#100 - Self-Awareness: WHY You NEED It + 3 Ways to CREATE It

Summary

✨THERE'S NO BETTER TIME FOR SELF-AWARENESS THAN RIGHT NOW✨

But what is self-awareness? Why do we need it?! And how can we even go about creating more self-awareness...?

I've been talking about this a LOT on Instagram lately. I've been challenging my fellow high-achievers to get aware about their energy levels and what they're doing to manage them. I asked my followers to ask themselves: "Is what you're doing right now working?"

All tough questions and all things that require a huge level of self-awareness to figure out! And that's exactly what we're diving into today.

In today's episode, I'm going to pain a VERY clear picture about self-awareness, why it's so damn important, especially now, and give you 3 ways to bring more self-awareness into your life!

For show notes, head to coachellyn.com/podcast and, of course, if you have any questions or want to connect, head on over to @coachellyn on Instagram.

RESOURCES IN THIS EPISODE:

Get my FREE “GOAL MAPPING” webinar - here

Learn more about my Take Back Your Life group program!

TRANSCRIPT:

Oh, hey, friend we are back with today is our 100th episode. What the actual fuck? We are going to just drop an F bomb out the meeting this morning. Because it is our 100th episode. I didn't even realize that this was coming up until a friend of mine who I just interviewed for her podcast told me: "Hey, girl, I just thought you're coming up on 100 and Congrats!"

What? I didn't even know like so that is so freakin awesome. And if you've been with me since the beginning, oh my god, thank you! Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening.

If you ducked in and out, or if this is your first time listening, I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're listening.

I started this podcast without any desire to turn it into any sort of like huge movement or anything like that. I just wanted to share information that I was learning share empowering conversation, share tips that I was using, and that it really impacted my life with you so that you could take back your damn life as well. That's really the whole point of this podcast. And I've never been overly concerned with reviews on iTunes and all that jazz. Hell yes, I want you to review this on iTunes. And hell yes, I want as many people to tune in as possible, because I think these things are game changing.

But regardless, anybody who shows up anybody that listens, and that is you, my friend I'm so fucking grateful for and to be out 100 episodes after starting this in August 2018. It's just unreal and amazing. And I'm so excited.

But that is not what we're talking about today. We're getting tangible, because obviously, we're in the midst of something that the world hasn't dealt with in over 100 years. And I think in a lot of ways, a lot of people are really, really struggling with how to deal. How to, you know, show up in any semblance of the way.

They're used to showing up in their lives, especially for us as people who are very high achieving, people who are very perfectionistic and validation driven, whether that validation comes from outside of us, or we are validating ourselves. It can be a really, really trying time, and a really difficult time because in so many ways, we don't know what's going to work. We don't know what's going to work in terms of how to maybe work from home if you've never worked from home before. We don't know what's going to work to help us parent our kids from home or to help us stay connected with our family members are really good friends. I mean, shit. Earlier today, I had to tell my mom, I don't know if you should come see me this Friday she wants to. And I had to tell her No, I had to tell me that I was hesitant. And everything about this current situation is weird, and really difficult to navigate. Because we have never dealt with it before. There's probably nobody alive, who's ever dealt with situation like this.

And I did a live on Sunday that really inspired today's podcast, about energy and why we're probably all feeling so damn lethargic. And actually next week, I'm going to be giving you guys some tips for how to produce on demand energy. And but for now, what I really wanted to riff off of was this thing that I said during that live, which is essentially that we're in a period of time right now where we don't know what's going to work because we don't know what it's going to make the difference. We are in a period of time that is going to take insane amounts of self-awareness to not only figure out what's going to work for ourselves, but to figure out what's going to work with our families. And so what I really wanted to do today is express to you not only what self awareness is why you need it, and to give you three very tangible ways where you can create more self awareness in your life.

So let's start off with like the friggin dictionary definition of self awareness. Self Awareness is defined as an awareness of one's own personality or individuality. But I want to give you some very, very tangible perspectives on what I believe self awareness to be some of and the ways it shows up in our life.

To me self awareness is, for example, knowing that maybe a big heavy meal is going to feel good in your body. Or knowing that you're having a really off day, or spending a little time by yourself to learn why you are having an off day. It's knowing what things make you feel at your best, and what things make you feel at your worst. It's understanding your limits. And what that may be.

For example, if a movie night in is exactly what you need, as opposed to going out which going out isn't really an option for us right now. But whatever. Um, maybe self awareness is putting down the phone, the glass of wine, not because anybody's telling you that you "should", but because you know, it's not serving you and being the kind of person you want to be.

