“Awareness is all about restoring your freedom to choose what you want instead of what your past imposes on you.” ~Deepak Chopra

 

How do you live your life?

Are you REACTIVE or PROACTIVE in your approach?

Being reactive means you are constantly fighting back challenges on a personal, relationship or professional front. You feel like you are fighting one battle after the other and going back to bad habits.

Being proactive on the other hand means you are mindful of your decision making. You make decisions that keep you abreast for any sudden changes in life. You are able to think long term and make good judgement about the trajectory you want your life to take.

One keeps you stuck, the latter helps you grow

The KEY difference between these two states of living is “AWARENESS” – or that little pause that is present before your react to outside stimuli

 

Being Aware helps us make conscious choices on why we do the things we do. You’re better empowered to make a choice because you understand yourself, the situation and anticipate what your choice would create down the line.

 

Basically, by being more aware of your thoughts and actions, you are snatching control on how you live your day to day life.

The only way you can achieve this is by watching your thoughts and observing your actions.

Basically, you want to know “why you do what you do” and the subsequent effect it has on you long term

By learning to be aware and observe your thoughts and behaviours, you can address what works and improve on them and reduce what does not work.

 

For example, by tracking your sleep patterns – i.e when you go to bed and when you wake up and how you feel, you are better positioned to know if you need 7 or 8 hours to be  at your best.

 

No one is born with the exact blueprint of how to live the perfect life or being proactive to life’s ups and down. But by being aware, you understand your behaviours and develop good patterns and routines from your own wealth of personal experience

 

How did you feel the next morning after a night of too much alcohol? How do you feel when you have eaten a healthy meal? How do you feel when you eat junk all day? Is there a reduction in your energy levels?… you can only answer these questions honestly by being Aware.

 

Another example of when you can practice “awareness” is by tracking your spending habits, you can actively see where your money goes. Do you go shopping once you get an inflow of cash or are you calculative and pay the most important bills first while investing in yourself?

 

In the absence of awareness, it is easier to react “reactively” when something good or bad happens and this can lead to a default state of bad choices as a way to handle stress (especially in negative situations)

 

If you tend to binge on junk food or get drunk every time you are sad, if you are not aware – this can lead to an unhealthy habit that and would be your go-to escape to handle any and all forms of sadness – big or small

 

Our past reactions condition us on how we react to present events even when the stakes are dissimilar.

You do not want to colour your future with past realities and take the “same approach” to dealing with everything that comes your way.

When you are not aware, your mind can make mountains out of every “molehill” problem as you are attached to every situation.

 

Some ways to learn to be Aware in your day to day life is by

1. Practicing self reflection: Make it a habit of asking yourself why you do what you do at the end of each day. Call it a rolodex of the days events where you ask yourself

• Why did I react this way?
• Why is this making me sad?
• Why am I so angry?
• Where did this belief come from?

When your emotions are no more attached you can objectively look at how you responded and see if it was good or bad. You do this already. Anytime you lose your temper and later think “I took it too far” you have self reflected. Make the practice more intention and learn to not make any “mistakes” you made in the past

 

2. Journal:  You can do this once a week, once a day, once a month and it should not take more than 5-10 minutes of your time. Write down things you have done, why you did them, the decisions you made and the result. By looking at our lives introspectively, we are able to learn from ourselves as we have the whole story. This is also a great way to unpack nervous emotions.
3. Ask for feedback : to do this, you need to be able to ask for feedback from others without feeling offended or insulted. The feedback you get is how you correct yourself and improve on yourself. We learn everyday and by looking at ways to improve you grow and learn everyday about the most important person YOU.

 

4. Face your fears: One good thing about being aware, is that it helps you learn about your “boundary” and “limitation” – things you’d like to do but you are scared. Now that you have identified them, it is time to tackle them one after the other. Is this something others are doing currently? If so how can you reverse engineer what they’ve done for your own good. For you, this might mean setting a boundary with someone after recognizing your habit of letting people take advantage of you or applying for a job you’ve been interested in after recognizing that you usually hold yourself back with fears of not being good enough.

 

Awareness is an underused trait and once you learn to become more self aware, you are better placed to improve your life and effect real change for GOOD.

Like Eckhart Tolle says“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”