I am constantly encouraging self-reflection and systemic thinking to help lead people to greater awareness. Knowing yourself by recognising your own thought patterns, triggers and belief systems will help you be in control of your journey and therefore more empowered to be who you want to be. When you think and see the world systemically you better understand the relationships between things, ideas and events. It helps you go beyond cause and effect so you can better see the feedback life is sending you because of what you have set in motion. These things lead to greater awareness.
We live in a world where influence is power. There are all kinds of elements in our environment seeking to influence, distract, condition and manipulate each of us, for a variety of reasons. Buy a product. Join a movement. Support a candidate. Help a victim. Be different than you are now. Product owners, marketers, people who want to influence politics, and other stakeholders around the world, especially in the digital world we live in, strive to find new ways to affect the choices and behaviours of as many people as possible. They want to convince us of their ideas and perspectives or to support, buy and like what they have to offer. Some use studies researching human behaviour and neuroscience to take advantage of how we as humans are wired and biologically programmed to respond to our environment. Do you want others to have this much control over you?
Awareness gives us some degree of freedom from this type of influence. When you start to recognise the influence that digital media, the news and emotional messages have on you, you will start to gain more self-determination. It begins with becoming an observer of yourself. What thoughts are you thinking? How or what are you feeling? What can you observe externally without judging? There are plenty of questions you can ask yourself to gain more awareness of what is happening to you mentally and physically. For example, maybe you eat a certain food or engage in a particular activity but feel terrible afterwards. Asking yourself why after the fact and berating yourself will not help. Instead, look for the trigger or impulse that led to your choices.
We expose ourselves to all kinds of influences that do not support our health and happiness. Too much news, depictions of violence or advertising can affect you. Spending too much time with certain people can be a negative influence but so can spending too much time alone with negative thoughts. Take time daily to observe and take stock of what is happening in you and to you. This will give you more control of your life and leave you less vulnerable to outside manipulation.
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