E-tip No. 71 – Raising Awareness

Yesterday I was talking about 3 ways to improve what you’re doing. To recap, they are:
· Focus
· Awareness
· Feedback

For it is by bringing our full attention to something we can use our full capabilities and resourcefulness most effectively.

So what is awareness?

Being aware is noticing and being curious about what is going on in an open, honest and non-judgemental way, without necessarily forming an opinion about what it may mean. This is pretty much the way a coach works.

And our awareness depends on the filters we put on when we consider something including: beliefs, values, prior experiences and training, capabilities and resourcefulness. And they’re different for everyone, which is why we all have different perspectives.

And if you change your filters, you change your perspective and can learn something new or gain insights.

Today’s experiment
· Pick something you do today, say having a conversation with someone, and just become aware of what is going on with you and them.
· Then change a filter, and notice what you notice. For example, in the conversation, pick up how many times somebody says what they don’t want, compared to how many times they say what they do want.
Or, rather than me tell them what to do, how can I help them solve their own problem?
Or, just believe for a moment, that this conversation will resolve itself naturally, although I don’t know how that will be at the moment.
· So rather than jumping to immediate conclusions, do this in an open, honest and non-judgemental way and just notice what is different.

Until we meet…
Anthony
©Anthony Davis 2007