we are planning for? We choose from the options we get, the one we can actually accomplish, the one we can actually follow. Remember that our goal is to get from the problems side to the solutions side or goal. This might take some time, you have to analyze what you can do best with what is given to you.
• Choosing: be conscious of whatever you chose to do. Be sure that you know what you chose and how you are going to accomplish your decision. It's not just deciding on something and expect things to change, you have to be certain that you can make it work according to your capacities.
• Deciding: this is more of an attitude than an action (decisive). It involves feeling sure that it will work and having confidence that if you do it the way you are planning it, it's going to work. It also moves you towards a definite (your definite) goals. This is our first drive.
  
• Passion, wanting, desire: we can plan many things, or want to do many others, but if  you don't  feel passion, desire and wanting towards whatever it is that you want, there is no way you will get to something. These are our second drives. I call drives the things that push us to do something by pure will and desire and not due to a feeling of obligation, unwillingness or just to get it out of the way. Mr. Troubled apart from wanting to get out of his problem he really needs a desire to better himself and his life so he can make the right decisions. Is not about getting out of the hole, is wanting to never fall in it again. We see these 3 things on top of the  circle because without reaching them we will never complete the self awareness cycle.You will always be in the initial stages of planning and viewing options but never get to the drive to push you all the way around.
  
• Manifestation: simply put, you see something that wasn't there come to being. Now, here you can't stop to admire your success, you can watch it grow but have to keep acting the way you have to maintain it. If Mr. Troubled had success with his budgeting plan for his check, he can't start spending like crazy just because he sees that some money is available after he pays his bills. He would do well on starting to save some. A lot of people get all the way up to here and on this extremely easy and comfortable step, they fail and fall back. Maybe because they where too confident. On this stage you have to keep it going, device a new plan to make  the first one better or start a new project. No matter which one you choose you have to go back in to the self awareness cycle. But be happy that you achieved your first goal through it.

Self awareness is easy if you start little by little to see that most of your problems you can fix and figure out by yourself. And ask for help only when needed. That's all it takes to be conscious of ones own capacities. There are many aspects about being self aware that we are not aware of and little by little I will share them here. You learned how to be aware of yourself instead of blaming all to an external influence. Look for your internal influence and be helped by it.

Self Awareness

I will start by the most basic and (to my understanding) the most important awareness you need to develop, YOURS. How aware are you of your situation, of what you want or what you have? You aren't! You probably live a busy life and to stop to think of this is a waste of time you think. But I must tell you is not.

On this post and the next I want to share with you a self awareness path that I discovered by myself through a lot of my life experiences, so follow me, it's an easy journey that we seldom do but to make a habit of doing it will reward you for a life time!


Separate the you from the rest of the world. At first I thought I was being selfish by thinking of me and focusing in just my goals and interests but the truth is we should all help ourselves first in order to be able to help others ( I know this might bring different opinions but I'm more than happy to discuss them). Mentally and spiritually we are attached to no one but ourselves ( we also have spiritual attachments to our religion or beliefs but the first attachment is inside us). Your mind and spirit need space, if you don't find them room for thought once a day or tow or three times a week the familiar words of I'm too busy, I need vacations, I'm tired of working, I'm under a lot of stress, may take over as an excuse for not thinking clearly and go to the easy road of enjoying the moment either by having a few drinks or hanging out uncontrollably with friends, spending money unwisely and loosing sight of your situation. To use this space efficiently, we only need to be alone. So every time you need to have an encounter with yourself try to be alone. And don't be afraid to speak out loud for yourself, this actually helps. Here is an article I wrote in the form of an exercise that you might want to try: How to get to Know Yourself

As an example to this self help exercise I will use the following situation: Mr. Troubled has a job he don't like much and he lives check by check.... every day hoping to get a better job or a raise but he is almost certain that's not going to happen. Mr. Troubled has two problems here, he lives check by check and  hates his job. Now if this where you, what would you do? Yo decide to have a meeting with yourself to get advice from the best advisor, YOU. Remember the definitions about awareness in the previous post, one of them said to be aware of your situation and who is better aware of your situation than you! Don't get me wrong, a good best friend who knows you well and listens is good to help you get in perspective if you can't picture your situation clearly due to all the troublesome thoughts but keep in mind that this is about you, not what other people may think of you or say.

Summing up this post.... uh? what? I haven't finished the exercise? Well I don't have much time to write the full post from one shot so I will cut it in parts but will post as soon as possible. I also think that giving you a huge post full of info will tire you and that's the least of my intentions.But I do want to highlight some points from this post. You have to create your space! This is very important. Life runs too fast and you need room for thinking. You also need to be positive about this awareness attitude. If you think is not going to work it won't work and not because you thought it but because you wont use it well or not at all and you have to respect whatever efforts you make for bettering yourself. Not having respect for what you do is not respecting yourself at all. So while I post the next part why don't you work on looking for periods of space in your daily life when you can have a reunion with you. I will be interested to hear what you found!

AWARENESS

I'll start by giving a simple definitions of the word as well as synonyms. Awareness is "having knowledge of". From there comes a wide assortment of synonyms like consciousness, cognizance, informed, knowledgeable etc... Awareness defined is a combination of all these synonyms. Cognizance is the range of what one can know or understand; range or scope of what is perceived. Consciousness (my favorite definition) is clearer and says "an alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation". Of course here I will not write only about self-awareness but other kind of awareness too. We start with ourselves and can go as far as spacial and temporal awareness.

Awareness is an attitude we need to develop. We can be aware of a lot of things surrounding us but never of all at the same time. We can learn to be more aware of things that we take for granted or ignore and make this practice a habit. Just as we make a habit a late night snack or orange juice for breakfast we can make awareness our new habit. We have the mental potential to do it, and get positive results from it.

What this blog is about.

I have always believed that one of the biggest problems in our society is self-awareness. People live their lives aimlessly without knowing who they are or what they want. Living to fulfill the expectations of a society, a group of people, family or friends can upset the balance of our future. The decisions we make can be made once and sometimes twice in life, so it's best to be sure of what we want, who we are and why are we they way we are. This self-awareness, to be conscious of who we are and then be able to make the right decisions is what shapes us and the whole world.
I will add here (in no definite order) my opinions and thoughts in certain aspects of life but always pointing out that self-awareness (to be aware and conscious of ourselves) should be our first step before doing anything. Aware of our strengths, weakness, abilities, rightfulness , wrongfulness, other people, nature and so on.