Episode 939: Self-Awareness is Self-Discovery

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 939 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:06] Deborah Heiser: I'm Deborah Heizer. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to mentor and be mentored is key.

[00:00:23] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott MI.

[00:00:32] Scott Maderer: process is important for all of us, not just you as you go through the process yourself, but the people around you, because it turns out that being more aware of yourself also makes you more aware of others. It helps you build stronger relationships. It helps you invest in others and do the things that you are called to do.

[00:00:53] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire [00:01:00] to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself.

[00:01:12] Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the work.

[00:01:19] In today's episode about investing in yourself through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about why self-awareness is key, but also rather rare. I talk about some of the key steps to begin the process of self-awareness and self-discovery. And I also share why this process is really important for all of us.

[00:01:40] You've heard me talk about developing your talent and what are the best ways to do that is through books. But if you're like most people today, it's hard to find the time to read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible. Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up [00:02:00] and you can get a 30 day free trial.

[00:02:02] There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. Self-awareness and self-discovery. Are very important.

[00:02:28] If you think about those terms self-discovery is a process by which you can get to know your inner self-awareness. Interestingly comes in two flavors. There's the self-awareness that comes from self discovery, knowing your inner self. But there's also self-awareness, which is being aware of how others perceive you as well.

[00:02:50] This idea of this is the way that other people perceive me. And both of these are important. When it comes to [00:03:00] understanding yourself and making changes in who you are and what you do, whether it's self improvement, whether it's self-actualization, whether it's taking care of yourself, whether it's accepting who you are, all of these things are related to these ideas of self-discovery and self-awareness.

[00:03:20] And yet all too often, we really will say, of course I'm self-aware I know what's going on inside my own mind. And yet there's been surveys of people where 95% of people report. Yes I'm self-aware. But then when you actually go in and use some assessments and some instruments that determine whether someone is self aware, Only 15% of people score as if they're self-aware.

[00:03:50] So even though it's an important idea, even though it's something that is important to our success, it's actually something that is [00:04:00] relatively rare in the world. And it's different for everybody. How we go through these process is, are different. There are actually patterns that we can recognize and that we can find as well.

[00:04:16] So it's not that it's a one size fits all journey. And it's also not that you're alone in this. So let's talk about some of the processes and the steps that you can go through to begin this process of self-awareness and self-discovery. Know, understanding yourself as a concept seems pretty straight forward, right?

[00:04:41] Just pay attention to what's going on in your own mind. But the problem is we're actually really bad at paying attention to what's going on in our own mind as well. You have to pay attention to what's happening to yourself in your life. How are you engaging in the [00:05:00] experience of living? And again, At first glance, that sounds easy, but the truth is it's actually harder than it seems.

[00:05:08] Most of us don't actually do a great job of living our life with intent. Instead, we tend to be pacifistic in our approach to life. You just find life happening to you and you're going through the motions of that life without actually being active in that. Understanding your experience and being active in pursuing things.

[00:05:33] So even when bad things happen, you happen to them instead of them happening to you, you produce, instead of consume you look to develop yourself and change your mindset, your beliefs, and your activities to align with your most authentic self. All of these things happen. As part of self discovery. So how do you actually start the [00:06:00] journey of self-discovery?

[00:06:02] One thing is you have to look at and question your own core beliefs. You have to examine. Why do you believe what you believe? And then think about it. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What are the things you love doing? What are the things you hate? What do you want to do in the next five years of your life?

[00:06:22] What would a successful five-year period look like? How about by the time you're 60 or 70 or 80, and then think about the seven spheres of your life or the seven lanes of your life. Career financial relationships you'll have health and physical intellectual. Family relationships, social activities.

[00:06:43] Think about the different components that make up your life and think about them. What are the good things about them and what things might, I want to change in those areas when you do that, self-examination write down your answers. Don't just think about it. Actually [00:07:00] write it down. Be honest with yourself and take some time with this and then actually repeat this activity periodically.

[00:07:09] I've also talked before about keeping a journal, a daily written activity where you reflect each and every day with a regular activity writing down and keeping it simple, looking at your gratitude, looking at things that have happened, looking at what went well and what challenges you had, or even just doing a brain dump helps you begin to do this process of self discovery.

[00:07:36] As well, escape from your comfort zone, challenge yourself to do something that you haven't done before. Challenge yourself to do something that scares you. This is another way of beginning, that process of self-discovery and then you can do meditation and other mindfulness activities to begin to learn, to pay attention to your inner self.

[00:07:58] And what's going on in your [00:08:00] head. And then of course, one of the ways is by taking action, doing something that's big and scary and new, which is related to getting out of your comfort zone and keeping a mindset around what action my taking each and every day helps us along this journey of self discovery.

[00:08:23] This process is important for all of us, not just you as you go through the process yourself, but the people around you, because it turns out that being more aware of yourself also makes you more aware of others. It helps you build stronger relationships. It helps you invest in others and do the things that you are called to do.

[00:08:44] And between all of those things, it means that you end up with making a bigger and better impact on the world. So this isn't something that just helps you. It helps the people around you as well. Thanks for that.

[00:08:58] Thanks so [00:09:00] much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your call. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of talent, you can go over to inspired stewardship.com/talent and sign up for our five week series on the stewardship of talent.

[00:09:29] Or if you're in the U S you can text 4, 4, 2, 2, 2 talent tips. That's talent tips to 4 4, 2, 2, 2, and get those tips until next time, your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world. .

Episode 938: Making the Most of Your Time

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 938 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:06] Roger Whitney: Hey, I'm Roger Whitney. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling, having the ability to work for your future.

