How To Become More Self-Aware

Here is the starting point on your journey of self-discovery.

SELF-AWARENESS IS THE KEY TO YOUR ULTIMATE SUCCESS.

Harvard Business Review tells us, “There is one quality that trumps all, evident in virtually every great entrepreneur, manager, and leader. That quality is self-awareness. The best thing leaders can do to improve their effectiveness is to become more aware of what motivates them and their decision-making.”

“Without self-awareness, you cannot understand your strengths and weakness, your ‘super powers’ versus your ‘kryptonite.’ It is self-awareness that allows the best business builders to walk the tightrope of leadership: projecting conviction while simultaneously remaining humble enough to be open to new ideas and opposing opinions. The conviction (and yes, often ego) that founders and CEOs need for their vision makes them less than optimally wired for embracing vulnerabilities or leading with humility. All this makes self-awareness that much more essential.” 1

The thing is that in reality few of us are as self-aware as we think we are. “95% of people think they are self-aware, the real figure is closer to 10-15%. Not only are our assessments often flawed, we are usually terrible judges of our own performance and abilities – from leadership skills to achievements.

What’s scary is that the least competent people are usually the most confident in their abilities.” 2

Here’s another perspective to consider...

I’ve come to realize that the lack of self-awareness is the likely source of narrow-mindedness and inflexibility in much of today’s society. It’s something that has gotten worse – far worse – in recent years.

“The state of being dogmatic is the state of believing in things strongly, despite an absence of evidence or even in the face of counter evidence... (and) having no error-correcting mechanisms in one’s worldview. Humans will always seek to belong and this lust for tribalism can often yield friction within society. Most people who cling to certain (usually extreme) ideologies do so because they haven’t sorted themselves out. The absence of a strong individual identity destabilizes the substrate of their being and they look for more stable worlds to grab onto. These stable worlds are often dogmatic worlds that reject certain aspects of reality in an attempt to deal successfully with its innately chaotic nature. (Some) religions, political movements, cults, extremist groups, all fall in that category and are there to remind us what a lack of self-awareness can engender.” 3

Here’s a third perspective...

Because most people’s self-awareness is limited, they tend to flounder in mediocrity all their lives. It sucks the life out of them. When they die, it’s usually with regrets... their songs unsung, their mountains unclimbed, and the world unaware of what they could have contributed... if only.

These three perspectives beg the question:

“Since self-awareness is so important, why aren’t we all more self-aware?”

The answer is that elements of modern society easily seduce people... drawing them into habituated, nonproductive, energy draining pastimes that induce people to give in to their lower impulses... we’re talking social media, cell- and head-phone usage, TV, alcohol and drugs, video games, crappy food, sedentary lifestyles, shopping, and more. These things occupy people’s mental capacities and drain their aliveness, ambitions, motivations, and physical vitality. 4

Something like 45% of the time most people operate on automatic pilot – letting habits run much of their day. Choices are most often made by their emotions rather than rational mind. In this powered-down mode, there’s no chance for mindful thinking of what’s going on inside them and around them.

Mediocrity offers a big, cushy, comfort zone... one that usually doesn’t make people physically or mentally work very hard or exercise much self-discipline. It’s a far easier way of life and that’s why it’s appealing to so many people. That is, as long as they don’t think about what they’ve had to give up nor realize that, over time, comfort zones tend to shrink. Here’s the thing: Those people are out of touch with life and the living of it.

People like you and me won’t make that kind of a trade off. Sure, we may slide into a comfort zone once in a while, realize it, kick our own butts, then get ourselves back on track. We have some measure of what we’re truly capable of in life and we’re committed to achieving it. We know that: “Self-awareness is a vital first step in taking control of our lives, creating what we want, and mastering our futures. We know that where we choose to focus our energy, emotions, personality, and reactions determines where we will end up in life.” 3

It’s either “all in” or “foggeddaboutit.”

Taking your self-awareness to higher levels means a lot of work. It won’t always be easy... it won’t always be painless... and it won’t happen overnight. A deep and enduring commitment is necessary if you truly want to become the person you were born to be and lead the life meant for you.

Vast possibilities will be opening up to you as you improve your thinking and self-awareness. You will need to go “all in” on your commitment to improving your personal best. Half-vast efforts can only produce half-vast results.

