Have you ever felt out of control in your life? Have you ever felt like you did not understand why certain things were happening to you? Have you ever felt like you were just going through motions? If you can relate to the above situations, then you know what it feels like to lack awareness.
In this article I am going to try to give you all my understanding of what awareness is and why it is important to you and exactly why you want to become aware. Finally, I will give you some tips and tools to get started today!
What is Awareness?
Awareness is what businesses pay for to consulting firms. Awareness is what psychologists do. Awareness is your friend telling you how to improve your paper. All of the above scenarios describe awareness. A definition that unites all of them would be this – ability to look at yourself and your activities through an outsider’s point of view.
Look back to the time, when you wrote an essay. You were done. You thought it was perfect. You were ready to submit to your professor or teacher. Yet, just because you have been told to do it, you ask for your friend to proof read it. All of the sudden, grammar errors, weird constructs, incomplete sentences, lack of coherent thoughts spill out of the paper. Then you sit back and wonder: “How did I miss it all? After all I read it so many times and checked it and double checked it!” I have a simple answer – you lacked awareness.
Being aware is all about writing your essay and being able to critique it. Being aware is doing something that you should not being doing and catching and stopping yourself from doing it. Being aware is like having a personal life coach with you at all times, except that life coach is yourself.
Why You Need To Become Aware
Becoming aware of your own actions and thoughts will change your life. You will be able to make better decisions because, you will be able to catch yourself before going the wrong direction. Your life quality will improve as you will be able to discover habits that are not beneficial for you and get rid of them. You will become more effective at getting things done because you will be able to self critique yourself. Too good to be true? Hardly. Here is why.
How many times have you critiqued papers and people were thankful for it? How many times your friends came to you for advice and were thankful for helping them making a better decision? How many times you caught people doing thing that they were not aware of? I know I have done quite often, but yet, often times I have failed to become my own consultant. It was very frustrating, but yet, I believe, I have found a solution that works for me. It is only my hope that it will work for you as well.
How to Become Aware
This is only beginners guide on how to become aware. I am not going to reveal any secrets that will change your life over night. It is all hard work and requires persistence and patience. So here it goes.
- The first and most basic and the most effective technique and practice that one can engage in is meditation. It has been practiced for thousands of years and the benefits of meditation have been scientifically proven. Through meditation you can clear your mind, still your thoughts and emotions, which allows room for clearer thinking and increased awareness. I have documented my personal experiences with meditation in this site as well.
- If you are already practicing meditation, then the next step would be to study. Go back to basics and study habits and people and how they work and why they work the way they do. Read books or blogs. There are plenty of resources out there to increase your awareness. One of my favorites are StevePavlina.com. Here you will find more resources than you will ever want on creating and breaking habits. One article to get your started could be the following: Raising Awareness Through Multiple Perspectives .
- The next best thing to studying (or vice versa) is experiencing. That is make friends with people who are already have a high level of awareness. You will able to quickly learn on what they do and how they do. You will able to ask questions and just by being around them, you will become more aware.
- Ask for feedback. That is – ask be criticized! Counter-intuitive? Hardly. People love to criticize. This way you will learn about what they see when they look at what you do and say. Just make sure you are asking for an opinion from honest individuals (for obvious reasons). The benefits of that is that you will able to easier catch yourself in the action, word or thought and correct yourself on the spot.
- Practice. SPOILER – This might take years to accomplish. I am still on my way, I am still learning and growing. My belief is that if you do that above mentioned things often enough, you will be able to become more aware and cause a change in your life.
Good luck on your journey and become your own consultant and coach in life! Thank you for reading. And feel free to give me feedback to help me grow and change and in turn help you grow and change!
6 Comments
Hey Tom,
Asking for feedback is a super-effective way to gain awareness over what you do – and maybe even how you live.
Most people are afraid of criticism, so they live in a self-shielded bubble, thinking that what they feel about their work and life is the reality. They leave it at that.
But the thing is–just like you mentioned–people ask others for feedback and are grateful to get it. Friends and others you know want to help. They want your stuff to be better (most people, anyway).
