How your self-awareness affects your business and life in general?

I was born in the country where people were discouraged from expressing their feelings and instead had to be the same as others, living the same kind of life.

You’d earn on average the same salary as others, every family had about the same furniture at their home, you’d hide your uniqueness to be like everybody else. State propaganda called that “equality”.

Communist authorities pushed those people who understood their uniqueness outside the society, created them huge difficulties in earning money for life and not even allowed them to emigrate.

As I grew older, moved countries, I also saw very little people who could timely recognize their feelings, openly express them, share their vulnerability while being self-aware at the same time. One of them was myself up until I became 40.

I missed my built-in compass for a good part of my life that’d help me better navigate it while making better decisions and even connect with people who I’d share with not only common interests but also common values while creating a safe space where I could safely express my thoughts and feelings, i.e. being vulnerable, and ask for help.

Thanks to the ICF coaching training program I learned about the “first-aid kit” – the valuable chain: Thoughts – Feelings – Actions – Results. It helps me at difficult times to check and help myself and others. Your Thoughts affect your Feelings which in turn affect how you Act and the Results you get.

When you feel worry, you may ask about thoughts that bother, eg What are your thoughts? What bothers you? What do you think?

When you observe a variety of thoughts, you may check about feelings. How does that make you feel? What do you feel when you get a thought of …?

When you are clear about both Thoughts and Feelings, check about Actions you are going to take. Action will help you to get life back in order and get closer to the Results you expect.

You better ask all those questions verbally. This will help you to raise self-awareness and calm your brain down, work out the action plan and, ultimately, take action.

Can you be vulnerable at your current workspace?