Pamela Paul, editor of The New York Times Book Review, decided to downgrade her tech two years ago. It has worked out, with paper and DVDs instead of the latest apps and gizmos.
“I find that many new technologies are actually far less efficient than the tools they attempt to replace,” said Pamela Paul, editor of The New York Times Book Review. Credit: Krista Schlueter for The New York Times
Via NYTimes, Featuring Pamela Paul
How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Pamela Paul, editor of The New York Times Book Review, discussed the tech she’s using.
About two years ago, you wrote an article about how you downgraded all your tech. How did you downgrade? What do you love about having done that?
It’s easier than you might think because you can pretty effectively downgrade merely by neglecting to upgrade. You just naturally find yourself sliding backward. In my case, this shift has been deliberate, but more about making a mental adjustment than about deactivating existing technology. (Though I did permanently jettison the electric toothbrush.)
There’s a prevailing assumption that just because there’s a new high-tech version of something previously handled in a low-tech way, one should adopt that technology. I come at it from a different angle, which is to start with the need or problem and ask myself: Will this new technology substantively help? And if the upside is speed or information, my next question is: What’s the trade-off? What do I lose along with this gain, and on balance, do the gains outweigh the losses? (Possibly the only thing I learned from Econ 111.)
Quite often, I find that it doesn’t. What lands in the loss column may have to do with process, and the process of doing something can be just as valuable as the end result. I read this book last year, “Cræft: An Inquiry Into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts.” I am in no way crafty, but this book had me yearning to thatch my own roof just to be in touch with the physical and attendant mental labor of putting something useful together. (That said, I haven’t lifted a finger.)
On the flip side, I find that many new technologies are actually far less efficient than the tools they attempt to replace. A Nook or a Kindle or iPad is, for my purposes, unequivocally worse than a printed book. You can’t flip back and forth to the photo inserts or skim easily through the index; you have no sense of page count (percentages, really?). You lose the design of the product, which is often beautiful, down to the weight of the paper and the choice of typeface. You’d have to pay me a very fancy salary to give up print for a year.
The vast majority of reviewers do, too, she said. Credit: Krista Schlueter for The New York Times
Same thing with paper calendars; they’re just better. I get irrationally impatient with the slowness with which people tap meetings into their calendars on the phone. It is at least 30 seconds faster to write it in an old-timey agenda (Levenger here). My Google calendar will always play second fiddle to this far more detailed agenda, supplemented by Post-its and a Moleskine to-do list. I trace this obsession with efficiency to the children’s book “Cheaper by the Dozen,” about a couple of efficiency experts and their brood, which I took way too literally.
Given all this, what does your tech setup look like for doing your work?
My personal life, techwise, operates in sharp contrast to and in part as ballast against my professional life. Despite working on what one might consider the most low-tech of beats, we are in a tech-oriented workplace, and our content is delivered through high-tech platforms to tech-savvy readers.
That means doing everything I can while at work to understand, adopt and assess the same tools our newsroom colleagues and our readers are using, and figure out how they can materially enhance our journalism. We were actually the first desk to have a podcast (now in its 15th year) and are part of the pilot program for Alexa, which adapts our audio content for voice users. While at work, I have 12 windows and tabs open, toggling madly between laptop and phone like every other digital drone.
As an aside: I have the ugliest but best low-tech phone case for klutzes like me who drop their phones all the time. It costs 3 euros from Ale-Hop in Madrid, and you can order it online. You will look ridiculous carrying it around but triumphant picking it up.
Ale-Hop makes “the ugliest but best low-tech phone case for klutzes like me.” Credit: Krista Schlueter for The New York Times
What’s your advice for others who want to downgrade their tech?
In general, when I hear the phrase “There’s an app for that,” my first question is, “Does there need to be?” The vast majority of new technologies are developed with a profit motive. So each new form of tech raises the question: Is this something I’m willing to pay for, whether the cost is in terms of dollars or privacy? Like many people, I chafe at the notion of my personal life being monetized.
How has the book industry’s shift toward digital publishing changed the way that The Times reviews books? And what hasn’t changed?
Strictly in terms of review process, our desk hasn’t changed much — because the vast majority of our editors and reviewers prefer to work in print.
It’s easier for an editor to assess a book without reading it in its entirety by dipping in and out. Reviewers like to mark up their galleys, which are early review copies.
