VOLUME XV ISSUE NO.7 | JULY 2023 |
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"Productive insight; clear (often sudden) understanding of a complex situation." Free Dictionary
Pop the bubble of conditioned thinking and emerge into the creative realm of "no absolutes," continuous change, uncertainty and unlimited possibilities.
Then, there can be innovation, adaptation and optimal performance.
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Performance and Open-minded Mindfulness |
Open-minded: questioning everything, accepting diversity and uncertainty.
Mindful: consciously aware; concentrated.
Foundation for blending process, project, engagement and knowledge management into a cohesive approach to optimize performance.
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Self-awareness - Foundation for Successful Living
By George Pitagorsky
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Let's talk about self-awareness. Neuroscientists, psychologists, management consultants, and spiritual teachers agree that self-awareness is a critical skill for successful living - wellness, happiness, contentment, competency, proficient leadership, etc.
Exercise
What thoughts, physical sensations, and feelings are you experiencing right now?
Note the part of you that is observing and labeling the experience.
Note the awareness of that.
Awareness of what is occurring within is self-awareness.
Self-awareness applies mindfulness to objectively observe yourself and your inner workings. It is to reflect and introspect on what is going on within you, including your reactions to your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and concepts, and your reactions to the reactions. It examines who you are and why you say and do what you say and do.
For example, aware that you raised your voice in anger, you can intend to do 'better' next time and move on instead of obsessing about how unskillful you were in displaying anger in that way. You can then reflect on why the situation made you angry. You can work on the cause, and, until the cause is removed, you can learn to better manage the anger that does come up.
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Self-Aware Living - Mindfulness, Meditation, Self-Awareness
We provide online courses, workshops, podcasts and other web content to individuals, organizations, and consultants with a focus on mindfulness, self-awareness, and process thinking. Our content is based on George Pitagorsky's personal...
Read more
self-awareliving.com
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The Power of Self-awareness
Self-awareness has multiple benefits. Overall, it is a tool for being present in the moment so you can accept and respond rather than react.
Self-awareness is a skill that gives people "a competitive edge in the workplace. ... Research suggests that developing self-awareness helps us be more creative, make sounder decisions, communicate better and build stronger relationships.” According to Juliette Han, a Harvard-trained neuroscientist, it’s “the most underrated skill” successful people use to get ahead in their careers."[1]
Reflecting on your strengths and weaknesses, your likes and dislikes, enables you to overcome obstacles to success and strengthen the qualities that promote it.
You recognize the subtle feelings and physical sensations that precede the expression of an emotion to enable self-management. Self-aware you experience how concepts, beliefs and biases influence your feelings and behavior. For example, you see how you feel when your behavior doesn't line up with your expectations, standards, and values.
You can make better decisions by being better able to see when the biases and emotions that cloud your judgement.
Self-esteem grows as we acknowledge positive traits and know that we can change the things we don't like or change the standards and values that make us not like them.
We understand how the way we think affects the way we feel and behave.
Costs and Risk
As with all benefits there are costs and risks. The cost is the courage and effort to confront the parts of us we don't like and making the patient persistent effort to change mental habits, beliefs, and biases and to make self-awareness a default.
The risk is in over doing it and becoming overly self-focused and self-critical, obsessively looking within. The goal is to make self-awareness a subtle, natural, effortless part of daily experience. Doing that takes patient effort and self-acceptance.
How to Improve Self-awareness
Improving self-awareness is simple but not easy.
Simple:
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Cultivate mindfulness and apply it to your inner workings. How? For starters, visit www.self-awareliving.com
- Make time to reflect on your expectations, behavior, standards, and feelings
- Accept and assess feedback from yourself and others, including the subtle feedback that comes from actively listening and observing how you react, and how others react to you
Not easy:
- Until it becomes effortless (and it does become effortless), self-awareness requires persistent patient effort to break old mental habits and confront the aspects of yourself that you judge and acknowledge those you aspire to.
- It is a way of being, rather than a hobby, project, exercise, or chore. You can learn self-awareness concepts and methods in a month or two, but to get the benefits you must make them an integral part of your life.
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Emotional Support for Ukraine
To support people experiencing the horrors taking place in Ukraine, we have published and wish to distribute freely
"How to Manage Difficult Emotions and How to Support Others"
in English and Ukrainian. Please pass the toolkit on to anyone who can benefit from it or can distribute it further.
Emotional Support for Ukraine is a small ad hoc group of coaches seeking to help relieve the suffering of those under fire, refugees, and helpers across the world.
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How to be Happy Even When You Are Sad, Mad or Scared:
How to be happy...How to be Happy Even When You Are Sad, Mad or Scared is available on Amazon.com. It is a book for children of all ages (including those in adult bodies). Buy it for the children in your life so they can be better able to “feel and deal” - feel and accept their emotions and deal with them in a way that avoids being driven by them. You can order the book at https://www.amazon.com/How-Happy-Even-When-Scared/dp/1072233363
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Performance and Open-minded Mindfulness |
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Open-minded: questioning everything, accepting diversity and uncertainty.
Mindful: consciously aware; concentrated.
Foundation for blending process, project, engagement and knowledge management into a cohesive approach to optimize performance.
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By George Pitagorsky
Success is measured in how well and how regularly you meet expectations. But what exactly are expectations, and how do you effectively manage them when multiple priorities and personalities are involved?
Using the case study of a Project Manager coordinating an organizational transition, this Managing Expectations book explores how to apply a mindful, compassionate, and practical approach to satisfying expectations in any situation. George Pitagorsky describes how to make sure expectations are rational, mutually understood, and accepted by all those with a stake in the project. This process relies on blending a crisp analytical approach with the interpersonal skills needed to negotiate win-win understandings of what is supposed to be delivered, by when, for how much, by who, and under what conditions.
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Managing Conflict in Projects
By George Pitagorsky
Managing Conflict in Projects: Applying Mindfulness and Analysis for Optimal Results by George Pitagorsky charts a course for identifying and dealing with conflict in a project context.
Pitagorsky states up front that conflict management is not a cookbook solution to disagreement-a set of prescribed actions to be applied in all situations. His overall approach seeks to balance two aspects of conflict management: analysis based on a codified process and people-centered behavioral skills.
The book differentiates conflict resolution and conflict management. Management goes beyond resolution to include relationship building that may serve to avoid conflict or facilitate resolution if it occurs.
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The Zen Approach to Project Management
By George Pitagorsky
Projects are often more complex and stressful than they need to be. Far too many of them fail to meet expectations. There are far too many conflicts. There are too few moments of joy and too much anxiety. But there is hope. It is possible to remove the unnecessary stress and complexity. This book is about how to do just that. It links the essential principles and techniques of managing projects to a "wisdom" approach for working with complex, people-based activities.
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