SELF AWARENESS

 

"Self-awareness gives you the capacity to learn from your mistakes as well as your successes. It enables you to keep growing." — Lawrence Bossidy

In my C.L.E.A.R.® model, this is the L — Learn About Yourself.

Learning about yourself means cultivating and improving your self-awareness — a foundational principle of strong emotional intelligence. Self-awareness is the capacity to recognize your emotions, thoughts, and values as they're happening, and to understand how they're driving your behavior.

In the movie War Room, we see a visual example of our battle — how the enemy comes for us, and how we can successfully combat his strategies. One key: self-awareness. In the opening scene, a group of generals stand around a table with a large tactical map laid out like a battlefield. On one side, plastic figures represent the enemy advancing. On the other, figures represent their own troops. The general’s study where the enemy is most likely to strike and build their strategy around it.

That's exactly what you need to do. As Ephesians 6:12 reminds us, our struggle isn't against flesh and blood, but against rulers, authorities, powers, and spiritual forces we can't always see.

Self-awareness means knowing your own battlefield. What thoughts bring you down or discourage you? What beliefs cause you to shrink or minimize your worth? What emotions tend to take you under — depression, anxiety, fear? What is the enemy of your soul used to prevent you from living in your purpose?

Your enemy uses your negative thoughts, emotions, and beliefs about yourself to sabotage you. The stories from your past shape your beliefs more than you realize. And that story can be rooted in childhood — what your parents said and how they treated you, how you were teased or excluded in grade school, how insecurity crept in during the teen years when all you wanted was to fit in and feel "normal."

Even though you're a grown woman now, those beliefs still live deep in your psyche, and the enemy uses them to throw obstacles in your way. One way to release his hold is to become aware of the story you've built about yourself.

A few questions to help you identify that story:

• Describe the significant experiences, challenges, and turning points of your past. What shaped you? What did you overcome? What gifts and strengths have shown up, even in difficult seasons?

• What limiting beliefs were developed because of these experiences?

• Do you spend more time thinking about your negative experiences than your positive ones? If so, how can you rewrite your story to focus on the positive?

• Now dream forward. Based on what you have learned about yourself — your gifts, your story, and a positive, optimistic view of your life — what does the next chapter look like? What do you want to build, contribute, who do you want to become?

Dacia L. Moore, LPC | Executive Coach | Author | Speaker

Second Wind Counseling & Consulting  •  secondwindcc.com

dmoore@secondwindcc.com  •  816-665-9823