Tips to improve self awareness
Self awareness is required to achieve balance in our lives
True self confidence and self esteem are necessary to live a balanced and fulfilled life.
We are unable to be resilient in times of stress without it.
Self awareness is required to achieve balance in our lives which flows into all other areas of our lives and has a positive impact on achieving the eternally searched for confidence.
Tips to improve self awareness:
- Remember that it takes an enormous amount of energy to constantly worry about things. Recognise the bodily symptoms of your fear and worry. Notice when your breathing shortens or your chest tightens, become aware of what your body is telling you and then choose to stop it. Continued stress and worry debilitates your ability to think logically, choose to stay in control. This will eliminate that feeling of incompetence or helplessness, and thereby empower you.
- Talk less and listen more, seek first to understand and then to be understood. Ask people questions about themselves . You will hear and understand more that way and people will seek your company and your opinion more often. This will make you realise that you have value.
- In doing something for the first time, imagine that you have already done it in the past. Close your eyes and imagine that you have succeeded already. The mind is unable to differentiate between perception and reality, so make it real. Involve all your 5 senses when doing this exercise and the goal will seem closer.
- Practice positive self talk, stop knocking yourself. Self criticism is more damaging to esteem, than criticism from another person. Criticising your looks, your body shape, your hair, your abilities and your personality is harmful. You wouldn’t think that this is a decent way to treat others, so make it totally unacceptable for you to treat yourself this way. Be kind to yourself, respect yourself and never ever beat yourself up. .) Disarm the nagging, negative internal voice. Imagine that your negative internal voice is Mickey Mouse at top volume. Lower the volume and remember that you would not take Mickey Mouse seriously if he were criticising you.
- Develop stable confident friends who believe in themselves. Surround yourselves with quality people who will see the best in you. Be careful of being the big fish in the small pond. Seeking people who are less confident and ambitious than yourself enables you to hide your light away instead of shining it.
- Improve your knowledge on self matters by reading self help books and keeping a daily journal. Becoming aware of your feelings on a daily basis enables you to pin-point toxic relationships or situations that damage your self esteem. The journal also assists you in identifying the things and people that make you feel positive.
- Listen out for feeling words, your own and other people’s. This assists in self awareness.
