May 19, 2012

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Becoming More Self-Aware, Part 2: Three Steps to Envisioning Your Best Life

February 18, 2012 By Lena 1 Comment

i become self-aware of the vision I am creating for my lifeIn sticking with our theme of becoming more self-aware, one thing we need to talk about is vision. Specifically, what do you want your life to look like?

As you become more aware of your strengths and weaknesses, and your self-inventory becomes more focused, you’ll find yourself developing a vision of what you want your life to look like. This vision is important to living your best life because, to quote the Toby Keith song, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might end up somewhere else.”

If you’re ready to create a vision of your ideal life, keep reading for a three-step plan that will ensure you end up exactly where you intend.

Write out your vision.

Am I sounding like a broken record yet? Even if I am, I’m not taking it back. Writing down your vision of what you want your life to look like is one of the best ways I know to get clarity on it.

Here’s why…

As you write out your vision for the various parts of your life you are able to see better how each piece fits into the whole puzzle. For example, you probably have visions around your finances, your relationships, your career, your spirituality, and your home just to name a few.

What happens if your visions for the different parts of your life are in conflict with each other?

For example, one of the things I’d really like to do is travel. I also have a burning passion to create a rescue shelter for big black dogs. Not being home for large stretches of time is definitely in conflict with running a shelter for dogs that need my time, love, and attention. I will need to find a way to mesh these two pieces of my vision so that I can still travel even when I have a ranch full of big dogs needing my time, love, and attention.

Writing out the vision helps me to wee where things already fit well, and also what areas might need a little more attention to bring them to reality.

Visualize your vision.

Once you have your vision written down, the next step in the plan is to visualize it. Sure, you’ve been visualizing as you’ve been writing but this is where you really step up your game and take the creation of your life vision to the next level.

There are a number of ways you can do this, but the three I like best are:

  1. Read your vision to yourself every day. Out loud and with all the emotion you can muster works best. If you find yourself in situations where reading out loud is impossible, then by all means read it silently but still put as much emotion into the reading as you can. This gets your creative energy flowing and puts it out to the Universe that you are serious about what you want to create and achieve.
  2. Meditate on your vision and the feelings that living your ideal life bring out in you.
  3. Make a vision board on which to store the images of your ideal life. You can cut pictures out of magazines and make a traditional vision board, or you can save pictures online in a slide show and use them as a screen saver. Personally, I do both.
  4. If you’re inclined to share, you can also set up a vision board on Pinterest and let the whole world in on what your vision for your life is.

Don’t be afraid to make changes.

Your life vision doesn’t have to be something that is created and set in stone. It can be as fluid and alive as you are – and it should be just that!

Your life will change as a result of people moving in and out, new opportunities presenting themselves, and as you grow as a person. All of these events will also cause your vision to change over time. Always be open to changes and allow enough flexibility in your plan to incorporate all the good things that are headed your way.

Why Creating a Life Vision is Important

At the beginning of this article I said that creating a vision of your ideal life is important because it makes sure you get to where you want to be. It’s also important for another reason – it allows you to be as much in control of your life as possible.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that if you don’t set a plan for your own life, someone else will and their vision for your life will rarely be the same as what you would want for yourself. Isn’t it better to be as in control of your own destiny as you possibly can be?

Taking the time to set out your own vision and working to bring it to fruition ensures that you are focused both on building your self-awareness and becoming really clear on exactly what it is that you want to achieve in your life.

Are you ready to get started?

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How Well Do You Know Yourself? Six Tips for Building Self-Awareness

February 14, 2012 By Lena 34 Comments

sun over iceHow well do you really know yourself? You might be surprised when you sit down and try to answer that question. Many times we think we know ourselves and what we want out of life, but when it comes right down to it our vision of ourselves is based on past experiences. What we need instead is to develop a sense of who we are right now.

What is Self-Awareness?

Being self-aware is a little like keeping a running inventory in your mind. Sure you need to know who you are as a whole person, but you also want to be aware of your strengths, weaknesses, and habits. You’ll also want to know what you like and what you dislike, and what does and what doesn’t motivate you. Your core values, those unwritten rules you live your life by, also need to be a part of your self-awareness inventory.

