Hi Friend! Welcome... Grab some coffee and find a nice cozy spot. I am about to share a bit of my personal story with you. I will be talking about the catalyst behind reframing my life and work over the last 18 months. Ready? Let's jump right in...
About Self Awareness
18 months ago, I started on my journey of Self Awareness when I decided to join a life coaching group. It has changed my life on a molecular level. I have learned so much from my Life Coach (Heather) about the brain, emotions, thoughts, leading from heart, and how managing your mind will help you produce the outcomes you want. This year's collections are a reflection of the work I have been doing with her, and the other group members. I am grateful for these women and the impact they have had on my life. The work has been slow and hard, but the rewards are priceless. Over the next 10 months I am going to share 10 takeaways that I have learned on my journey.
So, what do I mean by Self Awareness? Simply, self awareness is paying attention to what you do and why you do it. For me, the "why" was the tricky part, because most of my actions are a reaction to my subconscious thoughts. Emotions motivate us to take action. But, that emotion is preceded by a thought.
What motivated me to seek help?
I was frustrated with my default reaction to certain types of situations. I would look back on what happened and thought I could see where things went sideways, but I kept finding myself there over and over again. All my plans to change the behaviour were unsuccessful. Regardless of how many times I told myself what I planned to do the next time. The thing is my focus was in the wrong place.
I was trying to change the behaviour without understanding how I got there. About 6-8 months into coaching things started to click. The coaching framework my coach used was called the Model (Brooke Castillo, the Life Coach School). It breaks down our results into steps:
- Circumstance
- Thoughts about it
- Emotions generated by our thoughts
- Actions fuelled by our emotions
- Results
Taking ownership
Once I started taking ownership of my Results instead of blaming someone or something else, then I could work my way through the Model and identify where things went off track.
It is important to me to live in alignment with my core values. For me that looks like less of a focus on the result and more focus on my motivation. That meant I had to deep dive into Self Awareness to really understand why I was taking the action I was taking. I had to ask myself hard questions, and face answers I was afraid of. The fear-facing didn't stop there. I started to learn to make good use of being Triggered.
Making the most out of a Trigger
Are you wondering if you have ever been triggered? I would define it as: when the circumstance you are in doesn't logically lead to your emotional intensity. That is when you know you are triggered.
Our thoughts produce our emotions. I began to cultivate space for these difficult emotions, so my brain could tell me the root thought. The secret to fast-tracking change is leaning into discomfort. If you want to change your results you need to manage the thoughts behind them.
We can cultivate the life we really want if we first manage your mind.
2022 A Year of Self Awareness
In honour of this journey and in hope to inspire you in your own journey, 2022 will be a year dedicated to Self Awareness. There are 10 themes and 10 collections each month January - October. The final collection of the year will be our Holiday 2022 Collection released in November.