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