Creating the life you want takes a lot of work.
Creating the life you want begins by understanding yourself, your likes and dislikes, your personality, and what drives and motivates you.
One of the keys to professional development is improving your self-awareness. Healthy self-awareness not only helps you get to know yourself better, but also helps you to better understand the world outside yourself.
Here are some elements to begin to improve your self-awareness:
Be aware of your own strengths and weaknesses – By knowing what you are capable of and knowing the areas where you struggle, you are more likely to avoid getting stuck by being able to realize where you might need help.
Try journaling. Make a list of the things you are really good at and really enjoy doing. Then list things you aren’t so good at or do not enjoy doing at all.
Be able to identify your emotions – By knowing the emotional responses you may have to any given situation you can learn to control the emotion and not let the emotion control you.
Begin naming your emotions. Are you mad? Or are you absolutely livid? Are you anxious? Or are you just a little nervous? When you begin to identify your emotion, you have authority over it and you can prevent yourself from reacting in a negative way.
Learn to focus – By being disciplined enough to focus on one thing at a time, you will learn to eliminate unnecessary distractions that may hold you back from accomplishing your goals.
Make a list of the things you want to accomplish in a day. What gets scheduled gets done. Focus on one thing at a time until it is achieved and then cross it off the list and move to the next thing. Do the thing you dread the most first. Once you achieve the dreaded thing the rest will be gravy!
The very first step you can take to create the life you want to improve your self-awareness.
Many people traverse through life not knowing what they want or even what would make them happy. They aren’t sure who they are as individuals, how to have satisfying relationships, or how to set and achieve purposeful goals for their future. The very first step a person can take to increase independence individuality with gratifying relationships and hope for the life they want is to improve their self-awareness.
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