Did you ever feel like you're living someone else's life?
Like you spend your days buried in emails, your attending meetings, and you barely understand
what the meeting is about, and you just force a smile through endless social gatherings.
All the while there is this nagging voice somewhere inside your head whispering: is this really
what I signed up for?
Trust me.
I have been there, I have done that more times than I care for, and the truth is that most
of us, we find ourselves on autopilot.
We're just going through the motions without truly understanding why we actually do what
we do or how it all aligns with who we really are.
We just do it, right?
And that's where self-awareness comes in.
And self-awareness is such a freaking superpower.
It's your ability to understand your thoughts, to understand your emotions, your motivations,
your values, the impact you have on others.
It's super important and super insightful to have that.
And guess what?
Developing self-awareness isn't just about avoiding that existential crisis at the water
cooler in the office, you know, or when you're locking yourself into the bathroom and just
banging your head against the wall.
That's not only where we need self-awareness.
Self-awareness is very helpful every day for us to unlock who we really are, to unlock
the potential that is kind of like hiding inside of us because we all have it, right?
It's just that we don't always use it.
And it's so important to be self-aware in our daily life to achieve our goals and to
really create the life that feels fulfilling and that we actually want to live.
And not someone else's life, right?
So let's get ready and ditch the autopilot and embrace this superpower of self-awareness.
Do you ever feel like there is a disconnect between the professional you and the person you
actually want to be?
I mean, the corporate world is so demanding and it can leave us feel depleted and really
insecure about the next steps that we should take.
But what if we could tap into this power and purpose within ourselves that would guide
us, that would help us get clarity.
And that is where inner leadership comes in.
And here at the healthy & aligned podcast, I guide you on that journey to discover and empower
and ultimately trust your inner leader.
Because it is there, you have it too, we all do.
And together in this podcast, we'll explore practical strategies to help you step into
your power, to navigate your career with confidence, ideally.
And we figure out how to make decisions aligned with our values to actually create the life
that we truly desire.
And also, I mean, inner leadership, it is about leading.
So it is about leading with authenticity to be clear about who we are and how we can build
strong meaningful relationships with others, whether that's at work or in our private life.
And it doesn't matter, we only have one life, right?
And by cultivating our inner leader, we can bridge the gap between where we are right now
and where we want to be.
So join me on this journey of self discovery and empowerment.
And I'm so happy you're here with me on the healthy & aligned podcast.
Make sure you subscribe for future episodes.
And let's just get back to the episode.
Self-awareness helps us navigate the complexities of life by giving us a very clear understanding
of how we think and of our emotions.
And also of the impact that we have on others.
Think of it as having a user manual for ourselves.
And we can just look up, you know, what is happening in any given time.
And that's the thing.
Like, self-awareness isn't just one thing.
It's like this entire book about ourselves.
And it has several key components.
So the first one is self-awareness of our thoughts and emotions, what I just said, which is about
understanding the constant continuous chatter in our heads, right?
All those voices that are continuously communicating with us.
And also the feelings that arise throughout the day, all day, every day.
The second key component would be self-awareness of our strengths and our weaknesses.
Because we all have a super unique blend of talents, but also of things that maybe we're
not the greatest at, or where we have limitations.
And recognizing both is super crucial and helpful for playing to our strengths and either
working on our weaknesses or making sure that we can kind of like navigate around them.
And there is the self-awareness of our values and beliefs.
So what is it that truly, truly matters to us?
What principles guide our decisions?
Understanding our values is really the compass that steers and guides us towards a fulfilling
life.
It is so foundational and important to have that clarity about values and beliefs.
And the last one is the self-awareness of how we impact others.
So how our actions, our words, how do those things affect the people around us?
And this awareness of how we impact others allows us to build stronger relationships and
really, in the end, to also navigate social situations more efficiently, you know, without
having those dramas and big full paths in our life.
And by developing each of these four aspects of self-awareness, we can gain deeper understanding
of who we are at our core.
And this knowledge is then what empowers us.
So this user manual that we are basically revealing for ourselves is what empowers us to make
choices, to make decisions that align with who we truly are, with our goals, with our values,
with our wellbeing, our energy, and you don't create that life that we really want to live.
Self-awareness can be defined as the ability to understand ourselves on a deeper, deeper
level.
It's about being mindful of who we are, our thoughts, our emotions, our behavior, our effect.
On others, our impact on others, our motivations as I said it before.
And just imagine yourself looking at a complex multifaceted diamond.
And that's the self-awareness.
