Episode 1079: Self-Awareness is key

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1079 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Mark Aho: I'm mark Idaho, author of building wealth and living in faith. 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 a right relationship between faith and money is key to doing that.

[00:00:33] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader.

[00:00:44] Scott Maderer: being more self-aware helps us communicate better because one of the reasons we tend to not communicate well is because we don't actually even really understand what we're thinking or feeling to communicate in the first place. It allows us when people give [00:01:00] us. To know is if this is feedback that I need to take to heart and go, thank you for sharing that with me.

[00:01:07] I truly understand that. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire 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, you will learn to invest in yourself.

[00:01:28] Invest in. And develop your influence so that you can impact the world

[00:01:35] today's episode about investing in yourself through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about what self awareness is. I talk about how to become more self-aware and I also talk about why self-awareness helps so much in so many different areas as we talk about stewarding your time. Wouldn't it be great.

[00:01:55] If you could support this podcast and do it. Just taking too long. [00:02:00] It turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired 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. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/.

[00:02:20] All this week, I've been talking about self-awareness in different parts of our life. I'm even going to talk about it more tomorrow when it comes to money and self-awareness, but the truth is I didn't define this term. So I wanted today. When we talk about talent to talk a little bit about what self awareness even is and how it helps us see self-awareness is being mindful and conscious about your true strengths.

[00:02:49] Weaknesses actions and presence. It's about being aware of your mental and emotional state, as well as your physical state. This [00:03:00] is one of the reasons that I recommend meditation as a habit is because regular meditation helps you become more aware of these states, both physical and mental and. See self-awareness involves recognizing how you react to other people, how you react to particular situations, what things are habit triggers and what things cause you to behave in certain ways, this idea of being aware of yourself and aware of how others perceive you is self-awareness.

[00:03:37] It allows us to take a look at the world around us and be aware at some level of the biases that we have around the world. Now you never eliminate all of your biases. We all have biases. And if you think you don't, that is a bias. So you automatically have one. The truth [00:04:00] is we all have them, but become more.

[00:04:03] Self-aware allows you beginning to see those. And it has benefits to you both professionally and personally, it lets you actually look at things like what is really important to me. What are my actual emotional drivers? For things that I do. And I say, what are the scripts that are playing out in my mind?

[00:04:28] What are my limiting beliefs? What are my enabling truths? What are the things that happen inside my head? Because of my family of origin that maybe were left, unexamined, just play out in my life. But examined, I get to decide, is this something that I want to continue or not? Being more self-aware helps us communicate better because one of the reasons we tend to not communicate well is because we don't actually even really understand what we're thinking or feeling to communicate in the first place.[00:05:00]

[00:05:00] It allows us when people give us feedback to know is if this is feedback that I need to take to heart and go, thank you for sharing that with me. I truly understand that. Or is this feedback that you need to listen to? Thank you for sharing your feedback and move on. See the truth is you can't process feedback accurately.

[00:05:20] If you don't have an accurate understanding and picture of yourself, it allows us to work better with others and in teams because we understand ourselves and we understand others, and we understand our triggers. We can look at what's going on and allow us to collaborate better with others. And of course it leads to better time money.

[00:05:44] Management and productivity as well. So how do you begin to become more self aware if you don't have it today, or if you're worried that maybe you could work in this area [00:06:00] and the first is you usually need someone in your circle who knows you well apart. A close friend, maybe a very close coworker, someone who can help give you feedback on self-awareness, somebody who can let you know how others see you in a clear and honest way, and who's not afraid to do it.

[00:06:26] And then of course you have to actually be open to that feedback. You have to be open to hearing what they say. You can work on your mindfulness, whether that's meditation or whether that's just spending time becoming more mindful of your physical body, your emotional state and what you're doing and thinking at particular times, paying attention becomes an act of self-awareness.

[00:06:53] You can use different assessments and tools to try to begin to get an accurate [00:07:00] understanding of your capabilities, look and find out what is it that you're really good at ask other people, what would they come to you to help them with begin to understand what are your real skills and abilities. And what are your blind spots?

[00:07:18] What are the things that maybe you think you're good at, but it's the Dunning Kruger effect. You're really not as good as you think you are and make this a regular pattern and habit, make this something that you do on a regular scale. Part of my review every week, every month, every day, every year involves some self awareness questions, some questions about what went well and what didn't go well, and what do I need to do differently in the future?

[00:07:50] I've been asking those questions of myself for 35 years and I will not claim to be perfectly self-aware. I'm self-aware enough to know that I'm not, but [00:08:00] at the same time, what I will say is the more I paid attention to it, the more I've understood my own strengths, my own weaknesses, and gotten more open to feedback and growing in those areas as well.

[00:08:15] And you can begin that pattern as well, just by starting small and asking yourself each and every day, when you start the day, what is it that I want out of today? And when you end the day asking yourself what went well, what was a struggle and what do I want to change? Thanks for listening.

[00:08:36] 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

[00:08:54] episode

[00:08:55] Scott Maderer: on the stewardship of talent, you can go over to inspired [00:09:00] stewardship.com/talent inside.

[00:09:03] For our five week series on the stewardship of talent, or if you're in the us, 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, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.