Make no mistake... if you’re not feeling a commitment to achieving self-mastery, you might as well stop reading now.

Okay, you wonderful, fearless warrior... let’s carry on.

WHAT IS SELF-AWARENESS?

There are two types of self-awareness:

“The first, dubbed internal self-awareness, represents how clearly we see our own values, passions, aspirations, fit with our environment, reactions (including thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses), and impact on others. ...internal self-awareness is associated with higher job and relationship satisfaction, personal and social control, and happiness; it is negatively related to anxiety, stress, and depression.”

“The second category, external self-awareness, means understanding how other people view us, in terms of those same factors listed above. ...people who know how others see them are more skilled at showing empathy and taking others’ perspectives. For leaders who see themselves as their employees do, their employees tend to have a better relationship with them, feel more satisfied with them, and see them as more effective in general.”

“It’s easy to assume that being high on one type of awareness would mean being high on the other. But our research has found virtually no relationship between them. As a result, we identify four leadership archetypes, each with a different set of opportunities to improve:” 5 

Highly aware people have been able to “balance the scale” between both types of self-awareness. This is a critical advantage – especially for people in leadership positions and those that aspire to be.

Then there’s the rest of us who think we are highly aware. Most likely, we’re introspectors or pleasers or seekers. So, here are the first two tasks in advancing your level of self-awareness:

>>> Being brutally honest with yourself, determine which category best describes you:

>>> Share this information with some people you trust and who know you well. Ask them which category they think best describes you:

>>> Ask them what makes them feel that way about you. Be open to and dig for more of their insights.

For some of you, this will be easy. For others, not so much. Regardless, you now have a good overview of what self-awareness is all about... plus you know the archetype that best defines your skills today so you know where to focus your efforts going forward.

Also, please understand that developing greater self-awareness is a complex process and, thus, a complex subject for this or any article. It never ceases to amaze me how much shallow fluff is out there that’s presented as serious work on this subject. You won’t find any fluff here.

Aside from developing my own self-awareness, I’ve done extensive research covering upwards of a thousand articles, research papers, and books... analyzed the differing methodologies and perspectives... tossed out the garbage... devoted a lot of deep thought to creating what I felt would help you most... and doing my best to present it all in the simplest and easiest way for you to grasp.

My overarching purpose is to give you the best possible reboot for getting back on your journey of self-discovery and further developing your self-awareness. Beyond this article and the helpful resources and recommendations provided at the end, you’ll be on your own... going wherever your journey takes you. It should be quite interesting and, I hope, an exciting adventure for you. 

Let’s get to it...

HOW TO BECOME A MORE SELF-AWARE PERSON

Learning how to become a more self-aware person is a complicated process. We should expect no less since we humans are complicated beings.

This article is intended to help you restart your journey of self-discovery. We’ll begin with some basics...

First, the overarching realities you’ll need to understand about your self and your awareness of it. These under-standings comprise the foundation for furthering one’s self-awareness.

With your foundation established, next comes the need to define elements of your self which will provide the structure necessary for you to grow forward. We’ll get into this shortly.

Enhancing one’s level of self-awareness is a lifelong journey. I am currently working on an ebook that will make it easier for you to “grow the distance.” I expect to have it ready for you before year end.

What’s here will give you more than enough to mentally chew on ‘til then. 

?No one can ever become completely self-aware.

Self-awareness is like traveling into space. The deeper you go, the more you find to explore. It never ends. It’s the same for us humans. We are, by far, the most complex organisms on Earth. The more we explore the workings of our minds, the more we learn about ourselves and, in the process, the more we realize how much we don’t know and still have to learn. In that realization, we come to terms with the fact that we’ll never know it all. We’ll never become completely self-aware. No one is. It’s simply a matter of the levels we can achieve.

Highly self-aware people tell us that knowing this “sort of takes the pressure off of themselves and, paradoxically in doing that, it helps them have a deeper, more complex appreciation of who they are.” 6

This brings us to the fact that: Developing your self-awareness is all about the journey, not the destination.

It is my hope that you will enjoy it along with the personal satisfaction you’ll feel as you start reaping the rewards.

One thing you will want to do to enhance your enjoyment is customize your journey. This article simply lays out the basics for developing one’s self-awareness which include background information and the things you will want to define and put into practice as part of the process. Put all of it together whichever way works best for you.