By reaching out to others whose opinion and taste you trust and respect, you can get an insane amount of insight from an outsider’s perspective. How you can improve your writing, music, business, relationships, whatever.
I know for my music, playing early versions of tunes to a select group of ears whose taste I trust has done wonders. They notice things with a fresh perspective. “This riff seems to rub the bassline the wrong way.” “The build-up could be more exciting.” “I like this part, you should repeat it more.”
By implementing the comments that make sense to me, my tunes go from good to great (hopefully). There’s no way I could do that if I didn’t play my tunes to others. Unless I don’t listen to them for months, then come back with fresh ears. But that takes WAY too long, so screw that :)
Nice reminder to embrace constructive feedback – it does wonders to gain awareness of what we’re doing and how we’re living.
Great stuff as always,
Oleg
Hey Oleg:
I appreciate your input! Feedback is probably one of the most underlooked self-development tools. Sometimes people just need to get over their fears and ask for other opinions. Yet it is important not to use that as a validation for your actions, but rather just as facts of what you are doing.
Best,
Tomas
Sveikas! Labai idomiai parasyta. Aciu kad pasidalini teigiamomis mintimis.
Feedback: paskutini sakini pakeisk, klaidele yra;)
keep up the good work!
Sveikas Karoli:
Dekui, kad paskaitai karts nuo karto. Dziaugiuosi, kad tau patinka ir dekui didelis uz feedback!
Iki!
I am reminded after reading these articles of what Deepak Chopra teaches. I will paraphrase as best I can. One way to get in touch with awareness of ourselves is to do a nightly review; what did you do that day? how did it make you feel? why? etc.
He also teaches a good way of making decisions by asking a couple of questions. Does this decision/action bring happiness/harmony to my life? How will this affect others around me?
Finally, I really like the one where he advises “Follow your Bliss.” I will say that most of us are not in touch with what our “Bliss” is and therefore I urge everyone to find theirs!
I agree with you that meditation is very important. It allow us to access that quiet, calm place and still the mind which for me provides more clarity throughout my day.
Finally, it’s interesting that I am reading this new book by Bruce Lipton, Ph.D., and Steve Bhaerman entitled ” Spontaneous Evolution.” I recommend it highly. I am in the process and have not finished it, but it’s an informative and good read. One of the things highlighted in the book is the study of Epigenetics. It’s a very important concept and revelant to anyone wanting to change their life. It’s a new paradigm that “epigenetic mechanisms actually modify the readout of the genetic code.” It states that our perceptions control behaviour and gene activity as well. It also says that 95% of our decisions, actions, emotions and behaviours are controlled by the subconscious mind while only 5% of the self-conscious mind contributes. This is an important concept to anyone trying to live consciously. I am reminded of the shamanic precept: If you want to change your life, change your perceptions.
Dear Nancy:
I very much appreciate that you took the time to ready my humble thoughts. I know that you have a lot of experience and wisdom to share.
I actually have never read Deepak Chopra, yet it seems like it might be a worthy read.
What interested me the most is the ”Spontaneous Evolution”. Seems very controversial and I am sure that is how the book was received. I would love if you shared your thoughts with us once you are done with it.
Once again, thank you for your valuable input!
Best,
Tomas
3 Trackbacks
[...] Become aware of your own emotions. Sounds simple and you might even think: “Hey! I know when I am happy, sad, upset, depressed, angry, etc.” It would be my inclination to challenge that statement. It mostly has to do with self-deception, environmental influences, various natural sate of being altering substances (drugs, alcohol, tobacco, etc.). Being aware of an emotion means being able to identify the emotion for what it really is and acknowledging that you are feeling the emotion as you are experiencing it. You can read more about become more aware here. [...]
[...] In order to really understand the following discussion really encourage you to read the articles on awareness and emotions before proceeding with the text. Those articles will give a clear understanding of why [...]
[...] article is going to offer a practical guide to self awareness. Last week I discussed awareness and it’s importance in our lives. Yet, from my experience, I know that people are looking not [...]