Someday in seventh grade, a woman sat subsequent to me on the college bus. She was the sort of one who made enjoyable of everybody. She mentioned, “Nick, I don’t even have to start out with you. You’re already too tousled.”
That particular incident began a sequence of ideas in me that had been actually arduous to shed. I embraced the concept that I used to be arduous to like, that I wasn’t adequate and that I used to be inferior.
As we undergo the totally different phases of our lives, we inevitably let folks’s concepts about us form who we expect we’re. It takes some actual work to undo this harm, however that work is the important thing to life-changing self-awareness and self-acceptance.
Right here’s what I’ve discovered about methods to change into actually self-aware.
1. Be Extra Self-Conscious: Query Your Beliefs
Turning into extra self-aware begins with difficult the concepts you maintain about your self. Ask your self probing questions: Is that factor I consider—that I’ve all the time been instructed—true? What ingrained thought from my upbringing did I undertake? What are the issues I actually like or don’t like?
You might find yourself with a unique image of your self than you began with.
2. Really feel Your Emotions
This may occasionally appear to be asking: Why does that label make me really feel this manner? Why am I insecure proper now? What simply triggered me?
These emotions and questions might be tough to face. However permitting your self to really feel them and actually discover their origin will enable you see the issues that don’t serve you. Do not forget that your mind is a problem-solver. It needs to give you the solutions to the questions you ask it, so begin elevating the questions.
3. Throw Out That Which Doesn’t Serve You
You’re not “simply” what somebody has all the time mentioned you’re. You aren’t “too previous” or “too younger” or “too inexperienced.” I do know as a result of I’m a man who’s been given lots of labels and put in lots of packing containers. I’ve needed to work very arduous to destroy these packing containers—so I do know that it’s doable.
That is the massive secret: You aren’t trapped. You create your own reality. It’s not a set factor. You don’t have to carry onto any beliefs that don’t serve you. You don’t must consider issues that make you’re feeling small or inferior.
4. Create Your Splendid Actuality
Studying your self and dwelling as your self requires apply.
I work day by day to get folks to establish me in ways in which I need to be recognized. I do that by appearing in accordance with the id I would like—which is just one thing I’ve discovered methods to do by determining who I need to be. By difficult my self-beliefs and really getting to know myself.
5. Turn into Extra Self-Conscious: Have Braveness
True braveness is required to face all components of your self, even when it’s uncomfortable. However if you happen to can take this brave step, you’ll start uncovering the reality. The journey of self-awareness—of asking yourself the questions that get to the guts of who you’re and who you need to be—is the place you can see energy.
That’s when you may step out in full mild, not dimmed by anybody else’s labels, assured and totally empowered to reside out your objective with out worry.
This text initially appeared within the Sept/Oct 2023 issue of SUCCESS magazine. Photograph courtesy of Nick Santonastasso.