?You are a force of nature.

The only limitations you have in life are those you place upon yourself. Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. There is nothing you can’t accomplish once you set your mind to it.

?No one is “perfect.”

“Perfection” isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. People are far more interesting and fun when they are themselves, warts and all. So, please, know your idiosyncrasies and hold them dear.

Focus your efforts on working through your blindspots, beliefs, biases, judgmentalism, self-serving narratives, and whatever else may be distorting your perception of reality and holding you back. Self-correct as needed.

?Your mind has a mind of its own.

This is a fact of life regardless of how self-aware you may be. It is virtually impossible to exert control over your thinking proclivities every waking moment of your day.

At one level... your mind is sorting through and semi-consciously playing unrelated thought strings... off-the-wall garbage for the most part. Just listen to yourself. If someone else could actually hear the thoughts racing through your mind, they’d think you were a crazy person. Sometimes – BAM ! – a great idea pops up. Most times, it’s just random, meaningless chatter that is impossible to shut up so we pay it little if any attention.

Left to its own devices, your mind is prone to wandering; it happens far more frequently than we realize. Just be cognizant of your wandering mind. Control it when you need to... give it space when you don’t. 7

At another level... there’s a tug-of-war going on. Your comfort-loving, old self is trying to talk your aware, future self out of doing what you’re planning to do – like going to the gym or researching an idea you had.

The old self plays dirty. It knows your weak spots and pits them against your intentions. This is a fight between letting your emotions run your life versus your commitment to growth and achievement. One eats away at your sense of self-worth, spins your wheels, and ultimately gets you stuck in a ditch of your own making. The other represents progress on your journey toward the life you were meant to have. The winner gets to control your behavior – and your results.

Understand that how you feel about what you need to do is perhaps the biggest emotional block to overcome. Avoidance of pain, discomfort, failing, fear, impostor syndrome, being wrong, awkwardness, doubt, the unknown, or whatever... any of that can and will stop you cold if you let it. 8

The more effective your future self is at controlling the old self, the sooner these types of discussions will fade away. Over time, the old self will meld into the future self as you grow into becoming who you were always meant to be.

?Developing your self-awareness is not about changing who you are.

Far from it. Nobody’s brain likes change (this includes yours). So putting the “change” label on your efforts actually creates a mental block that will trip you up. Also, it’s not an accurate descriptive. Developing your self-awareness is really about improving yourself, becoming more of who you really are, and living your life at full strength.

?Words can hurt you.

Words are the basis for labels and labels are the basis for meaning. Labels need to be chosen carefully and consciously lest they inadvertently attach a counter-productive meaning. Once you label something, it becomes whatever that label represents. For instance, a problem is only a problem if you think of it as a “problem.” Flip that into thinking of whatever it is as something you can learn from – like a “lesson.” The “problem” ceases to exist. The same is true of the word “failure.” Banish it from your lexicon along with all the other negative labels you use. Find the benefit in everything and re-label appropriately. 9

?The need to question reality.

“Most of us distort reality through our own subjective lenses. We see what we want to see, with objectivity and truth clouded out by emotion or closed-mindedness.” 10

In knowing this, you can readily see challenges ahead in dealing with other people’s version of reality as well as your own. You will need to become a skilled questioner to uncover a consensus on reality and truth. Never deal in anything less.

?What’s your life’s purpose?

Knowing your purpose is like having a mental compass that helps keep you pointed in the right direction and on track toward fulfilling it. Moreover, when your life has meaning, work seems easier and motivation or commitment problems tend to disappear.

Some people – especially those with extraordinary talents – know their life’s purpose at an early age. Most of us figure it out along the way and into middle age. I’m a typical example of this. I naturally gravitated toward working directly with CEOs because I enjoy being with smart people, working at the cutting edge of things, and attacking the challenges involved. Early on I became an autodidact – a self-taught person delving into things CEOs needed that most schools don’t teach. I figured out my purpose in life by looking at what I’d already done with my life and the direction my natural proclivities were taking me. It’s a natural fit for who I am.

The secret to having the kind of fulfilling life you want for yourself is that your purpose should be something greater than you... something that is focused on service to others rather than service to yourself. Ziggy articulates this fact perfectly...

One’s purpose must be based upon a deep understanding of who they really are. If it isn’t, it won’t be an emotionally comfortable life nor one that’s personally satisfying. Knowing this fact explains a lot about other people, especially many wealthy and not-so-wealthy people constantly seeking more-more-more.  

>>> Have you figured out your purpose in life? Write it down and refine as needed to encapsulate your purpose in one succinct sentence. Mine is: “I help CEOs win BIG in business.” So, what’s yours?

If you’re still working on it, try looking at what you’ve been gravitating toward in your career so far and where it could lead you. Also, do the work needed to ramp up your levels of self-awareness with the help of this article and dig into a couple of excellent resources I’ve provided to help you. 11

Give yourself time to figure it out, especially if you’re just starting out with your career. Explore the possibilities. Try things. Don’t stop looking until you find one that fits you perfectly... and excites you.

?What are the principles and values you live by?

Principles and values each represent different things and serve different purposes:

Principles: a very broad category consisting of rules that stem from societal traditions and philosophies developed over the course of human existence – like honesty and fairness. Principles also include self-evident universal laws – like cause and effect. While existing principles are basically unchanging, new ones are being added especially in technology. “Principles are ways of successfully dealing with the laws of nature or the laws of life. Those who understand more of them and understand them well, know how to interact with the world more effectively.” 12

Values: a category formed by the personal opinions and beliefs we have regarding specific ideas and things. Values are internalized and, given the right catalyst, can be changed (albeit, more easily with self-aware people).

Being cognizant of your principles and values changes one’s behavior. For example, if your health, energy, and vitality are important to you (and I sure hope they are!), it influences what you ingest and some of your habits while lessening the need to exert impulse control because you don’t want stuff that’s not good for your mind and body.

Most people don’t know what’s important to them in terms of their personal values and, instead, focus on what their peer groups and the media value. 13

Answer these questions as best you can today, then revisit from time to time to make necessary adjustments as you develop greater clarity. As with defining your life’s purpose, this is also something that can evolve over time, especially your values.

>>> What are the most important principles you live by?

>>> What values are essential to your self-image and the life you live?

>>> Do your habits and your life reflect those principles and values?

?What are your strengths?

“Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong. More often, people know what they are not good at – and even then more people are wrong than right.” 14

As Tom Watson and so many other successful business people will tell you, knowing one’s strengths and focusing your efforts on those strengths are both critically important. You can usually hire the skills necessary to cover bases where your skills come up short.

Peter Drucker offers excellent advice on skill development: "A person can perform only from strength. One cannot build performance on weaknesses. Yet improving one's strengths is less straightforward than fixing one's weaknesses. Doing more of what you already do well will only lead to incremental improvement. A better approach is to improve skills that complement that core strength."

In other words, don’t waste time working on your weaknesses. Your greatest value lays in all that you can do with your strengths. So your best bet is to invest in learning and improving skills that augment or complement your primary strengths. For instance, say you excel at strategizing. Then you might want to study analytics and forecasting.

>>> Identify all your strengths.

>>> What are the 4 or 5 skills you bring to the table that make you a standout player?

Give this your best shot, then ask for feedback to corroborate and evaluate each strength. Be sure to get their advice on what you may have overlooked. 

?What are your weaknesses?

“We all have a vast number of areas in which we have no talent or skill and little chance of becoming even mediocre.”

“One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence. It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence. And yet most people – especially most teachers and most organizations – concentrate on making incompetent performers into mediocre ones. Instead, energy, resources, and time should go into making a competent person a star performer.” 14

>>> Make a list of your primary weaknesses. Focus just on those that impact your work and career trajectory.

>>> Of the weaknesses on your list, identify any that are holding you back. Figure out what you can do to work around them.

Again, give this your best shot, then ask for feedback to corroborate and evaluate each weakness. Be sure to get their advice on what you may have overlooked. 

?What are your bad habits and blind spots?

Habits are powerful things. There are good habits and there are bad or counter-productive habits. They are the small decisions we make and actions we perform every day. We don’t have to do much thinking because we’ve already trained ourselves. We let the habit take charge of us.

Duke University recently published an interesting bit of research: “Habits account for about 40% of our behaviors on any given day.” That’s a lot and it helps underscore the need to pay attention to our habits... especially the ones working against our best interest. 

Often with counter-productive habits, we tend to suppress any niggling thought that what we’re doing isn’t good for us and, in spite of ourselves, we go on doing them, and doing them, and doing them.

