Self-Awareness: The Most Important Message I Can Share

Self-awareness is the most important skill I ever developed.?

This Article is my best effort to put into words how important it is.?

But no matter how many times I re-read this, it’s not even close to conveying the message.?

Because for everything I was trying to achieve in my life,

I realized at the end that developing my Self-awareness was the answer:?

To reduce my Anxiety.?

To increase my Self-confidence.?

To find a Job, Purpose, Community…

At 22, I wasn’t doing what I knew I had to do.

Anxiety was constantly eating away my self-confidence, making action even harder.

Only when I started to give my mind some space, (and reflect within that space), was I able to come out of this spiral.?

So Self-awareness was the most important skill to navigate the journey, and the root cause for my growth in every area.

But there are so many things in daily life that compromise it:?

The lovely Internet

Things in Food that shouldn’t be there

Trading most of our time and energy for money

So all I can do is share how I developed it, and maybe someone reading will try one of the things I mention.?

With that said, at no point in my life did I actively try to learn this.?

I never googled “How to develop Self-awareness”

But it grew as a result of everything else I did. All of the trial and error.?

And it helped me navigate a very distracted mind, and a very noisy world.

This is how:?

So there were two things that developed my Self-awareness:

(1) Developing my Mindfulness

Starting with the classic “sitting down and breathing”, which then evolved into my own unique forms of meditation by:

• Finding apps and instructors that I like
• Sitting on a bench and focusing on different senses for a minute
• Yoga, Breathwork, Dance, and anything Creative

(2) Reflecting on my Experiences

As often as I can, and in the most convenient ways for me.

I would document the gems from my daily moments, and process them by:

• Writing on any kind of paper
• Making self audio recordings
• Documenting thoughts, ideas, and plans on my computer?
• Having meaningful conversations with important people

I see both of these things like a Tree.?

The more water and energy I give, the more they grow, and the quicker I develop.?

And we’re just talking about 10-30 minutes a day.

MINDFULNESS

Just a bit of this massively increased the quality of my life.?

I really believe that we need to go on our own journeys to develop Mindfulness, and find practices that we enjoy.?

My journey started with sitting down Meditation.

My sessions were rarely as peaceful as this picture, but sometimes they were.

First, I wanted to address some of the things that I realized about Meditation:

(1) I cannot “do this right”

• It’s just about showing up and trying.?It’s how many times I come back to the practice and try again.?

(2) Very, very few people meditate every day throughout the year

• Everyone else falls in and out of the practice. That’s okay and to be expected.?

(3) There is no “best way to meditate”?

• It’s a very personal and unique journey.?Different forms of meditation work for different people. If one method is stressful, then try another way.?

(4) I only ever feel fully present and conscious for maybe 1 or 2 brief moments every session

• The other 95% of the time, I’m “trying”.

I started practicing this because I read that successful people did it.?

After a few months, I realized why.?

Without getting into the dozens of scientific benefits we all know about,?

Just being disciplined enough to show up, sit down, and challenge your comfort zone,?is a recipe for success.?

So I found an app, tried it for a few weeks, gave up, and tried it again.?

And repeated this process for a few months.?

That's how long it takes to start seeing any progress.

This is why most people stop and think that it doesn’t 'work' for them.?

But it takes years of effort to overcome a lifetime of distracted living.?

Just sitting down and trying for 10 minutes a day was a good start, then I found other forms of Meditation.

Ways to Meditate

• Find an app or instructor that you like and get started?
• Search for specific types of meditations (sleep, anxiety, focus etc.) and download them to your phone
• Sit down at a bench for a few minutes, then tap into your senses one at a time
• Do something creative and get lost in it
• Walk outside without your phone?

Best Times to Meditate

• First thing in the morning before I look at my phone?
• Last thing in my day before I sleep. It really helps!
• Taking a 5 minute break when I’m outside?
• Any other time.

The fact is,?

? It took me months to start seeing any effects,

??and it took me two years of trial and error to find forms of Meditation that I enjoyed.

There are no shortcuts.?

But after showing up for 10 minutes (almost) every day for a few months,

I’m happier, healthier, more aware of myself, less reactive, and have a much better relationship with my mind.

It’s worth it.?

REFLECTION

Spending a little bit of time to reflect on my experiences went a long way.?

I grew from my experiences, and then I expedited that growth by reflecting on them.

WRITING

1. I started by Writing on paper before I sleep

Most of the time, I never felt like doing it and didn’t know what to talk about.?

But as soon as I started writing, things would pop up.?

I would spend a few minutes writing about my day before I slept.

Or grab a piece of scrap paper in the morning and just write whatever’s on my mind and things I want to do that day.

I found that writing reduced my stress, exposed the truth, and changed my perspective.?

Getting things out from my mind and onto paper, allowed me to see them for what they are.

They were written there right in front of me.

Only then, could I do something about them.

Then I found myself writing on anything: receipts, scrap, large landscape papers to plan etc.

And just like my Meditations, my Reflection process evolved.

DOCUMENTING?

2. When I got into “Networking”, I started using Google Docs to document my meetings.?

So I would plan for them before, and reflect on them afterwards.?

Doing this really reduced my nerves, and allowed me to improve much quicker.

Then after a year, going to events and meeting people for coffee wasn’t a big thing for me anymore, and it became very normal.

So I didn’t feel the need to spend as much time documenting.

AUDIO RECORDINGS

3. So I started recording audios on my phone after meetings.

This saved me a lot of time, and unloading everything on my mind was de-stressing.

If the meetings were very good, I would listen to the recordings again and take them to my Google Docs.?

But the most interesting part of making audio recordings, was that it processed things in my mind very effectively.

Then I started to record audios when I had a new thought or idea.

Capturing that moment of inspiration and expanding on it, unlocked my Creativity.

CONVERSATIONS & RELATIONSHIPS

4. And of course, during this time I had more meaningful conversations with people.?

I found mentors, I found like-minded communities, and I opened myself up more to my friends and family.?

There was reflection and new things to learn with every conversation.?

All of those conversations shined a light on things that I couldn’t see before.

And all of these things developed my self-reflection, and my mind.?

Combining Reflection with a Mindfulness practice, developed my Self-awareness

Which allowed me to better navigate my many thoughts in this wild world,?

with a bit more clarity and purpose.

This is all that I can do.?

All I can do is best equip myself to face what's to come.?

And for everything I was faced with, Self-awareness was always the answer.?