That said, PDFs make fact-checking far easier and speed our process for embargoed books. We can also see early editions of visual books that aren’t available in galleys (the printing costs are too high) without having to wait for finished physical copies. And we can more readily get access to audiobooks digitally than we ever could with CDs.
“You’d have to pay me a very fancy salary to give up print for a year,” Ms. Paul said. Credit: Krista Schlueter for The New York Times
Outside of work, what low-tech product are you currently obsessed with?
I am fairly confident that I’m the last DVD subscriber to what was once called Netflix and is now DVD.com, and my queue is maxed to the 500. I don’t subscribe to any streaming services, nor does our television have an antenna set up for network TV.
This makes my decision around what to watch really easy: There are only four choices. When I go somewhere with multiple streaming subscriptions, there’s actually nothing I want to watch. As Barry Schwartz wrote in his persuasive 2004 book, “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less,” we become easily overwhelmed and paralyzed when faced with too many possibilities (at least I do). It’s also easier to find old and foreign movies on DVD.
I do, however, like tech that narrows choice down. One app we recently used with much success was Happy Cow, which locates vegan dining options. It was seriously useful while traveling in Germany last summer with our 13-year-old vegan daughter.
I still regret uploading all my CDs at the behest of my husband, who is far techier than I am. Recently, I bought portable CD players for two of my kids. I think about digging out the vinyl again. Maybe I’ll pick up a “new” record player one of these days.
Pamela Paul is the editor of the Book Review and oversees books coverage at The Times. She is the author of five books, “By the Book,” “Parenting, Inc.,” “Pornified,” “The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony” and most recently, “My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues.”
“What you do with your spare time matters.” Love that. I like Aristotle’s thinking. Take the part “…true human flourishing requires activities like philosophizing that are pursued for no other reason than their intrinsic quality.” Beats in my heart, that one. There’s clearly an addiction problem. What makes it hard to address is that it affects young and old. How can teens and younger, improve their habits if the adults in the room don’t? At least these articles are still being written. But we have to read them, and respond.
Digital Addiction Getting You Down? Try an Analog Cure
Administering this cure isn’t easy, but it’s worth the effort.
By Cal Newport, via NYTimes
Arnold Bennett was an early-20th-century British novelist, playwright and critic. He’s perhaps best known for his detail-oriented novels set around the Staffordshire Potteries. In 1931, during a trip to Paris, he ignored a waiter’s advice to avoid the restaurant’s tap water and soon died of typhoid.
So, yes: Mr. Bennett is not a name that typically comes to mind when seeking advice about our current high-tech moment. But he should be.
In 1905, Mr. Bennett stepped away from his traditional genres to produce a short but remarkable volume of self-help literature titled “How to Live on 24 Hours a Day.” Targeted to the middle-class, white-collar workers who were filling in the growing London suburbs, Mr. Bennett argued that making the most of their leisure time was the key to cultivating a meaningful life. His suggestion for doing so was clear: rigorous intellectual self-improvement through reading and concentrated thought.
The specifics of this vision, in which the British “salaryman” scrutinizes Dante, are obviously dated. But there’s a deeper general truth lurking beneath the details: What you do with your spare time matters.
This idea, of course, is not new. In “The Nicomachean Ethics,” Aristotle argues that true human flourishing requires activities like philosophizing that are pursued for no other reason than their intrinsic quality. Seneca had similarly lofty visions for our time off, writing, “I am not sure that we cannot serve [the Commonwealth] better when we are at leisure to inquire into what virtue is.”
The wisdom of this timeless emphasis on quality leisure was made clear to me recently. Early last year, as part of the research process for my new book, “Digital Minimalism,” I asked for volunteers willing to spend January avoiding optional digital technologies in their personal life, including social media, online news, video games and streaming. Because this was a big sacrifice, I was expecting around a dozen brave souls to join me in this adventure. Instead, 1,600 people signed up.
Many of the participants in this digital declutter sent me reports about their experiences. One of the more striking findings was the degree to which low-quality, algorithmically optimized digital content had colonized their leisure time. When they powered down their devices, these declutterers were suddenly confronted with empty stretches that they had no idea how to fill.
Inspired by Mr. Bennett, I encouraged them to aggressively reintroduce high-value leisure activities that had nothing to do with glowing screens — even if these activities required more energy and commitment than clicking “next episode” or scrolling a Twitter feed. Many embraced my advice.