And each facet of this diamond represents a different aspect of who we are.
And by turning it in the light, we can gain a clearer understanding of the entire diamond
or the entire shape of the diamond.
And then for that matter also, understand who we truly are.
So I would love to dive a little bit deeper into those four main components that I mentioned
earlier of self-awareness and kind of like do some little exercises or introduce you to
some exercises for each of them so that you have the tools to actually dig deeper and
to get closer to writing that user manual of yourself and understanding all of those facets
of your own pretty diamond, right?
So back to the first one, thoughts and emotions, awareness of our thoughts and emotions.
And we all have these voices inside our heads that are continuously going.
We have negative voices.
We have critical voices.
We have judgmental voices.
We also have motivating voices and loving voices.
And you know, there is a whole group of voices in your head, continuously communicating with
you.
And for us, it's important to understand what are the dominant voices, what are the dominant
thoughts that keep coming up in our heads all the time.
Because thoughts that we repeat, they turn into beliefs over time.
So beliefs are just practiced thoughts basically.
So the more often we think a specific thing about ourselves or about our environment or
other people, over time we start believing that this is the actual truth.
So having that self-awareness of our thoughts, of knowing what are the things that we repeat
to ourselves all the time is super important to make sure that we do not create beliefs
that we actually don't want, that are limiting us, that are blocking us.
We want to have beliefs that are serving us, that are empowering, that hype us up in
the morning.
So we want the good kind of belief system cultivated inside of our heads, our systems so
that we can go for our goals, that we can go to create the life that we really want.
And a similar thing is with emotions.
So what are the emotions that come up most often, most frequently in your life?
What is it?
Is there are there certain situations that trigger a specific emotion or reaction?
So by observing these thoughts and emotions without any judgment, we're just observing them,
we gain super valuable insights into our inner world.
And as a quick exercise, that would be super easy to do.
It's like a thought or emotion and or emotion log book for yourself.
So you know, pick a day, pick a regular damn day and have a notebook.
Have your notes app on your phone.
It doesn't really matter.
And start writing down thoughts and emotions that come up throughout the day.
You can note like specific situations, like something that might have triggered that
thought or that emotion.
Any information that you think is valuable for this, just write it down.
And the more we do that, the more we actively document our thoughts and emotions, the clearer
it gets for us.
Because quite often we ignore our thoughts.
They're just there, but we, they're so omnipresent that we don't even see them as thoughts.
We just see them as something that is always there, something that is true, you know?
So by visualizing them, by documenting them, we're actually separating those thoughts from
who we are from our identity because we just put it on paper.
And we can look at them sort of from a detached position.
And by logging our thoughts, by logging our emotions and writing them down, we create
much more awareness that becomes more like a habit over time about our thoughts and about
our emotions.
So it is a exercise that trains us basically in creating this awareness, which is what
this episode is all about, having awareness of what we think and of what we feel.
And then when we review those logs, we look at those thoughts, the situations, the emotions,
maybe we can already start to see specific patterns or connections between different things,
maybe our thoughts and emotions are connected or specific situations are connected.
And we can see like a pattern there.
We can see like, ooh, every time this happens, I react this way or, you know, whatever.
And those are super valuable insights for us that we can work with in the future.
So those are the first ones about the emotions.
And let's move on to the next one that is talking about the self-awareness of our strengths
and weaknesses.
We all have this blend of strengths and weaknesses and things are really good at and things that
need more effort and things that we just suck at, you know, and it's all good.
It's super human to have that and it makes total sense that we're not great at everything.
So there's no need to kind of get upset about the things that we can't do really well,
but it's important to recognize what it is, to recognize what are the things that we
are really good at, that are our superpowers and what are the things that are, you know,
more difficult for us to do at any given point.
And this awareness of our strengths and our weaknesses is then again something that
helps us in the future to really leverage those strengths and then either navigate around
our weaknesses or if it's something important, something that we really want to do, we can
invest in those weaknesses and make sure that we improve in one way or the other and that
we grow in that area.
A quick exercise that you might actually know from your studies, if you've done business
studies like I did, it was like a regular exercise that we did and it's a SWOT analysis.
When I first thought about including this exercise in this episode, I just rolled my eyes and
I was like, "No, not a SWOT analysis because I remember all those reports that I had to
write during my studies."
And I was like, "Oh, please no."
But then I thought about it and I was like, actually, I think it is a great tool to use
in this context and especially because we are applying it to ourselves.
So a SWOT analysis SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
And it's basically a grid with these four categories but you can write it down however
you want, it doesn't really matter.
