Self-Awareness: The Ultimate Life "Hack"?

Craig 00:00 

Honest self-awareness can be uncomfortable, but it’s a necessary part of living an excellent life. In this episode, I discuss how honest self-awareness forms the core of your journey towards flourishing and how to cultivate genuine self-awareness so that you can grow and flourish.

Welcome to Live Well and Flourish, where I help you understand what it means to live a flourishing life. I'm your host, Craig Van Slyke. If you're ready to think beyond material and external success, if you're ready to take control of who you are and the kind of life you live, if you're ready to flourish, this is the podcast for you.

Craig 00:49 

It's hard to live a flourishing life if you don't know yourself. To flourish, you need to understand who you are ... your character, your values and virtues, your motivations and desires, and how your behaviors affect you and others. You also need to assess and acknowledge all of these as they relate to becoming the person you want to be. To flourish and grow, you need the ability to objectively evaluate yourself, without falling prey to biases or self-deception. You need to be a friend to yourself, that wise friend who will always tell you the truth.

Why is honest self-awareness the foundation to living an excellent life? Well, here's my argument. To live a flourishing life ... an excellent life ... you need to be aware of who you want to be and the kind of life you want to live, you need to know where you are in your journey, and what you need to do to progress. It's really that simple. First, know your destination, then know where you are, and finally, know how to get from where you are to where you want to be.

Craig 01:56 

Of course, I'm over simplifying things ... it sounds easier to do than it actually is. But, without honest self-awareness, you're just relying on random events. As I'm fond of saying, you're just a victim of wind and tide. (I think I say that a lot ... I don't know, maybe not.) Anyway...

Let me give you an example that I’ve used before -- my temper when driving. Without going into details, before I could really make progress on controlling my driving anger, I had to recognize that my anger, and the effect it had on Tracy, my wife, was contrary to who I wanted to be. Without that recognition, I really couldn’t have made the changes I needed to make.

Let's talk about how self-awareness can lead to flourishing. I'm going to make a fundamental assumption here -- That you want to live an excellent life. Living an excellent life means consistent growth and improvement. It's not the sort of thing where one day you say, "Well, I've made it! I'm now living an excellent life." and you're done. Excellence and flourishing are journeys, not destinations.

Craig 03:03 

So, how does self-awareness lead to flourishing? Well, self-awareness triggers a comparison of your current state against your desired state, a comparison of who you are and who you want to be. If there's a mismatch, you experience some negative feelings and a need to restore consistency ... to bring yourself back in alignment. There are two basic ways you can do this. You can actively change your actions, attitudes, characteristics or thoughts to better align with your standards, or you can try to avoid things that trigger self-awareness. You can act or you can avoid.

The choice to act or avoid comes down to whether you believe that you can reduce the discrepancy between your current self and your standards. If you think you can bring about changes that will close the gap, you take action. If you don't, you choose avoidance. This choice is one reason having a growth mindset is so important to well-being. If you don't think you're capable of growth and change, you'll just avoid the whole thing and you won't flourish. There may be some short-term benefits to avoidance, but avoiding self-awareness is not a viable long-term strategy if you want to live an excellent life.

Craig 04:18 

Another way to say this is that if you believe that you can improve, you'll take action. If you don't, you won't. Since you're listening to this podcast, you probably believe that you can grow and improve, so hopefully, when you sense a discrepancy between who you want to be and who you are, you WILL take action.

There's an important twist in all of this, however. Reducing the mismatch can involve changing your behaviors, thoughts, attitudes, and characteristics, but it can also involve changing your standards. Do not be afraid to re-evaluate your values, purpose, virtues and that sort of thing. These are not set in stone. As you go through life, you will evolve and so will your desires. Who you want to be today is probably different from who you wanted to be when you were younger. I know it is for me.

I’m going to pause here and ask you to do something for me. The best way to increase a podcast’s audience is through personal recommendations. So if you don't mind, just take a couple of minutes today and share Live Well and Flourish with someone you care about. The easiest way to do that is to send them to livewellandflourish.com. That gives them access to all of my back catalog, all the episodes and it provides an easy way for them to subscribe. Thank you, I really appreciate it.