You know, maybe self awareness is a listening to your body, what it tells you, it needs a rest day. Or the one of the big ways I'm going to talk about today is self awareness as the ability to reflect back on your week, your month, and the ability to say I could have been better, and to give yourself some tangible reasons how you could have been better or how you could have done differently.

Self Awareness is basically being able to have that kind of honest self evaluation, in my opinion. And it's one of the hardest things for us to do. But it's also one of the most important things for us to do. And I think it's so important, particularly for us as high achievers, because having good self awareness impacts your energy and whether or not you're able to have consistent and sustained energy.

What's serving your body and what isn'y. It's impacting your stress, because if you have self awareness, you can be proactive about managing your stress and managing the triggers and the things that tend to send you into stressful overwhelm.

Self Awareness can help you manage your burnout, again, being proactive, and knowing when to stop, when to take a break, when to rest and relax. And it also can really be helpful when it comes to your relationships. And either knowing when you really need to invest in those relationships, because it is fueling you and it is adding to you. Or maybe when you need some downtime, it is important for so many facets of our life, to help us live in a way that makes us feel good.

Ultimately, that's what it comes back to. We're doing values right now in my take back your life group program, which by the way, can I just say we had our first call for that this past Tuesday, about a week ago. And it was epic. And I am so grateful to have so many amazing women in that program, who are really just pushing to not only become better versions of themselves, but less burned out versions of themselves, more connected versions of themselves, versions of themselves, where they just flat out know themselves better. And we're digging into values right now. So talk about knowing yourself better and having self awareness, being able to live according to your values, because living according to your values is ultimately what so many of us are after, even if we can articulate it that way. And self awareness and cultivating that self awareness really, really allows you to do that.

It allows you to work out to work to show up in your relationships, all these different things in a way that feels good, and feels like exactly what you always envisioned for yourself. That's what self awareness can give you. And that's ultimately really why you need it. And so many of us are lacking in it. So I want to give you three very, very tangible ways to create more self awareness.

The first big way is through thought catching. And this is something that I had kind of heard of before, but not ever painted in this way until I did a group program last summer in summer 2019. And basically what thought catching is, is you have some sort of little notebook you carry around or an app on your phone. And as you think of things, just jotting those things down. In the context in the group, we were really really thinking about catching the disempowering thoughts I say to myself, and that is a very, very powerful practice when it comes to you know, self compassion, or it's a really powerful practice to catch yourself in not showing up with the mindset or mentality you want to show up as. But it's also really really important and powerful for catching what we feel like we need in our lives.

You know, how many times have you probably had a thought of: "Oh my God, I wish I could just have a down night tonight. I wish I didn't have to log into this call or cook dinner when I get home or do this thing for my significant other or my or you know, my parents or one of my friends I wish I could just chill." How many times have you had a thought like that and just kind of buried it and pushed it aside because obligation Trumps necessity, you know? Obligations trumped what you felt like you needed. No, this activity and exercise isn't ultimately about, you know, changing your mindset, making sure you prioritize you which hell yes I want you to do.

But that's ultimately not what the thought catching is about. The thought catching is just about jotting down the thing that you thought about needing. It's about catching that moment, when you're like, Okay, I feel like I need some downtime. Or maybe you feel like you need some movement. Or maybe you feel like you need to get outside or you need a girls night. We have these thoughts periodically of: "Oh, my God, I really need x." And the thought Catcher in this example, which is kind of how I'm tweaking it from the way I originally learned, it is about just catching and jotting down those needs, becoming aware of when you say stuff like that to yourself, and jotting it down so that eventually you can take action on making sure you're making space in your life and giving yourself time to do that thing.

If we don't jot it down...I always say awareness is the first step. And if we don't jot it down, we lose that awareness. So this is a very, very simple first step, you can take in this very chaotic time to catch those little things that you're thinking. Those little things that you're catching yourself saying "I need this". You can jot that down. And then next time you sit down with your calendar, and you're like mapping out your week, which we'll talk about that a little bit later, you can start to prioritize and write into your calendar and your day. Give yourself time to do some of these things to take that bubble bath, or to watch that chick flick with a glass of wine or whatever, you know, like give yourself that opportunity to do that thing that you know, you've said that you need. Just because you draw it down in your little thought catcher, I personally use Evernote, when I'm doing my thought catcher, I love it because it syncs between all of my devices. So I can catch my thoughts on my computer and have it up on my computer. But I can also catch my thoughts on my phone when I'm out and about which is limited nowadays, as we know. So that is tip number one is to use a thought catcher and in this case, how we're using the thought catcher is to just jot down those things that we think of "Oh my God, I really need x."