And the strengths and our weaknesses, they represent our inner world, right?
So what are we good at and what are we?
Maybe not.
And we just list those in the respective categories, the respective boxes.
And then when we look at the opportunities and the threats, that's when we look at the
outside world, that's when we look at our environment and we consider what are the opportunities
that we can find in our environment that ideally align with our strengths.
Like where are ways that we can use our strengths in our environment where we can really like
bank on them and use our talents.
And then at the same time when we look at the threats, we connect those with our weaknesses.
So what are the things in our environment that are like not in our inner world but out
of our world that might sort of like expose our weaknesses or that might fall right into
the corridor of the things that we're not so good at and that might make life a bit more
difficult.
And you know, based on this insight that we gain with this two by two matrix, we can
start to understand how to really use our strengths, how to use that awareness that we
have of ourselves.
And also we are kind of prepared for potential challenges ahead that trigger our weaknesses
or that kind of like play to our weaknesses.
And then we can you know, develop strategies for that.
We can figure out a way around it maybe or you know, find a way to learn how to improve
that skill or whatever it is that we need to do.
So we can you know, have strategies that help us navigate both opportunities and threats.
So while this is a very business heavy analysis and that's where it comes from, I feel that
we can kind of apply it to our personal lives as well and kind of massage it into that context.
And I think it could be very helpful for us to do that and to have that self awareness
and learn more about ourselves when it comes to our strengths and all weaknesses.
Let's move on to self awareness about our values and our beliefs.
And I love this topic so much.
It's so important to me and I believe it's so important for actually everyone because
this is the foundation of how we create our lives, right?
So our values, our beliefs, our values are what truly matters to us.
What is the foundation of how we see the world?
What is the most important thing for us or the most important things plural for us that
we want to build our life on, right?
So what do we also measure our environment against like where do we get triggered because
usually when we get triggered, it's that some of our values are not respected.
You know, so it helps us to better understand those situations and the beliefs.
I mentioned them earlier when I talked about thoughts, the beliefs in our belief systems
are basically the principles that we use to guide our decision making, that we use to guide
our life creation and the things that we do all day, every day.
And understanding those two things, understanding our core values, understanding our belief system,
that is like if you have that part of the manual, you unlocked the biggest part, I think
of who you are and why your life right now is the way that it is.
And you get the insights you need to create the life that you really want.
So it is the true compass that helps us navigate towards the life that we want.
I think those two topics are super beautiful and you can talk about them a lot, a lot.
I've actually recorded an entire episode about core values and how to identify them for
yourself.
I believe that should be episode number 34 if I'm not mistaken.
So that's an entire episode also with activities exercises and like inspirations for you to
figure out what your core values are because they are so fundamental to this entire transformation
to this entire journey.
So now quick exercise, what we can do, you know, if you haven't listened to that episode,
please listen to that episode.
I just mentioned and on top of that or maybe for right now, what you could do is to just
really take some time and reflect on what it is that truly matters to you in your life.
What are your core values?
If you, no, do this with me, close your eyes, take some deep breaths, make sure that you're
really relaxed.
And now imagine that you have a magic wand and you could create your ideal life, your
perfect life.
What would that look like?
What would be the things that are the most important to you and when I say things, I don't necessarily
mean material things.
But what is your environment like?
What is your current situation like?
What principles guide your choices in that ideal life that you're envisioning right now?
And then you basically just write down everything that comes to mind, write down all the principles
that come up, all the thoughts, all the dreams, like it doesn't really matter right now.
Just write everything down, just let it come, let it pour out of you.
And then afterwards in a step two, if you want to, you can identify which of these things
are actually values and which are just, you know, beautiful dreams of yours, of driving
a Ferrari.
I don't know what it is.
Yeah, so that would be like a very quick but super powerful and impactful exercise.
I mean, it's so easy.
We just need to give ourselves the time and the freedom and the room to actually think
authentically, think freely and remove all of those limitations that we might have in
our brains.
And I think using a magic wand can remove all of those limitations.
We can just dream the way we want to dream.
So I think that's very beautiful.
This is an exercise that you can also revisit over time because the more we practice these
things, the more clarity we gain, the more concrete are the thoughts that come up or the
visions that come up in the beginning, it might be all blurry or it might be the things
that always come up.
And then over time, we might find things that are hidden under the surface.
So feel free to do that more often.
Like whenever you have like five minutes, just imagine you're, I don't know, waiting
for the train or you're in a very long line at the supermarket or whatever, just quickly
do this exercise for yourself and just imagine like, "Hi, if I had a magic wand, what
my life be?"
