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How awareness can change your outcomes. What we are not aware of may be directing us more than we think. How do we get control of this.

Listen to the Voice

How awareness can change your outcomes

9 Apr 2007

Little Timmy is in second grade and Ms. Smith asks him to give his understanding of the word “unaware”.

Timmy quickly jumps up and in his bit of a drawl says, “It’s the first thing I put on in the morning!”

How many of us are in the same situation? We think we understand the task at hand, only to find out we miss the boat completely.

Can you imagine the laughter from the other classmates as Timmy so proudly gives his answer to the question asked?

What’s going on in Timmy’s mind right now as he realizes that he didn’t understand Ms. Smith’s question?

Have any of us been in that same situation? How did it feel? Didn’t you just want to disappear, run and hide?

What does Timmy’s self talk sound like from this experience? Can we agree that more than likely it is not very positive.

Can we also agree that the comments from his classmates are doing absolutely nothing to foster his positive self-talk?

It’s boot camp in February and we’re listening to Dr. Kevin Hogan discuss how only 20% of people are what he calls “Self-aware”. That is they are very tuned into what is happening around them as well as within them at any given time. This gives them a very big edge in a given situation over someone who is “Un-aware”!

During my one on one coaching with clients, the concept of ”self-awareness” will be brought up at some point. As the client becomes more “self-aware” they immediately begin changing those aspects of the situation they control.

This new “self-awareness” provides them insights they had overlooked before and new results are not far behind.

If you had the opportunity to listen in on the teleconferences over the past weeks, you gained an insight into “self-awareness from five different experts. Each one of them talked about one’s “self-awareness” in different ways, yet all agree it is the beginning of change!

The question is, how “self-aware” or “un-aware” are you?

During our call with Gary Parent, (author of “Prisoners of our own Beliefs”), talked about his own awareness and how it completely changed his life. In fact it is the first step in his process of change!

What is it we need to be aware of?

Is it our body odor, green stuff in our teeth, our posture? Yes we should be, but those tend to be a more surface awareness.

What Gary and the others are really talking about is the conversation in our head.

What are we saying to ourselves that we have not stopped to listen to? It just keeps going on and on like a looping tape recorder repeating the same message all day long.

Dr. Dan Schaefer in his golf coaching deals with this very directly. He asks his client to imagine their golf clubs in the middle of the floor. They pick one and just listen to what “it” says to them.

What is the conversation in their head that they may not have listened to before?

OK, I can imagine you thinking as you read this, We’re in the Twilight Zone!

Hey if it works for NFL and NHL top athletes, why can’t it work for us!

The fact is that when a golf club is discovered that says “he will never hit the ball well with me”, they can trace their poor performance to using that club. When the self talk changes about that club, the success with that particular golf club improves dramatically.

During our teleconference, Gary Parent also talked about being aware of what our circle of influence is doing to us.

Even though people love us and want the best for us they can say and do things to hold us back. We and they may not even be aware of it.

Gary’s example of his father’s comment, “Son, its good you are strong because you’re not very smart.” May have been said in loving jest, yet it was cemented in Gary’s mind for decades and was a huge barrier to him in learning to read and write.

He finally did learn to read and write in his late 40’s.

Here are some tips to help you find out your level of self-awareness….

1. The first step in controlling our self talk, is to back off and really listen to what is going on in our heads when we approach a situation or interact with others.

What are we saying to ourselves?
- I’m going to lose
- I can deal with this?
What emotions are we feeling?
- Fear
- Confidence?
What is triggering these thoughts or feelings?
- Past experience,
- Someone’s words?
Have we been aware of these emotions or thoughts before?
- When,
- Where,
- What’s the trigger?

If we find there is a negative conversation going on, we can now start to do something about it.

This “self-awareness” puts us back in control! Even in the middle of a tough negotiation process with a business associate, friend or family member!

By the way, Dr. Schaefer has lots of examples of self talk awareness being discovered by top level corporate executives and successful athletes.

2. Once we become aware of “self-awareness” we take the second step. That is to accept and embrace it. It easily understood that we may want to hide from it, get rid of it or make it go away.

The interesting thing is that by accepting and embracing it, it does go away!

Both Vince Harris in his coaching and Dr. Eric Knowles in his Omega Strategies on Resistance verify it. By bringing out the issue and acknowledging it, it does go away or at the very least greatly reduced to smoke!

We may not like this, it may be uncomfortable for us, yet this is where change, true change really starts!

Personally I don’t like it, yet this has become a part of my daily routine. To stop and listen to what is going on in the background and how is this affecting my outcomes!

When we do this segment in our Leadership Strategies or Sales Program, most report it is the best session and the most personally rewarding!

If so many successful people indicate they have and do deal with this, and that dealing with it helps them to perform even better! What could this do for you and your goals?

As your preparing for that big meeting or sales call, stop and listen to what is being said in your background. Listen to the words, emotions and who is saying it. You may be very surprised at what is really directing and controlling your outcomes. It may not be you!

But this is the first step in getting full control of your outcomes. Once you understand and have these isolated, the strategies and tools can be implemented to make the needed changes.

To help you with this, listen to the teleconferences on our web site, you can access them for a limited time just click here . You can even download them to your mp3 or CD.

While you’re there check out Gary Parents’ book and Dr. Jonas package on “closing”.

Both will be a great addition to your library.

Till next week, make it a great day as only you can!