“Your life today is essentially the sum of your habits. What you repeatedly do (i.e. what you spend time thinking about and doing each day) ultimately forms the person you are, the things you believe, and the personality that you portray. When you learn to transform your habits, you can transform your life.” 15

Then we have our blind spots. They’re not called “blind spots” for nothing. They’re things we simply can’t see – we’re completely unaware of them while we’re actually thinking and/or doing them. They only become visible – mostly to others – in our behaviors and the results we produce.

>>> Here’s the drill: make three lists – your productive habits, your counter-productive habits, and your blind spots. Do the best you can and add to your lists as you think of things. Give yourself the time necessary to deep think your responses.

Then get the necessary corroborative-evaluative feedback and suggestions. Next, get to work replacing bad habits and eradicating blind spots.

?How Do I Perform?

Peter Drucker did a brilliant job laying out the importance of understanding what it takes for a person to perform optimally in his classic work, Managing Oneself:

“Amazingly few people know how they get things done. Indeed, most of us do not even know that different people work and perform differently. Too many people work in ways that are not their ways, and that almost guarantees nonperformance. Like one’s strengths, how one performs is unique. It is a matter of personality.”

“How a person performs is a given, just as what a person is good at or not good at is a given. A person’s way of performing can be slightly modified, but it is unlikely to be completely changed – and certainly not easily. Just as people achieve results by doing what they are good at, they also achieve results by working in ways that they best perform. A few common personal traits usually determine how a person performs:

>>> Am I a reader or listener?

>>> How do I learn? [Your dominate method will be one of these: visual, aural, or kinesthetic (learning by doing).]

>>> Do you act on this knowledge? [Acting on your knowledge is the key to performance; not acting on it condemns one to nonperformance.]

>>> How do I work most effectively? Do you work well with other people or are you a loner? If you work well with other people, in what relationship: As decision maker?  Advisor? Team player? Coach or mentor?

>>> Do I perform well under stress? Or do I need a highly structured and predictable environment?

>>> Do I work best in a big organization or a small one?”

Again, give this your best shot, then ask for feedback to corroborate and evaluate the environment and tools you need to produce your best work. Be sure to get their advice on what you may have overlooked. 

“Do not try to change yourself – you are unlikely to succeed. But work hard to improve the way you perform. And try not to take on work you cannot perform or will only perform poorly.” 16

? Psychometric tests.

Psychometric tests will help you fill in a lot of the blanks in your profile. You’ve probably taken a few over the years, like the popular Myers-Briggs personality type indicator. There are many other types of tests available. I’d recommend trying ability and aptitude tests that will help give you a handle on your skills involving abstract, logical, verbal, and numerical reasoning, as well as problem solving and situational judgement. 18

?Mind mapping.

Mind mapping is an incredibly productive tool when used in conjunction with this material and discovering your self. It will help you see your system’s structure as a whole, its individual parts, and the relationship of each part to the others. Elements of the section on Define should be featured on your mind map. Here’s a very rough idea of how you could begin your mind map to help you better conceptualize your present self’s structure.

I’ve provided helpful resources in the footnotes for this article. 18

?Think of yourself as a system...

As a business person, systems thinking is probably something you’re familiar with. When used in conjunction with your self-awareness, systems thinking will give you a whole new perspective and understanding of how, as COO of your life, you can best manage it.   

Think of yourself as a system... one with many parts that, in order to function optimally, needs all parts to both work and improve in congruence with each other. To manage your system effectively requires your primary focus to be on the interactions of its parts as a whole and not their separate behaviors.

The many parts of your system are inclusive of everything discussed herein as well as all that you add to it as you grow and further develop your self-awareness. Whenever you “stub your toe” in life – and you will, count on it – something in your system of understandings, definitions, or practices is not functioning at par with the whole. Figure it out, embrace it, and fix it.

Put your heart and soul into becoming more self-aware. Your future is waiting for you and you’ll want to be playing at full strength as you create it.