So yeah, I think that's a beautiful one to kind of like practice self-awareness in that area.
Now the fourth one is the self-awareness of our impact on others.
The first three were all about our own in a world, but self-awareness isn't just about,
how do you call it, about naval gazing.
It's also about understanding how we affect our environment, how we affect the people around
us, our relationships, how do our words and our actions make others feel.
How are we perceived?
Are we perceived as trustworthy, supportive or are we more like the critical types or the
funny ones or the creative ones?
Like what is it?
And that is an awareness that will allow us to really build stronger relationships on
the one hand, but also maybe correct our behavior if we understand that we are perceived in
a way that we don't think that we are and that we wouldn't want to be perceived as.
Like I remember, I've been told not so much in recent times, but when I was younger, I've
been told that people thought I was super arrogant at first and then they got to know me and
they realized I'm not arrogant at all.
And I was like, oh really?
I had no idea I had that effect on people and I didn't understand at first how I came
across that way, but I learned over time how to kind of adjust that first impression
behavior that I had on other people.
And obviously it was based on insecurity on my part and me overcompensating my own
insecurity.
So by understanding this, by having the self-awareness of that perception that people had of me,
I was able to kind of adjust that and fine tune that so that I haven't heard it in a long
time.
Maybe I should ask people I recently met what they thought, but I feel that that has changed
a lot.
But there we go also towards the exercise.
I just mentioned it.
It's about asking for feedback.
So if we want to really know how we are perceived by others, the impact that we have on other people,
the best way to do that is to ask for feedback.
And we don't have to go around and ask everyone for feedback of course, but find some trusted
people in your life, like friends, colleagues.
Maybe you have a mentor or maybe you trust your boss or manager and just ask them about
how you come across and what they think, your strengths and weaknesses are and how you interact
with other people and just how you impact other people.
And then you can receive lots of insights and learn you things about yourself.
And sometimes receiving feedback can be challenging.
Especially if the people who you ask do not know how to give feedback because it's also
the skill I think to give feedback properly.
But that's okay.
We can live with that.
Don't take it as an attack from them, but you want to know what they think and them sharing
what they think about you is actually a gift.
So if possible, take it personally, but don't take it as an attack or as an offense.
Most probably they just don't know better how to convey their message to you.
So if it is a bit painful, the way that they say it, just see it as that is just the way
that they said it.
That was the painful part.
And not necessarily the content.
And yes, sometimes the content can also be painful.
Like what I said earlier with my story of being perceived as arrogant, that hurt because
I was like, well, I really am not like that's really not how I see myself.
So I was like very confused and didn't really know what to do with that and did my best
and succeeded at that to not take it as a personal insight, not insight - insult.
I did take it as a personal insight, but I didn't take it as an insult.
So I think that's the way to navigate this.
Yeah, I think getting feedback from other people and doing that regularly is super insightful.
And you can even ask them like, what is great about me?
You don't have to ask always like, oh, what can I improve or what was not so great or
whatever because we tend to focus on the negative.
But why not ask what do you like about the way that I handled the situation or what about
how I approach new people is actually great.
You know, like you can ask me a specific feedback and the more specific the easier it is also
for people to answer you and to give you that feedback because if you just ask like, what
do you know, what do I do?
Well, what why not?
Well, it's such a big question for people to answer.
So the more concrete you are, the easier and more precise the answers will be and the insights
for you will be as well.
So we can incorporate these exercises into our daily lives, right?
That's the idea.
That's why I chose like small ones like easy to do low, low hurdle to actually start an
exercise like this.
And it can become part of our every day.
So it doesn't feel like an exercise anymore, but it starts to become something that we just
do.
It's like a habit.
Like me, for example, I continuously monitor my thoughts.
I continuously monitor my emotions.
That is something that has become so natural to me that I don't like, I don't have to actively
do it.
It just, I just do it.
You know, it just happens.
And that's I think also the goal with this when we want to increase our self awareness and
work on our self awareness is to incorporate it and anchor it into our daily lives as much
as we can because we will always learn something about ourselves like no matter how self aware
you are, when you're 70, you will still learn new things.
You know, that part will never stop.
And I think it's beautiful, right?
Because we evolve as humans and we change as humans.
So it's important to keep on nurturing this part of us and writing this user manual all
fast.
And maybe, you know, we have to delete some pages at one point because we've changed.
And that is not part of who we are anymore, but it has been replaced with a different story.
So it's an ongoing thing.
It's an ongoing user manual, I guess, that has updates along the way.
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So I have kind of implied it but I haven't actually said why self-awareness is actually so
important.
I mean in a way it is obvious, right?
Because us understanding ourselves better is the perfect way to show up differently in
our lives and to create that life that we want.
But as I love lists, I have made another list of benefits.
So here we go.
The first one is decision making.
If we are self-aware, our decision making is so much easier and so much better because
knowing our values, knowing what motivates us, knowing what our strengths are and who we
really are allows us to make aligned decisions based on who we are.
And when we choose our goals, when we craft those goals for the future, when we are going
towards our dreams, all the decisions that are on the way are so much better because they
are based and anchored in our self-awareness.
We can stop second guessing ourselves, right?
We can stop feeling pressured by someone else or because we think we have to live someone
else's dream and it is how they made that decision.
We have to do the same.
No, no, we know who we are.
We are so self-aware and that empowers us to make decisions that are for us and that are
aligned with our life and our life goals.
And that gives so much more confidence and so much more clarity every time that we have
to make a decision.
So I think that is a big benefit of self-awareness.
And the second one is enhancement or enhance emotional intelligence because self-awareness
is sort of the foundation of emotional intelligence.
If we understand our own emotions, we can so much, it gets so much easier to navigate
them, to manage them and also to understand and navigate the emotional landscape.
The emotional world of other people because we have an understanding of emotions and we
understand that we react differently in different situations and that we have x, y, z
triggers and that other people have the same, maybe they have different triggers, they react
differently, but in the end we are all emotional beings, right?
So the more I understand about my own emotions, the easier it is for me to accept other people's
emotions and understand their triggers.
And their inner world, right?
And that allows us to build stronger relationships because we're not so taken aback by emotional
reactions anymore because we have a better understanding of what it takes to be an emotional
being.
It improves the way that we communicate because we understand how when we are sitting with
specific emotions, we need different types of communication.
When I'm really angry, I need to be talked to differently than when I'm really enjoying
myself or when I'm really sad.
It requires a different type of communication.
So the more self-awareness we have for ourselves, how do I like to be talked to when I'm really
sad?
That is something that we could then try out with another person and communicate with them
that way.
It might not be what they need, but it probably gets you closer to that.
And then afterwards you can always ask them like, "How do you want me to talk to you when
you're sad?"
The next time, you know how can I best support you?
Because we have that self-awareness of what it feels like to be in that emotion.
And overall, I think having that foundation for emotional intelligence just allows us to
navigate our own emotions better and to also change the outlook that we have on life.
Because we understand an emotion is just that, an emotion.
It doesn't define who we are.
It's not my identity.
I'm not a sad person or an angry person or whatever.
I'm a person.
And I have emotions.
And sometimes the emotion is anger and sometimes it's sadness, but there's also happiness
and content and love and all of the other emotions.
So understanding that about ourselves and being very self-aware about our emotions allows
us to have a positive perspective on the world if we choose to do so.
The next point is self-confidence.
So the more self-aware we are, the more we understand who we are or the better we understand
who we are and recognize what we're really good at and how we want to show up in the
world.
What our values are, what our principles are for life.
The easier it is to be self-confident because we're so grounded in ourselves because I
know who I am.
So it's easy for me to show up as myself as well.
It helps me to overcome self-doubt or to actually really embrace who I am and what I'm
really good at or how I want to be in the world as me.
And that gives me such a strong foundation and such a strong anchor in my life to allow
me to show up with much more self-confidence.
And no, I'm not saying it's all rainbows and unicorns and tons of glitter.
Of course there will be self-doubt.
Of course we will not always be like super confident in every situation, but overall if we zoom
out and we look at our life, it definitely, definitely helps us to be more self-confident
until you know, stand in life as who we are.
And the last point that I wrote down as a great benefit is growth.
If you've been with me for a moment, you know that growth and growth mindset is a topic
that is super important to me and super close to my heart.
And having that self-awareness is the first step towards personal growth because if I understand
where I'm at and who I am and what is important to me, then I know how to build on that.
Then I can, you know, be very clear again in my decision making of where I want to navigate
next.
Like what is my next goal?
What do I need to get to that next goal to achieve that towards living my dream life?
And I can much easier learn new skills or connect with the people that I need because I have
that foundation and knowledge about myself.
I have that self-awareness that will allow me to discover new things, to go outside my
comfort zone.
So all of the things that I mentioned before, like, you know, self-confidence, emotional
intelligence, the decision making, they all help me in my personal growth.
I'm more confident to do the things I've never done before because I know what I can handle,
what I cannot handle, you know, I know where I want to go, I know what my values are.
So sometimes I have to stretch myself a little bit to then get a bit bigger, you know,
and become that version of myself that I really want to be, that lives that life that I envision
when I close my eyes and to use my magic wand.
So I mean, life is not as perfect and as clean as I portray it here, obviously it is messy,
obviously it is very complex and there are different situations and life is always a roller
coaster.
There are always ups and downs, but having a self-awareness throughout all of it makes the roller
coaster so much more pleasant, so much more fun.
And it is a type of superpower.
I know I use that word a lot, but I truly believe that it is a power that we have and need
to lead ourselves with that self-awareness.
We can guide ourselves on that roller coaster.
We can guide ourselves through those difficult times, through those, you know, kind of uncomfortable
situations, those lows when things are difficult because we know who we are, we know what we're
capable of, and also self-awareness can help us like go for a force on all those opportunities,
all those great things that we want.
So I'm not trying to make it sound like everything is perfect as long as you know yourself,
but it makes everything easier.
At least that's what I experience for myself.
So let's maybe think about some more things that we can do to increase our self-awareness.
Now, this time, not necessarily with the focus on those key components, but just in general.
What are general things that we can do in our daily lives that helps us, that help us
unlock this knowledge to write this user manual of ourselves?
And one thing is definitely self-reflection.
Self-awareness needs self-reflection, right?
And the way that we can self-reflect best is through journaling.
If you were a type of person that benefits from journaling, maybe you don't know, you know,
maybe you don't have the self-awareness yet.
Is journaling something for me?
Is that something that would help me?
Hmm.
I've never done it.
I always thought it's not for me, but you know, maybe you give it a try.
Maybe journaling is a tool that can help you.
And there are so many different ways of journaling.
Try whatever comes most natural to you, either use guiding questions that you answer or you
just do like a brain dump and just write whatever is in your brain.
It doesn't really matter or you journal on a specific situation.
It doesn't really matter how you do it as long as you give yourself the room to explore
your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences that you have without judgment on paper.
Just, you know, let it all out.
And there is a thing about writing things down.
I don't know.
It's just different.
Maybe you want to record it.
Maybe you want to voice record your journal.
That is something that I do quite often because, well, I love to talk.
Hello podcast host.
And I love talking more than writing.
It comes easier to me than writing things down.
So if you just want to record your thoughts, your journals, that's also fine.
There is no right or wrong, just as long as you give yourself the room to self reflect.
Meditation is another very cool tool that you can use for self reflection.
I'm not going to get too much into that.
There are great tools out there in the world that will help you get into meditation if that's
something that you want, that's something you maybe want to experiment as well.
What else can we do in general?
Seek feedback.
I know I said it in the awareness that we have of the impact that we have on others, but
also in general feedback of other people that are close to us, that are honest with us.
And they don't, you know, make it all glittery and shiny just to protect us is so, so valuable.
And I feel that in most environments, this is not happening.
In most environments, there is not much feedback going around.
It's either very aggressive projection of my own problems onto you, you know, and then
I disguise it as feedback or it just doesn't happen.
And I think it's, it's something that we miss out on doing because it is so valuable for
us to really understand ourselves better if we get the mirror from other people.
And also giving feedback to others is also a great tool of self awareness because when
we give feedback, we have to ask ourselves, why did I react this way?
Why did I perceive it that way actually?
Because that shows the shines a light on your own triggers, on your own belief systems
or core values as well.
So even giving feedback allows us to increase ourselves or self awareness.
Then there are things like personality assessments that can be super helpful as well.
They're like, you know, strength assessments.
There are value assessments.
Personality tests.
No, I'm not talking about the BuzzFeed which school in Hogwarts are you in?
Even though those are fun and cute.
I mean the assessments that are used in professional settings.
Let's put it that way.
Maybe in a psychological therapy setting or in a lot of corporate settings, we use personal
assessments.
So you can Google those.
Most of them actually cost a little bit, but you know, maybe that's the money you want to
invest in gaining more self awareness.
You can make and shine a light on your preferences, on how you react, on your communication style,
on your values, on how you perceive the world around you.
So it's very interesting at least to me to see those tests.
I think in general it's just that using a mindful reflective time for ourselves is very helpful.
Being committed to really understand who we are and use grace, use no judgment.
It's a judgment free zone in the beginning especially.
Actually always, it's always a judgment free zone, right?