Now number two is and you know, I'm going to go there, guys, number two way big tip is around meditation. Because ultimately, mindfulness (which is what meditation gives you) - mindfulness is just like the whoo word for self awareness, in my opinion. And there is no better thing to help you be more self aware and more mindful, then meditation, because this is what meditation does. I always get pushback on from high achiever people in particular, and I'm right there with you because this is where I was when I started. Um, I would get pushback on, you know, meditation, feeling like a waste of time, and not being able to push through, you know, just sitting there not doing anything.

But meditation is so powerful, because ultimately, it's not about not thinking, it's, that's a big misconception people have is that, well, I suck at not thinking I suck at not thinking too. Ultimately what meditation is, and why it's such an important practice for self awareness is as opposed to not thinking, what meditation does is it trains you to just observe your thoughts. Be very objective, like, essentially, you're just watching your thoughts. So when you're meditating, and when you get practiced in it, you're just watching your thoughts drive by like you're watching a car pass by you on the highway. That's essentially what meditation is, once you get good at the practice. And the reason why that is so powerful, and you probably already know what I'm getting at here. But if you're able to just watch your thoughts go by like a car on a highway, you're able to observe that thought. You're able to see those things go by, and be very, very aware of:; "Okay, I do need this or it is really bothering me that my significant other isn't doing x." or, you know, "it is something that I'm really passionate about to do more of y". You know, it brings those things to the surface that are usually so you know, pushed down by all of the other demands and to dues of our days.

It allows those things to bubble up to the surface, and then buy again, which comes with practice quieting our mind and learning to observe those thoughts as they happen, we become more aware of them. That's why mindfulness is such or meditation is such a powerful practice when it comes to cultivating more self awareness.

And because every time I talk about mine or meditation, I always give a couple tips for how to start. If this is something that you're like, "Oh my god, I like the idea of being able to observe my thoughts as I go by and become more aware of them." My biggest tip for you is to a start small. I see too many people when they start meditating. I try to dive in at like, Okay, I'm gonna do 10 minutes of meditation. And then if there are not even if when they find themselves incapable of them sitting still and observing their thoughts or attempting to observe their thoughts for 10 minutes, they feel like a failure, they get frustrated, and they want to quit. Don't do that. Don't start at 10 minutes, even though that tends to be the MO, for a lot of guided meditations. Don't start a 10 minutes! Start at one minute, for God's sake, if you need to! Who cares? But anywhere from one to five minutes is a great starting point, all the matters is that you're able to do it consistently. Seriously, that's the biggest first step is, whatever you can consistently sit down and do on a daily basis is a perfect starting point. I don't care if it's as little as a minute, it is a perfect starting point. I started probably with doing two minute meditations, bumped it up to five and now I do 10 minutes every morning, sometimes more. So who cares what number you're starting off with, start small if you have to, it's whatever you can show up and do consistently.

And then again, I just want to reiterate, it's not about not thinking. Don't feel like you're failing at meditation, if you're struggling to turn your brain off. That's not what it's about. It's about observing those thoughts like cars on a highway, not reacting to them being very, very objective. That's really the whole point.

Okay, so, tip number one, thought catcher - catch those thoughts of what you feel like you need to catch them as they come up, jot them down so that you can then prioritize them later. Tip 2 was meditation, so that you can start to observe those thoughts as they come up to become much more aware of your thoughts.

And then number three, is journaling. And when I say journaling, honest to God, it can be anything. I personally believe any journaling is going to help you increase your self awareness. It can be stream of consciousness journaling, like when I don't have anything to write about when I journal, I literally just sit down and like: "Well, yesterday was a shit day or I have no idea what to write about this morning. But I really like my coffee mug. It's super cute. I got it from this person." Like I just ramble until meaningful shit starts to come out, for lack of a better way to say it.

But there's nothing wrong with starting that way. Because eventually you will get to the meaningful shit, you will get to the "Oh, you know, so and so gave me this coffee mug. We don't really talk anymore. That's kind of a bummer. I really miss XYZ about our relationship." Like, it's amazing how quickly a seemingly random start to a journal entry can actually lead to something meaningful. But if doing a stream of consciousness journaling just does not work for you. I've got some ideas for places for you to start.

Firstly, some prompts, which how I approach journal prompts is just to give you a question to think on and write about. So some questions you could explore to develop your self awareness, particularly in this situation, and really giving yourself what you need in our current climate in the world, is just purely answering the question of what do I need right now? Maybe you will say I need a cup of coffee. Or maybe what you'll say is I need to put on sweatpants because these friggin jeans are uncomfortable and quarantining in jeans sucks. Maybe that's what you'll say!