Above all, being self-aware means that you are able to live your life with self-confidence. You know who you are, what you want out of life and what you believe in. Because of this you’re able to live life to the fullest each and every moment.

Taking Your Self-Awareness Inventory

In order to become more self-aware, you need to know exactly who you are in this moment. These six tips will get you started on building your self-awareness and really learning who you are right now.

1. Figure out what your strong points are.

Then go to work on listing the weakest ones too. Chances are, if you’re like the majority of people, you have a tendency to focus on what you don’t do well. Instead, start getting to know yourself by recognizing what it is that you do well.

“Too many people overvalue what they are not, and undervalue what they are.”
~ Malcolm Forbes

Yes, it’s important to know your weaknesses too so that you know what areas need work. But don’t sell your talents and your strengths short.

2. Take an inventory of your habits.

You know you have them, whether you want to admit it or not. We all do and recognizing what they are and how they affect you on a daily basis is a great way of getting to know yourself.

Do you smoke? Are you a nail-biter? Are you always on time or chronically late?

Again, make a list of all your good habits. Then make another list of what you would consider your bad habits. You’ll be surprised at what these lists can reveal about you.

The great thing is that bad habits are able to be changed. But you can’t make the changes unless you have enough self-awareness to recognize them in the first place.

3. Make a list of the things you like and dislike.

This is the easy one. Knowing what you like and what you don’t like is a very basic form of self-awareness. But have you ever taken the time to write it all down and admit that there are just some things that you’d really rather not spend your time doing? You may find that you spend a lot of time doing things you’d rather not because you don’t want to let other people down. That’s okay, but you also want to make sure that you spend time doing the things that speak to your heart too, now that you’re more aware of what they are.

Having them written down on a list that stares you in the face works well too. It’s a lot harder to ignore your likes when they’re in plain view.

4. Know what motivates you.

Knowing what motivates you is an important part of becoming more self-aware. It’s no secret that in order to live life to the fullest, we have to be able to motivate ourselves.

“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”
~ Wayne Dyer

These words of wisdom from Dr. Wayne Dyer sum up the importance of knowing what motivates you. It’s always your choice, but you need to know what it is that you’re working toward and why you’re willing to do the work.

5. Write down your core values.

Core values are the building blocks of how you live your life. You may live according to religious or spiritual laws, or by an unwritten set of rules handed down from your parents and grandparents.

However you received them, these rules inform how you live your life, what’s important to you, and what defines your morals and ethics. You may not even think about them. A lot of the time, we don’t really think about our core values. They are such an integral part of how we live that we adhere to them without really thinking about it.

When you understand what your core values are, you are taking a big step in building up your self-awareness.

6. Decide what is relevant to your life right now.

This may seem like an easy decision but it’s not as simple as it looks. So much of what we think we know about ourselves is based on past versions of ourselves. One of the things that Geneen Roth writes about in the book “Women, Food and God” is that many of our ideas about who we are – our self-awareness – comes from outdated versions of ourselves. We make decisions based on fears of things that have happened in the past instead of on what is happening in our lives right now.

The best thing you can do to build up awareness of who you are right now is to go back through each list that you made from tips one through five and ask yourself, “Is this relevant to my life right now?”

7. Consider asking for honest feedback.

I say consider asking for feedback from people you trust, but only do this if you’re comfortable with hearing things you’d maybe rather not. After all, you are building your own self-awareness and just by definition that’s something that doesn’t really take into account other people’s opinions of you.

However, sometimes someone close to you can see patterns and habits that you might not be aware of. You can always add them to your list and either accept or reject their insights as you see fit.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

I’m always miserable on Mondays. It’s actually one of the reasons I stopped writing issues of The Acorn Stash on Monday because I was just to agitated and miserable and it was starting to show in my writing.

I was talking to a friend about it and she remarked that I’m always really “testy” at the beginning of the week and then about Wednesday I start to perk up and by Friday I’m ready to work all weekend. Then the weekend comes and on Monday I’m miserable to be around again.

I’m not too bad today. (You’re getting this on Tuesday but I’m writing it on Monday evening.) Because what my friend asked me made a lot of sense. Her question to me was “Do you eat a lot of junk food on the weekend?”

I try to eat clean all week, but I’ll admit that I tend to fall off that wagon on the weekends. I sleep late, and eat a lot of fast food just because we’re usually out running around and it’s easier than coming home to cook. So this weekend I made a conscious decision not to eat any take-out or junk food, and behold… a much happier and healthier Lena this Monday.

If my friend hadn’t offered that insight, it might have taken me ages to figure out that my poor weekend eating habits were responsible for my unproductive Mondays (and sometimes Tuesdays).

Self-Awareness and Self-Confidence

There are many ways you can go about building your self-awareness. These tips only scratch the surface of what it means and the effect it can have on your life.

Building up your self-awareness also builds your self-confidence. You gain clarity about who you are and what you believe in, and this can only help as you live your life to the fullest.

Always remember:

“We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.”
~ Mary Dunbar

I wish you much success in building your self-awareness and discovering your own special light.

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Three Ways To Look At Yourself When Learning To Become More Self-Aware

November 7, 2011 By Lena Leave a Comment

If you do a search for the definition of self-awareness, you will get a variety of explanations. Dictionary.com defines it as “an awareness of one’s own personality or individuality.” I like that definition best because it forces us to admit that yes, by golly, we are each a unique individual who has a personality that is all our own.

It’s not just a physical awareness of ourselves that we need to be concerned about, although that is an important part of it. To really be the best you and live your best life, there needs to be an awareness of yourself on all levels — emotional, mental, and spiritual as well as the physical.

Being self aware goes hand in hand with playing to your strengths because you won’t truly recognize and appreciate those strengths, much less actually use them, unless and until you have a good handle on who you really are as a whole person.

So just how does one go about becoming more self-aware?

It all starts with self-reflection. You can do this in a variety of ways including making lists of your strengths and weaknesses, or writing about who you are now and who you see yourself as in the future. However you can best do this, your self-reflection should include an inventory of all your parts.

It’s especially important to take note of those parts of yourself that maybe you don’t like so much. And be honest with yourself, because we all have those niggly little bits we’re not so fond of and would probably ignore if we thought we could get away with it. However, to really be self-aware you need to accept that those pieces are just as much a part of you as your best features and the things everyone loves about you. Because only in accepting that they’re there do you open yourself up enough to be willing to change them if that is what you truly want.

A second big piece of the self-awareness puzzle is trusting in your intuition. Pay attention to what you like and what you dislike, what feels right, and what sets those little alarm bells ringing in your head. Too often we’re all guilty of wanting to do something or be something we’re not, and shoving all the signals of impending disaster to the side.

When you pay attention to your gut feelings things will flow much more smoothly and you will be more aware of both yourself and your environment. The cool thing about your intuition is, too, that the more you use it the stronger it gets.

Although it seems counter-intuitive, you can also become more self-aware by going outside yourself. If you have friends and family members that you trust, and who support you in your quest to live your best life, then by all means ask them for help in pointing out your strong points. Sometimes we really don’t see ourselves in the best light and it takes another person to point out the obvious to us.

Whichever way works best for you — and it may well be a combination of all three — take the time to get to know yourself on your own terms. Knowing what direction you want to go in, what you like and dislike, and even how others see you will all stand you in good stead and go a long way toward setting you up for the success you deserve.

Photo Credit: © Simon Krzic | Dreamstime.com
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A Crash Course in Playing To Your Strengths

October 25, 2011 By Lena 30 Comments

I’ve been reading a lot about living a stronger life lately.  I won’t go into a lot of detail about the book here, suffice to say it’s all about playing to your strengths and it has really made me take a look at my own life in a different light.

The book is “Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently” by Marcus Buckingham. One of the things that Buckingham says, and that has been reinforced through a variety of conversations and random sound-bites over the past few days is that we’ve all been condition to look at, and focus on, what is wrong in our lives and try to fix it. And that’s not what we should be doing. We should be playing to our own unique strengths and finding those “strong moments” that support our strengths and make us feel like we are being the best person we can be.

So as I begin to really work on developing my own strengths and creating my own strong moments — and after taking the Strong Life Test I can tell you they are not what I thought they were — I thought I’d share with you my own ideas on how I’m going to do this.

First, and this is one of the steps in the book as well, I am going to accept that maybe what I thought about myself all these years is not really what I am meant to be doing. Buckingham says that the first step is accepting what you find out about yourself. Whether you take a third-party test, or figure it all out through self-reflection, you may end up like me and find out that your strengths lie in areas that you’ve consciously steered yourself away from.

Why?? Well, it could be one of any number of reasons but I’d be willing to bet that somewhere in there is a healthy dose of fear. It may be that you’ve listened to others for so long that you don’t hear your own voice, and when it does finally break through all that excess noise it scares the heck out of you. Mine did.

I let my abusers beat down my strengths and turn them into weaknesses because I was too scared to fight back. And then I let them define me for so long that learning how to listen to my own voice is a very scary experience — one that’s kept me locked in a weak life for the past ten years. Believe me, breaking out of that box is exciting and terrifying all at the same time!

So I’m learning to accept my strengths for what they are and I’m getting excited about the possibilities of what they can do for me. It’s a work in progress, but along with it I am also growing a backbone. And a sense of self-confidence that I don’t really think I’ve ever had. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that no one else is going to believe in me until I believe in me. And really, in the big scheme of things the only person who really needs to believe in me is me.

I’m changing the stories that I tell myself. So I am no longer focusing on the negative parts of my life. Since, as Buckingham says, “Attention Amplifies Everything,” why would I want to focus on the things I don’t like. I choose instead to focus on what works and to give that my attention. I’m playing to my won strengths and letting them take up the slack for any negative or weaker parts of me.

Setting goals works for some people, and for others it doesn’t work so well. If you’re a goal-setter then you can write them down and post them on your walls and mirrors and kitchen cupboards. I’m a little too flighty for that sometimes (I call it adaptability and consider that one of my strengths) and so goals don’t always work well for me. What I’ve found does work though is using a vision board and affirmations. Instead of working toward a goal that’s set somewhere in the future, I like the idea of focusing on the outcome as if it has already happened and working toward making that my reality.

While I’m doing all of that I’m also learning how to accept that these things take time. Because when I’m being really honest with myself I can admit that this isn’t all going to happen overnight no matter how badly I want it to.

You’ll notice I don’t call it patience. That’s because I have an issue with patience. Once upon a time a good friend told me to stop asking the Universe to grant me patience, because when you stop and think about it that’s just like asking for lots of bad sh** to happen so that you can learn how to deal with it. Ever since she told me that I’ve tried to avoid asking for patience.

So there you have it. A quickie crash course in playing to your strengths. It’s going to be a journey learning and discovering a whole new way of being. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Do you want to come along?

Image Credit: Kimberlee Kessler Design

Filed Under: Self Love

“I am perfect just the way I am” – 6 Tips for Learning How To Love and Accept Yourself

September 22, 2011 By Lena 4 Comments

It’s a sad state of affairs that so many people, me included, have trouble accept who we are. We are taught from such a young age that to be accepted we have to become what those doing the accepting want us to be; that we should strive to fit it, to become acceptable.

I bought into this for so long that I allowed myself to be verbally and emotionally abused for most of my life because I wanted to fit in, to be accepted, to be loved. It’s taken me a long time, and there are days I still struggle with it, but I am learning how to love and accept myself for the person I am now, and to leave all the other crap (and that’s really what it is) behind.

Here are a few ways I’ve used to help me learn to accept me for me.

1. Practice Positive Thinking

Positive thinking works wonders when you’re learning how to love yourself. Repeating affirmations such as “I am perfect just the way I am” or “I am special” or even something as simple as “I love myself” can take the negative feelings that come from feeling unaccepted and transform them into positive feelings of self-acceptance and self-love.

This works really well when you start getting caught in the negative thought patterns that arise from other people listing what they see as your shortcomings.

2. Practice Positive Self Talk

I’ve written about talking like you like yourself before. It makes a big difference to your mindset when you practice positive self talk along with the positive thinking mentioned above. Thinking something and saying it out loud bring two different energies to bear on the issue, and when you hear yourself say “I am perfect just the way I am” it opens up a whole new energy in your mind and in your body.

3. Accept that You’re Not Perfect

Now, lest all this talk of being perfect go to your head (joking!), we mostly know we’re not perfect. It’s that quest for perfection that can lead to health issues such as eating disorders and depression, just to name a couple. There is a fine line between self-acceptance of imperfections, and self-abuse because you’re not perfect.

I know that telling you to just accept that you’re not perfect is easier said than done, but in order to accept yourself you have to learn to accept the things that maybe aren’t so perfect too.

Affirmations and positive self talk work well for this too. You know that you are perfectly acceptable just the way you are, even when you are not perfectly perfect. You just need to practice telling yourself this and not beating yourself up for it at the same time.

Clear as mud?

4. Don’t Let Other People Tell You Who You Are

That’s the biggie, isn’t it? We all want to be accepted for who we are, and when it doesn’t happen we change ourselves to be who we think others want us to be. Whether it’s parents or spouses or friends or even our children, we try and become what they want us to be because we think that will make us more lovable. In reality, it only makes us doormats.

In my own experience, it becomes way to easy to put your own sense of self away and become who everyone else wants you to be. Once you lose your sense of self, it becomes really hard to get it back. When you rely on others to tell you who you are and what you have to be to be accepted, then when those people are no longer there you are lost.

You have to learn to put yourself first. It may seem selfish (especially if you’re a woman of my generation and you’ve been taught from birth that everyone else comes first), but it’s the only way to regain your own sense of self. Make the decisions that are right for you. Act in the ways you know reflect your true self. Become the person that you can love and accept first and foremost and everything else will fall into place.

5. Pay Attention To Your Positive Attributes

Instead of focusing on the negatives and what everyone else wants you to change, learn to pay attention to your strong points and the things that make you unique.

Make a list. Stand in front of the mirror and catalog your positive features. Write down your intangible strengths, and then play to those.

We’ve already talked about imperfections — you know they’re there. There’s no reason you can’t improve on them and turn weak spots into strengths too, but don’t beat yourself up over it. The point is that you accept yourself exactly as you are now and know that you are worthy of being loved and having good things happen in your life.

Here’s the cool thing… As you get better at noticing your strengths and using them, you will become more accepting of yourself as you are now. As you become more accepting of yourself you will become more self-confident. As you become more self-confident, you will become more successful. It’s a pretty cool direction to be going in.

6. Let Go of the Past

I can’t say it any better than this:

“You are NOT your past actions. You are NOT your past failures. You are NOT how others have at one time treated you. You are ONLY who you think you are right now in this moment. You are ONLY what you do right now in this moment.” ~ Karen Salmansohn

Let it go. Stop worrying about the past and the things that you can’t change. Worrying only gives you ulcers and wrinkles and doesn’t accomplish a darn thing.

Love who you are in this moment, accept the things in the past that got you here, say thank you and send them on their way.

You are beautiful and perfect just the way you are. Think it, say it, believe it, and accept it!

Photo Credit: seaships

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How Accepting Are You?

August 8, 2011 By Lena 2 Comments

Imperfect and BeautifulHow accepting are you of yourself?

If I was to answer that question, I’d have to say not very, but I’m learning. For so long I was tougher on myself than anyone around me. I’d accept everyone else’s mistakes and imperfections because, after all, no one’s perfect. But if I made a mistake or someone pointed out my own imperfections, I’d beat myself up for days afterward. Even today I catch myself thinking about things that happened years ago, and berating myself for being stupid when at the time I really didn’t know any better.

I’d venture to say there’s a lot of people who do that. Beating yourself up takes its toll, both mentally and physically. Diseases such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure have been linked to stress. Obesity and insomnia, both of which are precursors to diabetes are also affected by the amount of stress we face each day. So it certainly doesn’t help matters if we add to our stress by being overly hard and negative with ourselves.