The judgment that I was thinking about just now comes in when we decide if whatever we
discovered is something that we want to keep this way or maybe we want to change that
or maybe we want to adjust a little bit, you know, so that's the type of judgment that might
be needed at one point, but overall we always want to show ourselves grace.
We always want to show ourselves love for being who we are because that is just, you know,
if you hate on yourself, if I was your subconscious, I wouldn't reveal anything, you know, so you
want to be open, you want to be curious, you want to meet yourself with honest,
authentic curiosity to learn more.
That's it.
Just treat yourself as you would treat a child, you know, where you wouldn't hate on them
if they do something weird or something wrong and you're just like, "Huh, okay, they did
that."
You know, and you just have a neutral look on it.
That's the way that you can treat yourself, give yourself moments of reflection, give yourself
moments of mindfulness, look at your daily life.
There are always times where we really idle and you can use those moments to just, you know,
maybe revisit a situation and think about the thoughts that you have, think about the
emotions that you have, look deeper into the triggers, that triggered a specific emotion,
like whatever it is, just use those times in your daily life to really embrace that journey
of self-awareness.
And also, try and embrace new experiences because we learn so much about ourselves when we
do something we've never done before.
Like, we see new limitations of ourselves, new thoughts coming out, emotions that we didn't
expect to come up, you know, like whenever we step outside our comfort zone, I think it's
always so revealing with what happens.
Like, when we face challenges, when we do something we haven't done before, that maybe
are a bit scary to us or they seem like it's a stretch to do.
Actually, those are the perfect moments where we gain a lot of new insights about ourselves.
The things we do all the time, yeah, they're nice and good, but the real juice, like the
real pieces of wisdom and knowledge they're hidden in those moments that are firsts that
have never happened before.
Okay, briefly, a quick note on potential challenges of self-awareness and this whole journey
and how we can overcome them.
There are a couple of things that can happen, right?
So let's be prepared for that.
The first one is the fear of what you might find.
Once you start paying attention to yourself, once you work on and foster that self-awareness
and you get these new insights about your inner world, about your thoughts, your emotions,
your values, your triggers, your principles, whatever it is, you might find things that
you don't like, you don't enjoy or you're not proud of or that you prefer that they would
be different and that's totally okay.
That is part of it and that's also why it's so important to do that because that's how
we realize where things are not exactly the way we want them to be and on the one hand
and on the other hand, it allows us to get to know ourselves better and to start accepting
ourselves as we are because there are so many different facets of ourselves that are
just beautiful and the sooner we accept those, that we sometimes wish to be different,
the easier it'll get and the more we are likely to turn those into strengths and into things
that make us special, things that make you that specific, unique snowflake that you are,
right?
So don't be afraid of what you might find.
Just see it neutrally, be an observer of your inner world and then you can deal with that
in the steps afterwards.
The next one, Imposter Syndrome.
Once we start paying attention, we might have those thoughts that go like, "Who the F,
do I think I am?" to talk about these things, to do these things at my job or what happens
if they find me out, if they realize that I have no idea what I'm doing and so on and so
on.
Imposter Syndrome is this whole huge thing and probably worth its own episode and it's totally
normal, it's totally human.
We all have it, I have it right now.
Like who am I talking about self-awareness doing an episode deep dive on that while there
are still so many things that I'm not aware of about myself and it's easy to talk about
these things and give the advice to other people, but then to do it yourself is a completely
different ball game, right?
So even right now, I'm like, I hope they won't find me out, you know, and it's normal, it
happens.
It is what it is and we just do it anyways.
We challenge those thoughts, like maybe I do know a couple of things about it.
Maybe I have taken a lot of steps to get more self-aware and maybe I'm just one step ahead
of someone else so they could learn from that one step that I'm ahead, you know, so it's
just imposter syndrome is part of life for most of us and there are ways of dealing with
it and as I said, I might do another episode where I just deal with imposter syndrome.
What else?
Lack of time, lack of motivation, like, I don't have the time to do self-awareness exercises
or to really like do self-reflection or do journaling or meditation and all the things that I mentioned
earlier.
That's not true.
It is simply not true.
It's an avoidance mechanism.
It is your ego trying to protect yourself from having to deal with difficult thoughts, with
difficult emotions or maybe it is what I said earlier, the fear of what might come up
or the fear that it might be uncomfortable or that you are just not up to the task, fear
of failure, like whatever it is, there might be so many different fears hidden behind that
which would be super interesting to look at but that takes self-awareness to find that out,
right?