A graduate student named Unaiza replaced her habit of browsing Reddit at night with reading library books, finishing eight during her digital declutter.
“I could never have thought about doing that before,” she told me proudly.
Another volunteer, Melissa, revamped her social life, setting up dinners with friends and scheduling regular face-to-face time with her brother — who, to Melissa’s frustration, had a hard time looking up from his phone during their meetings. Yet another volunteer, Caleb, began journaling and listening to vinyl records from beginning to end. He told me the experience of listening to music is completely transformed when you lose the ability to tap “next” when you get antsy with the current song. An N.Y.U. student who wanted to stay informed during his declutter arranged to get a newspaper delivered to his dorm room, while a father named Tarald invested his reclaimed attention into remaining undistracted while with his children. He told me it felt “surreal” to be the only parent at the playground not looking down at an electronic device.
The positive effect of returning to these analog activities is so pronounced that I’ve come to think of this strategy like a magic pill of sorts for curing the low-grade anxiety and existential aimlessness that define our culture of constant connection. This effect seemed particularly powerful for young people who have never known life without an accompanying screen. Like sleep and exercise, this analog cure seems to have few downsides, and its benefits compound.
Administering this cure, however, isn’t an easy process.
Something that helps is recognizing the extent to which the digital stream has commandeered your attention. The articles that rank highly in your feeds were selected by algorithms that have studied your behavior and know with statistical certainty which headlines will keep you staring at your screen. Likes, photo tags, comments, favorites, retweets and other social approval indicators are engineered to make it nearly impossible to resist compulsively checking apps.
My advice to gain the upper hand in this struggle is to demobilize the digital stream. Remove from your phone any app that monetizes your time and attention, like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. You don’t have to quit these services; you can still access them from a browser. But you’ve removed their ability to follow you throughout your day, persuasively manipulating your attention toward their own ends.
It’s also important to prepare yourself for the difficulty of reintroducing high-quality analog pursuits into your life. It’s easy to swap tweets with your digital tribe, but organizing an activity in your real-world community might require annoying logistics and force you to confront uncomfortable moments and social complexities.
But as Sherry Turkle poignantly asks, “Who said that you never have to have a moment of friction with difficult people or difficult moments, when did that become the good life?” Prepare yourself for this friction. It’s worth pushing through.
Early in his 1905 guide, Mr. Bennett labels our time “the most precious of possessions.” This is an observation worth remembering when great fortunes are being made by diverting this precious possession toward screens, where it can be alchemized into quarterly revenue numbers.
You can fight back. If you take whatever scraps of leisure your situation affords and commit them toward quality analog activity and away from dehumanizing digital consumption, you’ll take a strong stride away from simply existing and closer to actually living.
Very useful. An in-depth look at how truly living with humility is not just checking off a few boxes now and then, but recognizing that it is a full spectrum way of life that involves many decisions on how we feel about, and conduct, ourselves around others almost every day. This primer is important to read right through to the last frame.
”’Mother Theresa once said, “Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity, and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent.” These words ring true, but you don’t have to be Mother Theresa, or even religious at all, to make an effort to practice humility in your everyday life. Being humble means accepting your limitations and making an effort to make the world a better place without wanting to take all the credit.
Part 1
Developing a More Humble Mindset
1.
Don’t think you’re too good for everything you do. People who have big egos tend to think that they deserve to be working at a better place, to be dating someone better, or even to be hanging out with people who are interesting and cooler. But your life is your life, and if you want better things, then you have to work to reach for them, instead of assuming the attitude that you’re not getting treated fairly. To practice humility, work to accept the life you have while striving for more without complaining.
If you adopt the attitude that you’re too cool for school, people will become allergic to you. Instead, work to be grateful for what you have and work to earn more, if that’s what you want.
2.
Be an optimist. People who practice humility are naturally optimistic because they don’t waste their time complaining about all of the bad things that have happened to them or dreading the future. Instead, they’re grateful what they have and they expect good things to happen in the future. Humble people don’t expect to be given good things on a silver platter, but they do believe that good things will happen to them if they work hard enough.
Work on being excited about all of the things the future holds instead of expecting catastrophe to strike at any moment.
Though it’s a good idea to be prepared for the worst, you should work on finding the silver lining in almost every situation.
3.