We need to learn to love ourselves and accept ourselves just as we are. After all, if we don’t love ourselves first, no one else can. And, if we were all completely accepting of ourselves there would be a lot less stress and high blood pressure and all the nastiness associated with them in the world.

So with that being said, here are a few ideas that you can use in your quest to treat yourself more positively…

1. Believe In Yourself

Norman Vincente Peale once wrote “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.”

For many people, the reason they can’t accept themselves the way they are is because they suffer from a lack of self esteem. Low self-esteem is the mother of all negative thought patterns. It eats you up inside because no matter how badly you want to do something or say something that would allow you to just be yourself, you’ve conditioned yourself to think you can’t, you’re not qualified, you’re stupid (or others will think you’re stupid) and so you keep your mouth shut and stay hidden in your little corner.

If you can train yourself to ditch the negative thought patterns and replace them with positive thoughts, you will begin to recover some of that lost self esteem. And once you have started to regain your self-confidence you will start to believe that you really can do what you feel you can do.

Then there’s no stopping you, because when you believe in yourself you can do anything you put your mind to!

2. Accentuate the Positive

We’ve all got at least one thing we’re good at. But when you’re beating yourself up you don’t see the good stuff. If you’re doing ten things, you could do nine of them perfectly but when you’re having problems with accepting yourself as you are, then you will only see the one thing you messed up.

It’s the same when it comes to seeing your own positive traits. If you’re not as accepting of yourself as you’d like to be you will tend to focus only on the negative instead of seeing your strengths and talents for what they are.

The way past this is through using positive self-talk strategies such as affirmations, visualisation, and meditation. See yourself for the powerful, positive person you are and you will find yourself moving forward and achieving all those goals you set for yourself.

3. Accept that You’re Not Perfect

You know you’re not perfect. Having imperfections is a part of what makes us human. We were designed to have screw-ups along the way because that’s how we learn and grow. It’s the inability to accept those imperfections that causes people so many problems.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to improve in the areas you think you need it. After all, that’s what self-improvement and personal growth are for. But if you focus on the negative to the exclusion of everything that’s good about you, you are giving in to the negative thought patterns we were talking about earlier.

Not all imperfections are things we can change, and these are often the ones that give us the most trouble. I’m talking about physical and genetic characteristics here for the most part, such as body type, hair color, and even temperment to a certain extent. These are things that we really do need to learn to love about ourselves, accept that they’ll always be a part of our lives, and move forward.

Positive self talk works here too. Talk to yourself in the mirror every morning. Give yourself compliments on how you look, how great you feel, and anything else positive that comes to mind. The only rule here is “No Negatives Allowed.” The more you do it, the better you will start feeling about yourself, and the more you will start to accept yourself as being just fine how you are.

4. Only You Get To Decide What’s Best For You

Sounds like a no-brainer right? But you’d be surprised how often your lack of self-acceptance comes because you didn’t make the decision someone else wanted you to.

Learning that you’ll never please everyone around you is a lesson that often comes at a high price, usually your own sense of self. When you start making your decisions based on what is best for you, you will still make some people unhappy but you yourself will be much happier and more at peace with yourself because you are doing what is best and feels right in your heart.

5. Some Days Even Your Best Isn’t Good Enough

When it happens that even when you’ve given your all, and it just wasn’t enough it’s hard to accept that and tell yourself it’s okay. But in order to fully accept yourself as you are right now you do have to accept that there are days when this is going to happen.

If you’ve done the best you could do at the time, then there is really nothing more to do. Beating yourself up because you couldn’t do anything more is pointless… and negative… and unacceptable. You should be proud of your efforts and the knowledge that you did your best.

Loving yourself and accepting yourself just the way you are is a liberating experience. By acknowledging that you have strengths and weaknesses and being okay with that you open yourself up to new feelings and opportunities that you may never have noticed had you been stuck in the middle of a heavyweight match with yourself.

So… How accepting are you of yourself? Leave a comment and join in the discussion:
http://www.theacornstash.com/how-accepting-are-you

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