” Who am I?” Who are You?”

The questions, ‘Who am I?’ ‘Why am I here?’ ‘What is my purpose in life?’ have plagued man for ages. Everyone sometime in life asks these questions. Seeking answers to these questions is the beginning of awareness and awareness is the first step in the creation process. As you grow in self-awareness, you will better understand why you feel what you feel and why you behave as you behave. That understanding then gives you the opportunity and freedom to change those things you’d like to change about yourself and create the life you want. Without fully knowing who you are, self acceptance and change become impossible.

Having clarity about who you are and what you want (and why you want it), empowers you to consciously and actively make those wants a reality. Otherwise, you’ll continue to get “caught up” in your own internal dramas and unknown beliefs, allowing unknown thought processes to determine your feelings and actions.

If you think about it, not understanding why you do what you do, and feel what you feel is like going through your life with a stranger’s mind. How do you make wise decisions and choices if you don’t understand why you want what you want? It’s a difficult and chaotic way to live never knowing what this stranger is going to do next. Do not confuse knowing about yourself with knowing yourself.

Self-Awareness is knowing yourself, having a clear perception of your personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. Knowing yourself is Being yourself, and being yourself is ceasing to identify with external objects and Ego. Self-Awareness also allows you to understand other people, how they perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them in the moment. Self-awareness is a continuous process.

Why Develop Self Awareness?

Each person is unique and put together in a unique way. You are born formed, with unique characters with specific features and specifications.

Take a telephone or video player for instance. It has features and specifications. Most people do not find out the features of their telephone – the other ways to use it. They only use it for calling and receiving calls. You have to know your formation, your specific features, your authentic, unlimited, multidimensional Self.

We are too much caught up with what we want to be, what we want to do, but we must first find out what we know about ourselves. We go from limited to limitless if we know how to master the form we already have, the form within us.

You can only bring out the best when you know you. With self-exploration, the more you know about you, the more you bring out or enhance the best of you. Bringing out the best in us – reaching our optimum potential is often hindered by what I call Core beliefs or self-limiting beliefs and mind-sets.

As you develop self-awareness you are able to make changes in the thoughts and interpretations you make in your mind. Changing the interpretations in your mind allows you to change your emotions. Self awareness is one of the attributes of Emotional Intelligence and an important factor in achieving success.

Self-awareness is the first step in creating what you want and mastering your. Where you focus your attention, your emotions, reactions, personality and behavior determine where you go in life.

Being  self-aware allows you to see where your thoughts and emotions are taking you. It also allows you to see the controls of your emotions, behavior, and personality so you can make changes you want. Until you are aware in the moment of the controls to your thoughts, emotions, words, and behavior, you will have difficulty making changes in the direction of your life.

Self-Awareness in Relationships

Relationships are easy until there is some emotional turmoil. This is the same whether you are at work or in your personal life. When you can change the interpretation in your mind of what you think you can change your emotions and shift the emotional quality of your relationships. When you can change the emotions in your relationships you open up entirely new possibilities your life.

Having a clear understanding of your thought and, behavior patterns helps you understand other people. This ability to empathize facilitates better personal and professional relationships.

If you have an emotional reaction of anger or frustration, you notice many of the thoughts and small triggers that build up towards those emotions. You also notice moments when you can change the interpretations in your mind, or not believe what we are thinking. In this heightened awareness you instinctively make better choices in your thought process long before an emotional reaction or destructive behavior.

Making changes in your behavior is much easier to do when you catch them early in the dynamic, before the momentum of thought and emotion has gathered steam.   The changes in your mind, and behavior become simple and easy steps when you develop self-awareness.

Areas of Self Reflection in developing Self-awareness

• Am I very concerned about how people see me, or what they believe about me? ( To really be who you are, you should not be obsessed by how people see you or what they believe about you.)
• Where is my joy?
• What are my strengths?
• Where is my passion and motivation?
• What makes me feel most energized?
• What are the things I love doing in life?
• What experiences, throughout my working life/adult life, have I found most rewarding, inspiring, touching, or meaningful and why?
• What are my ‘peak’ experiences, (those ‘aha’ moments of my life when something I have done has given me real satisfaction or fulfilment)?
• Think about when you were a child …..
• What were you told you were good at?
• What do you remember doing easily and effortlessly?
• What about when you were a teenager?
• What were you told you were good at?
• What do you feel you are good at now?
• What do you find easy and enjoyable doing? (Laziness is not part of these!)** Start to recognize what comes to you naturally and easily. These may be pointers to who you are.

Having clarity about who you are and what you want (and why you want it), empowers you to consciously and actively make those wants a reality. If you do not understand why you do what you do and feel what you feel, it is like going through life blindly.

Self-Awareness is having a clear perception of your strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, emotions and behaviours.

This awareness allows you to understand not only yourself but also other people, how they perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them in the moment.  As you develop self awareness, you’ll be able to make changes in the thoughts and interpretations you make in your mind, allowing you to create what you want and master your life. Where you focus your attention, your emotions and behaviour determine where you go in life. Awareness is therefore the first step in creating what you want.

Join other women in this interactive lecture and workshop series and gain practical wisdom on how to understand yourself better and make positive changes.