Self awareness and our state
Each day, and each week we experience a different state, whether that be feeling high in energy or low in energy, or if we are feeling positive or negative the question is what dictates our state, the outer or the inner?
Resilience is an inner state. All challenges and setbacks are opportunities in disguise to learn more about ourselves, how we can develop a different strategy, change our attitude, thinking, actions and responses.
It is important to remember to never look back with regret but look forward with opportunity. We can’t change the past but we can do something today that changes the future. That is the greatest thing about being human; we can be open to our own self development.
Challenges seem random; but every personal challenge is an opportunity for growth; if we are able to see it.
That’s the difficult part, not repeating the past or not learning from the past.
Being in the present is being more conscious of how to change current thinking, actions, habits and behaviours and that changes the future results. Today creates the future.
Definition of insanity; Doing the same thing and hoping for a different result.
Self awareness is really about seeing our part in the problem and what we can influence or change. If we think we haven't created the problem then we blame, we look outside our self to other causes -situations, people and circumstances.
Yes, it's easier to deflect than reflect, but if we can see how we are part of it, we can adopt a different attitude towards it and see that every problem has a solution. Every challenge has important hidden lessons. We attract our luck and our challenges. Yes luck is real - but it's a byproduct of our thoughts and feeling. It's called the law of attraction. Thoughts are so powerful they are like magnets. They attract or repel.
In a bad state we push away, we begin to read meaning where there is no meaning in things and then we create the future we don't want and walk in to it. Sometimes we look outside ourselves wondering who to blame. But if we look a little closer we can see that we did it to ourselves through our own thinking, decisions and actions.
Why? The mind doesn't know the difference between a negative thought and a positive thought. It only acts on what we are thinking about most of the time so if we are thinking and worrying about not wanting something to happen, well we can be sure that it will happen. The mind only acts on or attracts what we think about; think negatively and we will attract that outcome.
Being positive in the present is a product of our state. We can manage our state through a regular routine of meditation, good rest at night and not entertaining negativity. Enjoy where you are, don't worry about what you can't change and don't worry about what hasn't happened yet.
We have the power to manage our state by managing our routines.
I am a byproduct of my choices and my routine. If I feel good or want to feel good then it's about understanding how my thoughts, my diet and my recovery affect my state. Going to bed earlier and meditating twice a day are strategies and routines for the recovery of energy. That’s what changes our state or mood.
It's not what happens on the outside, what matters is how we choose our responses and routines how we build our resilience to what happens to us. That's what builds more enjoyment and sustained success.
Author: Steve Griffith
Steve Griffith is the founder & CEO of Griffith Consulting.
Steve delivers thousands of leadership, resilience and meditation programs to individuals and organisations all around Australia each year.
For more information about Steve, please click here.