So, lack of time, lack of motivation, it's something that you can also challenge for yourself.
So the harder the resistance, the stronger you have to go for it because there is definitely
golden nuggets hidden in there for you.
It's completely worth it going there.
And you can start small.
You don't have to do like two hour sessions every day or something.
Like I mentioned earlier, when you're in the supermarket, standing in line and there's
nothing else to do, instead of taking out your phone and checking the latest Instagram
stories, just observe your thoughts.
What are you thinking about right now?
What is going through your head?
How do you actually feel?
What is the name of that emotion?
You know, it can be that simple.
It could be standing at a red light or there are so many idle moments in your daily life where
you can start practicing these.
And then maybe you can give yourself like a five minute time out during the day and use
that time to work on it, like whatever it is.
Like you can schedule it if you, if that's something that you want to do or need to do to
make it work.
But having no time or lack of motivation, especially on this topic, it's no, that's bullshit.
Sorry to call you out, but it is bullshit.
The last one that I wrote down is the general resistance to change.
And that is also a very common thing.
It's a very human thing again.
We like to or our ego likes to be in an environment and a context that we know that we
understand because we know what's good, we know what's not so good, we understand the risks,
we understand the whole setup.
So it is always quote unquote safer to not change because we know what's up.
And that is a mechanism of protection.
It is a mechanism of perceived safety.
However, it is also making us stagnant.
It makes us idle.
We won't grow, we won't learn.
We will not develop ourselves in any direction if we just stay in the status quo and we don't
want things to change.
And there is so much beauty and change and there is also a skill that we can learn being
open to change.
It's a mindset that you could work on.
So the more you work on yourself, awareness, the easier it will also get for you to open
up to change because it is inevitably part of this whole journey.
So I just wanted to mention those quickly that you are aware of what might come and that
these things are super, super normal to happen.
It's not, it's not rare.
You feel resistance coming up, if you feel fear, if you feel like, who am I doing that stuff?
Like it is 100% completely normal that that happens and it happens to all of us, most
of us in one form or another to steal with it when it comes up and just know it is part
of the progress and you must be doing something right if those feelings are coming up.
All right.
That is it for today's episode.
I hope you enjoyed this other mini masterclass today on the power of self-awareness and how
we can use our inner world to work with our inner leader to start creating a life that we
really want.
And again, think of yourself as that beautiful, multifaceted diamond.
I really like that image because it allows us to understand how diverse each and every
one of us is because we have so many different sides, right?
And maybe in the beginning you can't see all of them and it feels like it's just been sort
of polished but the more you dive into this topic of self-awareness, the more you learn
about yourself, the more you will realize the intricate, the intricate way that your diamond
is shaped and the amount of facets that I can be found on it.
So I think it's a very beautiful idea to think about it that way and to just take your time
to discover it and to sit and turn it and look at it from different perspectives and really
spend time with yourself for that matter.
Here is your call to action for today.
Make sure that you start observing yourself.
Pick one of the things that I talked about.
It could be just one of those strategies, whatever it is, whatever, you know, one of the exercises
that I introduced and just start with that and start incorporating that into your daily
life and maybe challenge yourself to once in a while step outside your comfort zone to
really then again discover something new about yourself and to complete that picture about
yourself and your own inner world.
And in all of this, remember, show yourself grace, show yourself compassion because we are
not perfect and that is also one of the things that we get to learn more and more the more
self-aware we are.
We can see more of our shortcomings and maybe areas in our lives where we're not who
or how we would want to be and that is so fine.
That is so cool because that means there is contrast.
There is something that you can invest in that you can work on that you can, you know, experiment
with and learn in.
So instead of beating yourself up for some part of you that is not exactly how you want
it to be, see it as something that you can invest your time and energy in and be like,
"Ah, interesting.
I'm so happy that I realized this about myself now."
So what can I do to maybe more of more into a version of myself that I actually want to
be in that specific area?
You know, that could be a way of approaching it.
So show yourself some grace and have tons of fun with this.
It's supposed to be fun.
It doesn't have to be hard all the time.
So I hope you really enjoyed this episode as much as I did.
Thank you so much for joining me, for being here, for going on that journey of exploration
with me.
I have so many more really cool episodes in the pipeline for you.
So make sure that you subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to healthy & aligned to make sure
that you never miss any of the future episodes.
And yeah, start creating a life that you actually want to live and start creating that
identity of yourself that you really want to have and embrace.
So until the next episode, I wish you a beautiful rest of your day.
[Music]
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