Accept that you’re not the best at everything. To get in a more humble mindset, you have to accept the fact that you’re not the best at everything—or even anything. No matter how great you are at surfing, singing, or writing fiction, there will always be someone who is more knowledgeable than you are, and that’s okay. Instead of acting like you have the final say on something, be open to the fact that you’re constantly evolving and improving, and know that other people can help you get there.
If you act like you’re the best at something, you’ll come off as arrogant. Instead, show people that, while you’re proud of what you know or what you can achieve, you’re always wanting to do more.
4.
Know that humility is not false modesty. It’s one thing to be humble and another thing to be falsely modest. If you spent all weekend working on a project for work and your boss tells you you did a great job on Monday, don’t say, “It was nothing.” Tell him that you’re glad he liked it and that you’re happy to have put a lot of work into it. You may think that shrugging off your achievements will make you look more modest, but in reality, it will actually make you come off as more arrogant.[1]
Sure, it can be kind of awkward when people are praising you. However, you should accept credit where credit is due instead of acting like it was no big deal.
5
Recognize your flaws. If you want to practice humility, then you have to be aware of the fact that you’re not perfect. If you think that you’re a flawless human being, then you’re not going to learn anything new in this world or grow as a person. Instead, it’s important to be self-aware and to know what you need to work on, so you can be humbled before others. A truly humble person knows that he has things to work on and makes an effort to get there.
Sure, it can be humbling to admit that you need to work on your social skills or that you’re not the world’s neatest person. But this can also lead you to work toward self-improvement.
Along with recognizing your flaws, it’s important to be able to accept the things you cannot change about yourself.
6
Avoid bragging. To truly practice humility, you should avoid bragging or showing off as much as you can. While you may want to talk about your accomplishments, you should avoid sounding like you’re showing off as much as possible. If you worked hard to do something, then you can talk about it, but avoid talking about how rich, attractive, or successful you are, or people are likely to get the wrong impression about you. Instead, you should trust the fact that if you’re a really impressive person, other people will get a sense of it without you having to tell them.
People who truly practice humility focus much more on praising other people than on focusing on their own accomplishments.
The next time you catch yourself talking about something you’ve achieved, ask yourself whether you’re bragging or showing off, or just sharing something you’re truly proud of.
7
Be grateful for what you have—and what you don’t. If you really want to practice humility, then you have to work on being grateful for everything the world has given you, from your health to your pet kitty. Don’t take anything for granted and know that it’s a privilege to even be reading an article online. You should also be grateful for the hardships and challenges you’ve faced, because they’ve made you into the person you are today.[
Of course, some people are a lot better off than others when it comes to the luck game. Just know that it’s what you do with your luck that matters, and that you should be grateful for what you have been given instead of complaining about what you don’t have.
Gratitude is essential for true humility. Work on making a list of everything you’re grateful for and add to it whenever you think of something else.
Part 2
Taking Action
Stop talking. One way to practice humility is to spend more time listening than you do talking. If you spend all of your time talking about yourself or sharing your ideas, then you’ll be less likely to learn from others or to appreciate what they have to offer. Listening to other people will also make them feel important and cared for, and it can be very humbling to give others a listening ear and a bit of your time.
It can be very humbling to realize that other people have a perspective that is just as valid as yours, and that everyone around is also filled with worries, doubts, and hopes.
Become an expert at listening to people without interrupting them or giving them advice unless they ask for it.
2
Give other people credit. If you want to practice humility, then the best thing you can do is to is to learn to give credit where it is due. If you’re praised for doing a report at work, make sure you mention that you couldn’t have done it without two of your coworkers. If you’re praised for scoring a goal at the soccer game, mention that you couldn’t have done it without your teammates. You are rarely responsible for 100% of your success, and it’s important to take the time to acknowledge all of the other people who made your success possible.
It will actually make you feel better to acknowledge that other people have worked hard, too. If you take all the credit without deserving it, then you’ll be practicing selfishness instead of gratitude.
3
Admit when you’re wrong. One characteristic of a truly humble person is the ability to admit you’re wrong. If you’ve made a mistake, it can be very humbling to let people know that you’re aware of your missteps and that you’re apologetic about them. Don’t just be in denial or brush it under the rug. If you want to practice humility, then you have to accept that you’re not perfect and come to terms with admitting your mistakes and apologizing for them.[3
When you apologize to people, look them in the eyes, make your words genuine, and show them that the behavior won’t happen again. Let them see that you’re taking the time to truly apologize, and that you’re not just doing it out of obligation.
