Change begins with the smallest unit:
Awareness is critical, especially as an individual: you must know yourself to grow yourself. Improving ourselves individually greatly impacts us as individuals, family members, team members, and business owners. Change and improvement begin with the smallest unit: ourselves.
THE POWER OF OUR SUBCONSCIOUS
Our auto-pilot programming happens at the subconscious level of our mind. Yes, we are programmed (like a computer) in our subconscious. When we are born into this world, in our physical bodies, we arrive with no conscious gate. Our mind has a conscious level that acts as a gate-keeper that determines what comes and goes into our subconscious. When born, we’re ultimately sponges: absorbing everything around us into our subconscious which is programming our thoughts and behaviors. This programming becomes a regulator for our thoughts and behaviors. This becomes our reactive mode in response to stimuli around us. Beginning from the time we are in the womb through about age ten, all of these things become programmed beliefs. It’s around age 10-13 that our conscious thought begins to take over and develop the ability to think for ourselves and begin to question and act as a gate-keeper. These early beliefs that we absorbed define our self-hood.
At all times of the day, we have thoughts and conversations coursing through our brains. Even when we are listening to another person to speak, we have our own internal thoughts or self-talk. We are having conversations in our heads about whether we believe the person speaking or not; we’ve often stopped listening and started forming a response to them based on something they said that triggered us.
Becoming aware of our self-talk is essential. Stop and ask yourself, what are the thoughts I’m thinking about? Often times people jump into conversations and blurt out what they are thinking without actively listening, with an open heart, to the other person. Often, most people jump to conclusions and finish in their heads what they think the other person is saying: thought they are often wrong. We need to learn to actively listen to others and really connect when we communicate. Understanding ourselves first enables us to move into this higher listening ability. Active listening is another topic, for another day!
As we become intentional in our personal growth, we become aware of our thoughts and we’re making conscious and deliberate choices. These conscious and deliberate choices define our character. Our character is developed through our choices.
As you become more aware of yourself and what’s happening in your thoughts, you’re able to respond to people in kinder ways, more adaptive ways. You begin to live in a more holistic approach to life; filled with grace for yourself and for others. When you have these private victories within yourself, you become much kinder to people around you, and you develop a stronger sense of self-esteem, self-value, and self-worth. When you become aware of your inner Spirit, you have better responses with people around you: your children; partners; colleagues; and even teammates and the general public. Self-awareness is needed for self-control: which empowers depth in our relationships.
Self-control comes through self-awareness.
As our self-awareness increases, we are able to have more self- control. Self-control to think about what we are thinking about. Yes, to be an observer of our own thoughts; to become aware of our body sensations and our body language. Eventually, we will develop the ability to observe the patterns of our behaviors which can help us identify our thoughts and beliefs, faster.
This process of self-awareness is how we identify belief systems that are running in auto-pilot mode which are controlling and limiting the opportunities we see available to us and, unbeknownst to us, limiting our available choices.
As we grow in our self-awareness, we can track down false beliefs and then reframe our thinking to align with a higher TRUTH – which suddenly opens our awareness to other, expanded opportunities!
Self-discovery Tool: Are you interested in growing to your next level of success? Learning your communication and behavior profile will enable you to level-up. Develop higher communication skills and improve your relationships. October 9th is our Maxwell Method DISC Communication & Behavior Profile and Communication WORKSHOP. Take the next step. See more information here.