I wish you all the best. Nancy

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FOOTNOTES:

1 – How Leaders Become Self-Aware; https://hbr.org/2012/07/how-leaders-become-self-aware

2 – Tasha Eurich’s Harvard Business Review article, What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It); https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-self-awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it

3 – Developing Self-Awareness – The 5 Stages of Awareness Mastery; https://thequintessentialmind.com/developing-self-awareness

4 – With thanks to this interesting article: Nietzsche’s Gymnastics of the Will: The Path From Hell to the Good Life; https://highexistence.com/nietzsches-askesis-gymnastics-of-the-will-self-mastery

5 – Harvard Business Review article by Tasha Eurich: What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It); https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-self-awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it

6 – With thanks to: A Psychologist Explains Why We’re Probably All Delusional and How To Fix It; https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/21/15660894/insight-self-awareness-psychology-tasha-eurich-interview

7 – Are You Sleepwalking Now? This is a fascinating article that will take you deep into the science of wandering minds and the absence of absolute control over what we think about all day:  https://aeon.co/essays/are-you-sleepwalking-now-what-we-know-about-mind-wandering

8 – With thanks to Benjamin P. Hardy: The Primary Barrier Stopping You From Everything You Want In Life; https://journal.thriveglobal.com/the-primary-barrier-stopping-you-from-everything-you-want-in-life-d96b369a18a8

9 – If you’re having any difficulties ridding yourself of negative labels, may I suggest reading a soul-boosting webpage on failure from University of Kentucky entitled, But They Did Not Give Up: https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/OnFailingG.html

10 – With thanks to: How To Improve Your Thinking: Charlie Munger vs. Ray Dalio; https://danstern.co/how-to-improve-your-thinking-charlie-munger-vs-ray-dalio

11 – Two excellent guides to help you figure out your purpose:

● Finding Your Purpose In Life Is A Game -- 5-Stage Strategy Guide; https://thequintessentialmind.com/finding-your-purpose-in-life-is-a-game

● 10 Life Purpose Tips to Help You Find Your Passion by Jack Canfield; https://jackcanfield.com/blog/finding-life-purpose

12 – Principles, book by Ray Dalio.

13 – With thanks to Scott Jeffrey, 7 Steps to Discover Your Personal Core Values; https://scottjeffrey.com/personal-core-values

14 – Managing Oneself, by Peter F. Drucker; https://hbr.org/2005/01/managing-oneself

15 – The Habits Guide: How to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones by James Clear; https://jamesclear.com/habits

16 – Adapted from: Managing Oneself, by Peter F. Drucker; https://hbr.org/2005/01/managing-oneself

17 – PricewaterhouseCoopers offers 4 free psychometric tests: numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning, inductive reasoning, and work style preference. Here’s the link: https://elearn.pwc.co.uk/psychometric/try.html

18 – You’ll find any of these three sources helpful in creating your working mind maps: ●

● Mind Mapping by Tony Buzan; https://www.tonybuzan.com/about/mind-mapping

● How to Use Mind Maps to Unleash Your Brain's Creativity and Potential; https://lifehacker.com/how-to-use-mind-maps-to-unleash-your-brains-creativity-1348869811

● The Complete Guide On How To Mind Map For Beginners; https://blog.iqmatrix.com/how-to-mind-map

IN ADDITION TO RESOURCES MENTIONED ABOVE, YOU’LL ALSO FIND THESE HELPFUL:

? Insight: Why We're Not as Self-Aware as We Think –and– How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and in Life, two highly recommended books by Tasha Eurich, the leading researcher on the subject of self-awareness and a person we all should be following.

? How to Stop Lying to Ourselves: A Call for Self-Awareness; https://jamesclear.com/stethoscope-self-awareness

? After delving into these materials to broaden your knowledge of and progress toward developing greater self-awareness... and if you’re in the mood for something that could possibly blow your mind, may I suggest reading Mark Manson’s article, Your Two Minds -- https://markmanson.net/your-two-minds -- and, while you’re there, check out some of his other articles. Manson is a phenomenal thinker and is well worth following.

? Understanding your Circle of Competence: How Warren Buffett Avoids Problems; https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013/12/mental-model-circle-of-competence

? The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, book by Charles Duhigg.

? 7 Scientific Lifehacks for Building New Habits and Making Them Stick (Forever); https://highexistence.com/7-scientific-lifehacks-for-building-new-habits-and-making-them-stick-forever

? Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment and Your Life â€“and– Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life, two books by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD. All of his works are highly recommended.

? The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, New York Times best-selling book by Michael A. Singer.

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