4 Secrets to Master Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is partly knowledge about the self: strengths and weaknesses, vulnerabilities, passions, idiosyncrasies and normalness. It can be derived in many ways from many sources. Your thoughts are a storyteller, we tell ourselves stories about who we are and that will give us our identity. Our self-concept is our self-identity. It is our image. The conception of who we are – it is our idea of our self. This concept of self relates to how we think, understand and know our self.

Our thoughts and deeds are affected by our daily actions and interactions. Our beliefs and opinions about our self can seem to become a heavy weight for us. They can almost seem to take on substance of their own and, in effect, weigh us down. This situation can develop during our upbringing. Ideas are planted, about us and our capabilities and can be planted deep within us. Here they can lay dormant and hidden. Alas they can become difficult to affect or change or remove.

Be selfish about your thoughts:

For most of us, one of the most difficult challenges is our relationship with our own minds. Our minds are crazy places and each of us has no choice but to live with our own minds each and every day. The crux of mindfulness and meditation is learning how to be in a better relationship with our own minds. To put this in the simplest of terms, thinking mean, negative and critical thoughts is hurtful to ourselves, and learning to choose what we think is the best way to not avoid it. We are each responsible for taking good care of ourselves. We each have a duty to ensure we feel safe in our own bodies and minds. We can only accomplish this by being choosy about our thoughts.

Who Controls the Mind?

In simple terms, the mind is divided into two main aspects – the conscious and the subconscious mind. The conscious mind is made up of our surface thoughts, wishes, desires and aspirations. The subconscious mind is the realm of our automatic and habitual thought patterns and beliefs – the stuff we do when we don’t even know we’re doing it. 

The function of your subconscious mind is to store and retrieve data. Its job is to ensure that you respond exactly the way you are programmed. Your subconscious mind makes everything you say and do fit a pattern consistent with your self-concept.

Compassion is the feeling you get when you want to help someone who is suffering. You see the person standing on the side of the road holding a sign asking for help. You automatically think if you had a bunch of money you would help them out. Guess what, you are suffering too. Your inner self is holding up a huge sign that says “Help Needed:  I’m tired, depressed, hungry, and emotionally drained”. It is important that you pay attention to your own signs. If you ignore those inner signs when you first start hearing them, they will become louder and present themselves in a negative way, like through panic attacks or ulcers.

Write your thoughts down.

• When you write down your ideas you automatically focus your full attention on them. Few if any of us can write one thought and think another.

Your thoughts sound good in your head and once you write your ideas, it makes you realize how much actions needed to be taken in order to bring these thought to reality.

• Ideas don’t stay for long.
  Fine or awesome ideas can pop up at the strangest times but they tend to not stay for long in your head. So you need to capture them fast or they are gone in the wind.

• Remind yourself of what to focus on.
  Often, we get caught up in our everyday business and lose track of what is most important. To keep yourself on track – instead of just keeping yourself busy with low-priority tasks – simply write down a reminder that can stop your thoughts when you see it and guide you back on track again. It can for example be your current major goal. I also like reminders like: “is this useful?” and “what is the most important thing I can do right now?” Write down your reminder and put that reminder where you can’t avoid seeing throughout your day.

• It helps you process your emotions.
  Writing down what’s on our mind is a great way to work through inner conflict or process your feelings around a particular situation. It’s similar to talking about a situation through with a friend, except it’s a useful way of strengthening your self-soothing abilities and enhancing your self-knowledge.

Master your belief’s

What is a belief?

Often in life we talk about things without having a clear idea of what they really are. Most people treat belief as if it’s a thing, when really all it is, is a feeling a certainty about something. If you say you believe that you’re intelligent, all you’re really saying is “I feel certain that I’m intelligent”. That sense of certainty allows you to tap into resources that allow you to produce intelligent results. We all have the answers inside of us for virtually anything or at least we have access to the answers we need through others but often our lack of belief of certainty causes us not to be able to use the capacity that resides within us.

Your beliefs shape your inner world and manifest into experiences in your outer world.  Every thought you hold as “the truth” ends up creating what you see around you.

So, what are the beliefs about yourself that make you feel super jazzed and excited about in life?

• Embrace the unknown

Stepping out of our comfort zone can be a daunting prospect. Change for many symbolizes uncertainty, unfamiliar territory and a feeling of anxiety caused by the apprehension of not knowing what lies ahead. By taking a moment to clear your thoughts and ground ourselves through meditation and controlled breathing, the realization that there is nothing to fear and so much to gain becomes easier to visualize. Instead of filling your head with worrying thoughts that will do nothing other than drain your energy, focus on the excitement and joy that new challenges can bring, images of the new friends that you will meet along the way and benefits that a different environment can bring.

• Share your knowledge

Too many people hold their knowledge close to their chests, refusing to share it with others in fear of losing self-control and relinquishing power of their small self-built empire. By sharing our knowledge freely with others, not only provides an indescribable feeling of self-satisfaction, but allows us to learn valuable lessons from the power that education can bring to the gratitude of those with whom who have shared your skills.