Is Self-Awareness Important?
“The unexamined life is not worth living ”
I read this quote this morning and it inspired the rest of this blog.
As a coach and someone that is obsessed with everything mindset, self-awareness of thought, is essential to making change and creating a better quality of life.
Being self-aware, is taking conscious thought and asking yourself, what the thought inside your head, really means. It gives you the power to influence your life for the better, can help you develop self-confidence and gives you a good sense of who you are.
Your thoughts create your feelings, so, without conscious awareness of our thoughts, how can we change the way that we feel?
Many of you go through life, feeling negative and experiencing low moods, with a disempowering acceptance.
-What if you were to take an investigative tool to analyse thought?
-What if it were possible to change the way that you were thinking?
People often say to me” I’ve always thought this way, it is just who I am ”.
The most empowering part about coaching clients on their mindset, is that once they become more self-aware of their thoughts, life quickly starts to transform.
Here are few helpful hints and tips to notice your thoughts and feelings and take control of them
Daily, keep a log of how you were feeling. This could be something simple as a scale of one to 10.
1 -being awful
10 being so amazing you have never felt so good ( and everything in between).
Once you have analysed this data over a period of a few weeks, you may start to notice patterns.
How are those patterns forming: -
Are they affected by people that you’re interacting with?
Conversations or expectations around work?
Different feelings of self-worth or not enough Ness?
External events outside of your control?
Are they related to your health?
Are there certain habits that you are partaking in, that you wish were different?
Ongoing worries around the economy and the cost of living?
By noticing these patterns, you are then able to start making changes around your thoughts.
So, for example, if you find yourself feeling particularly negative around a work situation, ask yourself:
Is this a permanent situation?
Is there anything that you can do to change it?
If you can’t change it, is it possible to change your thoughts around it?
You can apply this to any scenario.
The way you feel and your own self-awareness is all controlled by your thoughts. If you are not aware of your thoughts within, you just allow your feelings to take over your lives, letting them run the show! Feelings are influenced by your thoughts, which inspire your actions we then take, which then impact your results. So, by being fully aware of what you were thinking we can start to process and make small changes.
I always advise my clients, to start really being aware of thought patterns, particularly negative ones that don’t serve you. Are these just on auto pilot? The beautiful thing about auto pilot is that it can be switched off at any point to allow for conscious thinking. The Science behind autopilot is down to something in our brain's called the Default Mode Network or DMN. This DMN takes over when we are undertaking familiar activities such as brushing our teeth or driving a car.
So, my question is, are you living your life on autopilot, lacking in self-awareness, and just going through the motions? If this is you and you are looking to make significant, sustainable changes, please get in touch here.
With love and gratitude,
Siân