Craig 05:38 

So, how can you become more self-aware? Let's start by breaking down self-awareness. Before doing that, though, I want to emphasize that I'm talking about HONEST self-awareness, not self-deception or self-delusion. If you're not objective and honest in your self-awareness, you're not going to progress and become the person you want to be. So from now on, when I say "self-awareness" mentally add "honest" to the front of it.

We can break the components of self-awareness into two broad categories: intrapersonal and interpersonal. Intrapersonal components are internal to you, interpersonal components are based on the views of others.

 Intrapersonal components include your beliefs and values, your thoughts and emotions, your personality traits, your motivations, the virtues you want to exhibit, your habits and patterns, and, critically, your purpose in life. You also need to be aware of the impacts of your behaviors. Although I’ll discuss these separately, they’re really all kind of tangled up together, each one having an impact on the others.

 Craig 06:46 

As regular listeners know, I believe that understanding your purpose is another critical element to a flourishing life. So, I’m gonna talk about purpose first. Your purpose is the North star of your life. It should be the ultimate guide for your actions and decisions. You want to do things and make decisions that help you serve your purpose. It's really that simple. When self-awareness triggers self-evaluation, use your purpose as a guiding light to identify opportunities to grow and better live a life of purpose. You might want to check out episode 23 for more details on living a life of purpose. The easiest way to do that is to visit livewellandflourish.com/23.

 To flourish, you also need a good understanding of what you believe and value. These also help guide your decisions and behaviors. Your beliefs and values are intertwined pretty closely with the virtues you seek. In fact, it's pretty messy to try to untangle these, so I'm going to leave that for another time. For now, just know that to live a flourishing life, you need to know what you believe and value, and what virtues you want to make a part of your being. These, like your purpose, can help you make good decisions.

 Craig 08:04 

Self-awareness also extends to your motivations. What are the needs and desires that drive you? I'm driven, for example, in part, by a desire to understand the deep aspects of living an excellent life. I really enjoy figuring this stuff out. This quest for understanding is what motivates many of my actions. What motivates you? This question is worth some really serious contemplation.

To live an excellent life, you also need to honestly assess how your behaviors, habits and patterns of thought affect your life. For example, I'm prone to rumination ... sometimes I think about stuff too much. This often leads me down unproductive mental rabbit holes of "what-ifs". A certain degree of this is fine, but I tend to go too far. Also, I tend to work too much. As my wife Tracy says, I'm all border collie … I’m a working dog. I've got two speeds, on and off. It's often hard for me to relax. And even when I try to, my brain is usually in full gear. This can get in the way of enjoying the moment. I'm trying to get better at this, but without an honest self-awareness of the problem, I'm not going to get very far. The good news is that you can improve your self-awareness; I’ll talk about how in just a bit.

 Craig 09:24 

Here's a tough one ... being self-aware of your thoughts and the effects they have on you. Since our thoughts are constantly present, they can kind of fade into the background, which can be dangerous. The nature of your thoughts has a huge impact on your well-being. A constant barrage of negative thoughts will, over time, be very damaging to your mental health and well-being. So, it's important to be aware of these thoughts, then when you feel them start creeping in, you can take steps to reverse them and limit their effects. But negative thoughts aren't the only kinds of thoughts that can be harmful. We also need to be careful about our biases, generalizations, misguided assumptions, and those little lies we all that we all tend to tell ourselves. I've talked about generalizations and assumptions before, so I won't go into those now. And I’m planning a future episode about the lies we tell ourselves, so I’ll just give one personal example here. I sometimes lie to myself and believe that I still have the same endurance I had 30 years ago. That little lie can have some pretty negative outcomes, especially in the Louisiana summer heat! More than once I’ve had to lay down in front of a fan with an ice pack on my head to recover from acting like I’m still in my 30s. I’m trying to be more self-aware of the limitations of my age, but it’s a process.

