We often hear about and come across the term vision boards and visualising. We might know the benefits of using tools as such and we might not. But often we aren’t aware of the correlation between vision boarding and confidence. Even more so than a vision board, an inventory. Taking inventory of the past year is a useful tool. How do these tools come to play with confidence? Well, they help you to practice observing your actions and perhaps inactions and in so doing, practice becoming more confident in yourself.
“One of these dimensions in particular, is one that we tend to forget or prefer not to deal with. Looking into it might lead us to recognise something about ourselves that we might have preferred not to see, so we don’t look into it. I’m talking about the emotional dimension, which refers to our feelings, empathy, moods and creativity.”
Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) teaches us that a simple change of words can make the difference in how we speak to ourselves and others. This is because of the nature of the words, for example, ‘lessons’ or ‘experiences’ are far less judgemental than ‘mistakes’. The knowledge that the effect that language and empowering words has on boosting and transforming our reality is not exclusive to NLP practitioners or trainees.
98% of the Earth’s population is not self-actualised, according to Abraham Maslow. They therefore, act out from a space of unconditional or ‘inauthentic love’ for themselves and others. I believe that, no matter how much self-empowerment work I put myself through, becoming a self-actualised or authentic human being is a never ending process.
Happiness is being aware of our own gifts. To do so requires us to build awareness around our strengths and flaws, our light and our shadow. And once we've developed that kind of awareness, happiness is about making use of and sharing what we have discovered and built for ourselves with others so that they may learn and build happiness for themselves.
A Journey, Not a Quick Fix: Developing Self-Awareness is not a straightforward journey, rather one filled with wrong turns, kinked and forever veering in unknown directions. It's a journey for a life time and of a life time, a magical adventure to be enjoyed with mature eyes and child-like curiosity.