My experience with raising self awareness

all right

here we are all right hello everyone

first of all i’d like to say that i’m

incredibly humbled to be here

and to have this opportunity to be able

to express myself

with experience with self-awareness

before we dive into the speech i want to

clarify a few things

you may be thinking this guy is 22

what would he know about self-awareness

everything that i talk about today comes

from my experience

and the perspective that i’ve gained

through the tough situations in my life

and the lessons that i’ve learnt about

myself

through this i understand that everyone

has a different pivotal point

but we will discuss this concept later

on what i will be talking about

is mine secondly

i want to make it absolutely clear that

i’m not telling you how to live your

life

or how to make decisions

all that i hope to do is to provide a

different perspective on an

age-old issue a perspective that you

could draw on

and act upon or one that you could

simply not

whatever you do i leave to you

with that being said i will be

discussing some of the key points and

theories

that i’ve envisioned and come across in

my short 22 years of life

and how they have pushed me towards

living a life of positivity and

appreciating the good

and the bad alike so for now

let’s take a dive back to where it all

started

who am i this question has always had

the same answer

i’m a child now as a child

i was always instinctively positive even

in situations that i didn’t like

or those they were hard to handle i

always looked at life with a glass half

full attitude

now over the years as i went through the

various stages of my life

and the inevitable pain that comes along

with it

i started losing sight of the child that

i was

and with that the glass-half-full

attitude

it is only diving into my past and

memories

and retrospectively thinking about how i

reacted to certain situations

that i could have applied a different

approach to how i lived

and understanding to why i approached

life that way

i’ve come to understand the ability to

look at situations

as binary not as something that needs

changing

but something that just is

this was my first unconscious encounter

with my own self-awareness

because for me i wasn’t consciously

approaching life of this attitude

it was just how i did things

before i mentioned the phrase pivotal

point

let’s expand on it

my pivotal point was my life coming to a

point

of insanity insanity

in this respect meaning to expect a

different result despite doing the same

action

over and over again

eventually it got to a point in my life

where i wanted all of these different

things and outcomes

i wanted to travel i want to be a great

brother

i wanted to have a successful career

but i was overwhelmed with the pressure

that i was putting on myself to have all

of these things

until i realized all of the things that

i thought i wanted

all of the things that i thought were

expected of me didn’t matter

now after this realization i ask myself

the big questions in life

like who do i want to be and what do i

want to do

because it’s when i ask that question i

give myself the ability to choose how to

react

rather than to impulsively react

self-awareness is only the pivotal point

here

there’s the is the top of the tip of the

iceberg and it is when you dive under

the water

that you can see the variables that

contribute to self-awareness

and if you are able to identify that

there is so much more to the picture

than meets the eye and having

self-awareness

is no more than a platform to gain more

control

john mayer explains us nicely in the

book of emotional intelligence

where he states self-awareness

and both meaning about our thoughts

about their mood

and being aware of that mood

so in short both the tip of the iceberg

and the stuff under the water

and in the words of my friend kate be

one

with the iceberg

so we’ve identified what self-awareness

is

and we’ve identified its importance so

where do we go from here

this brings us to how we let the

external environment

dictate our internal well-being and how

we react

to display this i will be using an

analogy of how effective business

is run so

all businesses throughout the world have

one thing in common

adaptability and flexibility towards the

external environment

so when an external environment changes

a business is forced to react and adapt

otherwise they risk to becoming obsolete

this need for adaption and flexibility

can just as effectively be applied to

life

as if we let external things control how

we feel

and therefore however yet we react then

we are being controlled

you’re not the captain of your own ship

in this situation

meaning that you’ll live in a life in

which you are a passenger

rather than the driver

however if you can reach that pivotal

point in which you realize that it

doesn’t matter

then you are able to ask yourself and

overcome

challenges and hopefully regain control

over your emotions

emotions are powerful they have the

ability to influence and taint

actions which will in turn meddle with

your ability to achieve your goals

they are variable they produce the

highest of highs

and the overwhelming lows they make

you human

to this i apply one theory

i understand that i feel bad diminished

and unconfident i acknowledge these

feelings

and with that acknowledgement i accept

everything that i am

and that i am what i feel

now once i’ve done this i’ve allowed

myself to implement

new thoughts and actions into the

reaction of the emotions

this is the most hardest part of

self-awareness as

emotions make us vulnerable and when we

are vulnerable

we are more open to influence therefore

not in the best control over our

decisions

but if you are able to overcome that

challenge

and realize that emotions

make you feel

you’re able to overcome and take back

control in your life

applying this theory has allowed for the

capacity to not take life too seriously

whilst maintaining a balance between

purpose

and emotion therefore regaining balance

in my life

so everything that i’ve talked about

today can be

boiled down to one simple thought

everything is a process

the journey to self-awareness is just

one of the big processes within the

grand scheme of my life

and it is the steps and theories that

i’ve talked about that were

and are elements of my process but that

doesn’t mean there will be elements of

yours

when new challenges arise in our life

they bring with them different emotions

and issues

we may not always know how to tackle

them

but if we had the basis of a process

then we know as much as we can

continually tweaking these steps follows

the natural evolution

in the natural world that it is

constantly changing

change with it let your emotions be

flexible

let them develop let yourself

be human it might seem like

you’re giving into your your emotions

but you’re not

you’re trusting the process and with

that you’re taking back

control over your life

it is not about the substance it’s about

the process

itself

so thank you for giving me your time and

attention and i’m honored

to be here and hopefully positively

influence something bigger than me

cheers