Ever take a minute or two to ask yourself –

Why do I act the way I do?

And what is it that influences the decisions I make on an internal level?

Why are certain traits more dominant than others?

Was it due to my upbringing? Current environment?

So many questions, yet so little blog space. I could go on for days on this topic and there are tons of people out there asking the same thing and trying to find causation for certain behavioral traits. Sometimes your inner workings may be out of your control (we’re all made up differently when it comes to our genetics). But the one thing you can control of is your level of self-awareness. That seems to be a recurring theme throughout the majority of my blog posts. It’s a process that doesn’t really have an end to it; you have to be constantly looking inwardly in order to find out what makes you tick.

You have to be willing to look at all of your actions/decisions and determine if they are leading you to good place or not. You also have to take into consideration how those actions/decisions impact those around you. And lastly, you have to start getting used seeing the big picture. It’s an immense undertaking to be doing that on a continuous basis, but it’s the only way you are going to understand yourself and be able to react accordingly in any situation that comes your way. If you find that you react negatively to certain things for no apparent reason, then you have to start taking steps to correct that. Most of the time, those around us will tell us where we are lacking, but we tend to get defensive and dismiss their constructive criticisms. And that kind of thinking will get you nowhere. Be open to people telling you that you are doing something that either hurts them or yourself. Take accountability and then try to figure out how you will go about changing for the better. It’s not easy and it is tough to hear someone tell you that you are in the wrong or that you are not being considerate. But if the criticism is coming from someone who cares about you and is looking out for you, then you have to do your best to meet them half way by making an effort. It’s not going to happen overnight and it is hard to change old habits (they do die hard after all, shout out to Bruce Willis!). But if you are self-aware and are always in the mode of evaluating your decisions and actions, you will make progress.

Once you start taking steps towards fixing yourself (sounds kind of harsh, I know), your quality of life will improve greatly (kind of goes without saying, doesn’t it?). You will be more successful at work and you will have better relationships all across the board. There are so many marriages that fail simply because one person brought up concerns that they had, and those concerns fell on deaf ears. You have to always be listening, assessing and acting. No one is perfect, so if someone tells you that you can improve on something, take it into consideration. Soak in the feedback and decide if there is room for improvement (but just make sure to take your ego and emotions out of the equation). You got this!