Or maybe another question you could address is what's missing that I want right now? What's missing that I want more of right now? That's a question that you could answer. And you could go in so many different directions with that maybe what you're missing is socializing. Since we're social distancing, right now. Okay, what can you do to fix that? Because, again, awareness is the first step, you have to become aware of the things that you feel like you're missing in your life, the things you feel like you need more of right now, you have to become aware of that to be able to do anything about it. So those are two great starting points, especially for the situation that we're currently in is: what do you need right now? And what's missing, that you want more of?

Another great thing to do from the perspective of you know, the current situation we're in and developing awareness around what you need in the situation is this. These are actually some questions I asked myself in terms of my energy, because I don't know about you, I have had terrible levels of energy lately. But some of the things that some of the questions that I answered, to help me brainstorm what I needed to kind of help fix that was I started asking myself questions of like, what do I typically do? What do we typically do that feels really good, really energizing? Or maybe your question is, what do I typically do? That feels really fulfilling? Or makes me feel really connected to the people around me? Whatever question you're trying to figure out or develop more awareness around, start with, okay, how do I typically get this or what do we typically do that feels good in this area? And then you can ask yourself, okay, what can I tweak and do differently? Or if there's no way Answer two, what can I do differently...What's something else that I can try? What's something else that I can try to get more connection, more movement, more adventure, more spontaneity, more, you know, more health, more fulfillment, whatever, it can be anything, but just kind of asking yourself, Kay, how do I typically get this? And, you know, what can I do differently? Or what can I try?

You'd be amazed at the things that can come up. And the reason why this is such a good activity, it from the perspective of self awareness, is maybe the current things that you're doing are actually the things that are going to be the best things for you. So again, awareness is the first step, you've got to think of what these things are that you could potentially try to ultimately give you that benefit of finding what's going to serve you best, you know.

So, tip number one, to develop more self awareness and create more self awareness in your life is use a thought catcher. Catch those things that you're catching yourself thinking, like "Oh, I need more of this in my life." So thought catcher.

Step two, meditation. Mindfulness is woo for self awareness. And meditation is amazing for tapping into and tuning into your thoughts and what they're telling you. And then number three, journaling.

And I also have a bonus tip for you. Because I believe this is so damn important for freakin anything in your life, is to check in with yourself. Do a review. You guys have heard me talk about a weekly review before. And typically I'm talking about it in a goal achievement or a time management or a productivity perspective. But it's not just for productivity. Doing a check in with yourself and doing a weekly review can be incredibly powerful for any aspect of your life that you're trying to review. Because ultimately, doing a weekly review is responding to change it and assessing how the things that you're doing are actually working.

Maybe the ways in which you're managing your energy or the ways in which you're trying to find connection, and community and support during this whole situation, are not working. But if you never sit down, and consciously and intentionally ask yourself, hey, is what I'm doing working, you'll never be able to change it right? You will never have that awareness to realize, "Oh, my God, it's not working. I need to do something different."

So you can sit down and do a weekly review and ask yourself, iAgain, doesn't matter what question you ask, but ask that question. And if the answer's no, don't beat yourself up for it. Just use that as a data point. Again, this is where we get a little like scientists. Use that as a data point to tell you "Okay, what can I do differently?" It kind of comes back to that brainstorm we just talked about a second ago, what can I tweak or do differently? What something I haven't tried yet. And then once you come up with some new ideas, make a game plan for implementing those so that you can give yourself what you need.

Ultimately, so many of the practices I do are around cultivating intuition and self awareness, because not gonna lie when I was, you know, God, as recently as like, two or three years ago, I sucked at this. I used to be the person who said," I have zero intuition. I have zero sense of self awareness, I have no concept of how to trust my gut." I used to be that person. And then I started doing these things. And it's given me such an insane amount of connection and awareness of what I need, what I want, who I am, and it's allowed me to, and this is really the kicker of the review. It's allowed me to respond to changing situations, changes in what I need, it's allowed me to respond to those things in real time. And Holy shit, do we need that right now, because I said it at the beginning, we are dealing with so much right now.

So much is different right now. And the ways in which you probably showed up before may not be working. And it is going to take insane amounts of self awareness to realize what isn't working, what things you can change, and what ways in which you can change them to do differently to support yourself during this time. Okay.

So that's why self awareness is so powerful. That's why you need it. And we need it now more than ever, in my opinion. That's why we need it. And I hope some of these ways to create it really resonated with you.

If you don't do all three of them, just pick one. If none of them resonated with you, please reach out to me @coachellyn on Instagram and let me help you out. Let me hook you up because this is going to be such an important thing during this time, and I want to give you something that you can take away to create more self awareness in your life.

So with that, I hope you got so much out of this episode, and I will talk to you next time. Bye!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai