What you are aware of you can act on; what you are unaware of acts on you. This is such a profound realization as taught to me by one of my mentors. The simple truth of it is refreshing once you grasp it and the light bulb goes on in your head.
Awareness is a principle that exists and operates in our lives whether we are aware that it does or not. Understanding how it works is crucial to success in your personal growth and development. My experience is that the more keen your awareness in a situation or about a particular circumstance, the more effective your actions and the results you achieve.
Let’s first define awareness…
Awareness speaks to your level of consciousness; how awake you are in a particular situation. It speaks volumes about your knowledge, responsiveness and alertness. It is about your sensitivity to you, circumstances and those around you. It goes to your receptiveness of the outside world and how you manage it on the inside.
To the degree that you are aware of the inner and outer world, the effectiveness of your choices, thoughts and actions will reflect the same. How you behave will largely depend on how aware you are.
When you raise your level of awareness, you automatically raise your potential for success. This is how the principle – the natural law of awareness works. It exists and operates whether you know it or not or believe it or not. It simply is.
In my experience, awareness comes in 4 forms. You may have seen them categorized differently; however,
these are basically the 4 different forms of awareness.
1.
Unawareness
The fact that you have no clue what is going on does not negate the fact that there is a level of awareness in play. In a state of ignorance, everything and everyone is acting on you without your knowledge. You may blame and complain about your circumstance and others at this level; however, the truth is that your unawareness is the real culprit in your frustration.
When you lack knowledge of something; you also lack the ability to make other choices simply because you don’t even know they exist. In this case, ignorance is not necessarily bliss – in fact, it could be down right miserable.
Here’s the lesson…
Whether you have knowledge or not doesn’t mean that the
knowledge doesn’t exist and that its existence isn’t operating in your life. It
may be a little weird or hard to grasp at first BUT think about it – really
think about it.
2.
Reactive Awareness
In this case you are always aware of and act on circumstances and people around you. The focus of your choices, thoughts and actions are largely based on how others view and treat you.
Also, at this level, you do not accept total responsibility for your own choices, thoughts and actions. Since you are mostly reacting to circumstances and other people, you blame them for your choices, thoughts and actions. This is reactive behavior which causes a severe lack of self-leadership.
Reactive awareness is not ideal simply because it leaves you out of the equation. When all your choices, thoughts and actions are based on circumstances and/or other people, you lack your own voice. You are not making decisions based on the things you value most but rather on the things you believe others value most.
No matter what you believe at this moment, it is certain
that this way of thinking will lead to frustration and unhappiness. This is
because, you cannot have good and firm grounding or a good sense of direction
when you are simply blowing the way others and circumstances blow. If you
change your stance with the direction of the wind, you will ultimately spiral
into chaos, confusion and disarray. Your level of personal growth and success
will undoubtedly be stunted.
3.
Proactive Awareness
Proactive awareness is complete awareness. In this mindset, although you are aware of others and circumstances, you are most aware of yourself. You are completely in tune with your choices, thoughts and actions and you understand that these are the things you truly control.
You do not blame and complain about others and circumstances when things go wrong because you realize that your choices, thoughts and actions precipitated that outcome. Proactive awareness demands that you be responsible for you; the way you think and act in any given situation.
This means that you are aware of your strengths and your shortcomings; you are aware of others in the same manner; however, you do not base your choices on them. Your choices are based on your core values regardless of what others think. The person you show others is the person you want to be and not the person they want you to be.
This is the practice of complete awareness – proactive
awareness. You take a deliberate stance to be a person who evaluates his/her
own choices, thoughts and actions so that you can learn to improve yourself.
4.
Instinctive Awareness
Frankly, this list could stop at 3; however, I have found it quite valuable to include this 4th form of awareness. My experience is that when you practice something over and over again, you only become better and better at it. At some point, you no longer seem to have to put much effort into succeeding at it because it has become a habit – a part of your DNA.
This form of awareness, I have dubbed instinctive awareness. At this level, you are so keenly aware that things seem to happen and function automatically. You make choices, think thoughts and act with your core values guiding you on auto-pilot. Certainly since you are always learning, there are things that will always be at the other 3 levels. Eventually though, if you are diligent in your practice and seek to improve your awareness at all times, you will end up here – at this level.
For instance, reading, writing and attending seminars and workshops by incredible individuals from whom I can continue to learn is not something I really have to think about anymore. I just do it; it seems automatic. I instinctively spend time, money and resources improving my own personal power, growth and self-awareness. I love doing that and I realize of course that it helps me tremendously to help others even better.
This is just me – what’s your vice?
As with all principles, your results are based on how well you operate in line with them. This means that especially at the level of instinctive awareness, if you are practicing negative behaviors, you will undoubtedly reap negative results.
These are basically the 4 forms of awareness; as I said, you
may categorize them differently; however, these are they.
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