Craig 10:48 

OK, let's turn to interpersonal (I feel silly saying it that way) components of self-awareness. Whether you realize it or not, your actions and attitudes have an effect on others. What you do can affect those around you. In order to build positive relationships, you need to be aware of how your behaviors affect others. You also need to be aware of how others perceive you. I want to be really clear here, I’m not talking about seeking the approval of others, or focusing on being popular. You don’t have to change who you are to fit the expectations of others. But if you want to be a kind person, and the people around you think you’re a jerk, maybe it's time for a shift in your attitudes and behaviors.

You also want to be aware of how others affect you. Unhealthy relationships are a drag on your well-being. Healthy relationships are a joy. You need honest self-awareness to recognize how relationships affect you. I know, this is gonna sound harsh, but sometimes you just need to distance yourself from bad relationships. Just because you’ve had a relationship with someone doesn’t mean that you have to continue the relationship. I want to caution you, though, sometimes you need to step up and support friends who are temporarily difficult. We all go through rough times, and we're all a pain in the rear from time to time. Don’t dump a friend just because they’re temporarily needy. Flourishing requires relationships and healthy relationships are give-and-take. So, you need to be willing to give, but also recognize when it’s all “give” on your part. This requires honest self-awareness.

Craig 12:29 

Before getting into how you can improve your self-awareness, I want to give you a warning; you can take all of this too far. As is the case with most things, there's a sweet spot, Aristotle's Golden Mean. You don't want to be clueless, but there are also dangers in hyper-awareness. Constantly monitoring every thought and action and the effects these have can quickly become overwhelming. So, finding that middle ground between cluelessness and hyper-awareness is important.

Alright. Hopefully, I’ve convinced you that honest self-awareness is a key to living a flourishing life. So, the question becomes how do you become more self-aware. Let’s look at three things you can do this week to improve your self-awareness.

My first recommendation is to increase your self-awareness through improving your mindfulness. Here’s a pretty simple exercise you can try. Pause twice a day, close your eyes and focus on your thoughts. Start by breathing slowly and evenly and paying attention to your breathing and the sensations in your body. Then gradually shift your attention to your thoughts. Just listen to your thoughts. Don’t try to evaluate them. Don’t try to categorize them. Those are tasks for another time. For now, just pay attention to your thoughts. It can be useful to set a timer for two or three minutes, especially when you’re starting out. This little exercise will make you more attuned to your thoughts, which is necessary for self-awareness.

Craig 14:03 

The second thing you can try is a daily reflection. Pick a time, first thing in the morning, at lunchtime, at the end of the day, whatever. Take five minutes and reflect on your beliefs and values. Think about one belief, just pick one belief or one value and ponder why it’s important to you. Also, think about whether your actions are aligning with the belief or value, and how the belief or value affects your thoughts and actions. It’s best to write your reflections in a kind of stream-of-conscious manner, don't worry about grammar and all that stuff. But if you don't wanna write it down, even just stopping to reflect, just thinking about it, can boost your self-awareness.

Finally, try an empathy exercise. Pick an event, it can be any encounter with another person. Maybe you said hi to the clerk at your local grocery store or chatted with someone at a coffee shop. Now try to imagine details about that person. What do you think they value? What motivates them? What do they struggle with? Try to paint a really vivid mental picture. Then think about your role in their experience. It may be small, but it's there. How did your actions affect what they might have been feeling at the time? This exercise in imagination will help you make connections with your own mind, which will improve your self-awareness.

I’ll close with a paraphrase from a Lau Tzu quote, "To know others is wisdom; to know yourself is enlightenment.”

Until next time. Be well my friends.

I produce Live Well and Flourish because of my dedication to helping others live excellent lives. I don't accept sponsorships and I don't want your money. The only thing I want is to help you and others flourish. If you've received some value from this episode, please share it with someone that might also benefit from listening. The best way to do that is to direct them to livewellandflourish.com

Until next time.