[00:00:21] As a key, having the ability to work for one more sec, having the ability. Having the ability to work for your future is key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader,

[00:00:40] Scott Maderer: whatever scale it is, spending that time thinking about what is one, two or three is important. Cussed her out, all of this process, you really have to think about yourself. Self awareness is key. What are your goals? What are your priorities? What is [00:01:00] important to you? Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:01:06] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to. Then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:27] In today's episode about investing in yourself by stewarding your time. I talk with you about not just managing, but maximizing your time. I share how you can use a few simple techniques to actually do this. And I also share why doing this actually having self-awareness around your time is. As we talk about stewarding your time.

[00:01:50] Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long, it turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired [00:02:00] stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show. Just that quick.

[00:02:08] If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. I've talked before on the podcast about how I really don't like the term time management. And I don't know that I've always explained exactly why, but the truth is when you hear the word manage, you'll see things or your old understand or you'll think about things like dealing with coping wielding, these sorts of limited words around.

[00:02:43] Looking at your time, it makes it seem like time is something that is against you and that you have to control it. You have to grab a hold of it and make sure that you contain it in some way. It leads you to making to-do lists trust, and don't get me wrong. I love it to do list and there's nothing [00:03:00] wrong with them.

[00:03:00] If you're using them correctly, it leads you to just looking at. More things done and moving from task to task, crossing them off your list, and yet still going crazy. It leads to those days where you feel like you were busy all day, and yet you got nothing done. This is all comes out of this idea of managing our time.

[00:03:23] And some of the things that I've seen and been reading lately. Talk instead about maximizing your time. If you think about it, that word and maximizing has a different implication. It talks about making something as big as possible. Making the most of something. If you maximize the experience you make the most.

[00:03:43] It's looking at your time as a valuable resource and thinking to yourself, what am I putting into this time that actually fits with my bigger goals that moves me forward. That gives me a sense of enjoyment that has [00:04:00] a way of building relationships, whatever it is you're looking at each moment and thinking is this moment.

[00:04:07] Getting me in a direction that makes things as big as possible that maximizes the value that I get out of them. Now, the truth is that we can go through life today and be busy each and every day and yet get nothing done. So let's look at this a little. What are some strategies that you can use to maximize your time?

[00:04:31] And you're going to have heard some of these before, but I want to make sure that I explain them a little bit about how it's focused on the maximization. So the first thing is looking and going to your calendar, using your calendar. As a strategy for making the most of your time, don't look at things as they come up.

[00:04:51] Don't look at what's the next thing that pops up in my email and that's what I have to deal with, but opening your calendar and actually scheduling [00:05:00] time to deal with things. Have a scheduled time to follow up on your emails, have a scheduled time to have meetings with clients, have a scheduled time to actually just think and plan for the week or for the day.

[00:05:14] Actually blocking time off on your calendar for yourself and for other things that you need to do think about every hour of the day in terms of what can I put into this hour to maximize what I get out of it, to make it as productive as possible to make it one of those days. And one of those moments where I look up later and I go that hour was.

[00:05:39] You can start looking from a blank calendar. If you've never done this before and begin to fill in what is the best use of my time? Where can I get maximum value? What are the things that are most in alignment with what I'm trying to get out of my life, block those off and put them on your calendar first.

[00:05:58] So that way [00:06:00] we can actually block in and figure out where we're focusing. Don't just do busy work. Don't just do the things that need to get done, but instead block and schedule and control your time so that you can spend it on the things that are most important. The second strategy is thinking through what I like to call the deed.

[00:06:24] Is this a task. When you look at any tasks, when you look at anything that comes in, whether it's an email, whether it's a new thing that your boss has put on your desk, whether it's a project that you're working on, or whether it's spending time with your family, think to yourself, what are, what D do I need to apply?

[00:06:41] Is this something that I just need to do it? I just need to stop putting it off and stop pushing it around and stop delaying it and just knock it out. Is this something that I can do quickly and just get it off my desk? Is this something that I need to delete? Is this something that I don't need to have in my [00:07:00] life anymore?

[00:07:00] And what can I do to get rid of it? Maybe it's something that you can't delete, but it turns into something you can delegate something you can pass off to somebody else, something that you can help identify, somebody else who's able and willing to do that job. Is it something that you can decide. Is it something that you can say, am I going to do this?

[00:07:25] Yes or no. Can I make a final decision right now? Because a lot of times we have those things that we just move from stack to stack from day to day, and don't really ever close it out. Or is this something I need to put a date to? I need to actually schedule this on my calendar and commit to doing it at a particular day and time, then put it on your calendar and forget about it until.

[00:07:51] By the same token. One of the things that happens is everything seems to come to us at once and we can't really focus on what is the most important. [00:08:00] So spending some time and thinking to yourself, what is my number one thing? What is my number two thing? What is the things that I really want to get done and get out of today or out of this week or out of this month or out of this year at whatever scale it is spending that time thinking about what is one, two or three.

[00:08:20] Is important because throughout all of this process, you really have to think about yourself. Self awareness is key. What are your goals? What are your priorities? What is important? Spending that time reflecting and thinking about what is the moment in time that I'm spending today and is this moment in alignment with my bigger goals means you've actually had to have spent some time thinking about what are your bigger goals.

[00:08:51] That's one of the vital steps to all of this, because you can't really make the most of your time. If you're not able to [00:09:00] know what it is that you want to get out of your time. Thanks for listening.

[00:09:05] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up. For our stewardship of time tips series by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting 4, 4, 2, 2, 2 time tips.

[00:09:43] Yeah. And that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time. Until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.