Of course, actions speak louder than words. To truly be forgiven, you have to work to not make the same mistake again.
4
Go last. Whether you’re ordering at a family dinner, in line at the movies, or waiting to catch the bus, make an effort to let other people go before you once in a while. People who practice humility are aware that they’re not the most important people in the world, and they let other people go before them because they know that their time isn’t more important than anyone else’s. While you shouldn’t be a pushover, you should look for opportunities to let people go ahead of you if you want to practice humility.[4
There’s a real humility in saying, “After you.” Work on seeing that your time isn’t worth more than anyone else’s and letting other people have a chance before you do.
It goes without saying that cutting a line is the opposite of being humble.
5
Ask for advice. It can be very humbling to admit that you don’t have all the answers and to defer to someone else. When something is troubling or puzzling to you, take the time to turn to a friend for advice or to ask a coworker to share his expertise. Be comfortable with admitting that other people have something that is useful to you and that you’re always open to learning more and improving as a person. Truly humble people know that knowledge is infinite, and they’re always asking others to share what they know.
Don’t be afraid to admit that you don’t know something. In fact, most people love sharing their knowledge with others and will be eager to help you.
You can even offer a bit of praise when you ask for advice. Just saying something like, “Hey, I know you’re a whiz at math, and I just can’t understand this problem,” will make a person feel great, as long as it doesn’t sound like you’re sucking up.
6
Praise others. Another way to practice humility is to recognize other people for their achievements. Praise other people as much as you can, for being in awe of how hard your co-worker worked on a presentation to praising your sister for keeping her head up in a difficult situation. Praising others publicly, as long as you don’t embarrass them, can also be a great way to show your appreciation of others and to humble yourself before the strengths of other people.
Get in the habit of telling other people when they’re doing great at something. This can make both you and the person feel great.
Of course, make sure the praise is deserved. You don’t want the person to think that you just want something from him.
7
Give compliments. If you want to practice humility, then you should always be open to complimenting other people, from telling them how great they look to complimenting aspects of their personality. As long as your compliments are genuine, you’ll be making other people feel better about themselves while practicing humility in the process. Truly humble people recognize that other people have endless qualities that are worth praising.
Even something simple like, “I love your earrings. They make your eyes stand out,” can really brighten a person’s day, and it takes very little effort.
Part 3
Living a Life Filled with Humility
1
Volunteer. If you make volunteering a part of your routine, then you will be able to have a more humility-filled life. Whether you’re helping children and adults learn to read at your local library or working a soup kitchen in your community, volunteering can help you get in touch with your sense of gratitude and help people who really need you. It can be incredibly humbling to spend time with people who are grateful for your help, and it can make you be more gracious and less likely to feel entitled.[5]
Volunteer for the sake of it, not for the bragging rights. You don’t need to tell your fifty closest friends that you’re volunteering just to show off. Of course, if you’re genuinely proud and want to talk about it, that’s another thing.
Giving your time to help others can make you realize that you don’t always need to put yourself first. This can make you live a life filled with humility.
2.
Don’t compare yourself to others. To practice gratitude on a regular basis, you should avoid comparing yourself to others, whether you’re jealous of your neighbors, your best friend, or even Taylor Swift. Focus on being grateful for what you have and enjoying your life on its own terms instead of thinking you need to have what your best friend or co-worker has to truly be happy. If you spend your life comparing yourself to others, then you will never feel like what you have is enough, and you won’t be humbled before all that you have been given.
You can admire other people and feel inspired to be better because of them. But if you covet what they have, you are likely to fall into feelings of bitterness that will keep you from enjoying your life.
Don’t gossip about people or put them down because you’re secretly jealous of them, either. Humble people only say nice things about people behind their backs.
3.
Be teachable. People who practice humility are the first to admit that they don’t know everything. Whether you’re getting tips from a co-worker or a friend, it’s important to be open to new possibilities and new knowledge. Let people see that you think they have a lot to offer you, and avoid acting stubborn or like you know everything. Even if you may feel like an expert on a topic, remember that you can always learn more; it’s humbling to admit that you’re a student of life.[6]
Don’t get defensive when someone is trying to teach you something. If that person has pure intentions, then you should make an effort to hear him out.
You don’t want people to feel like you think you have all the answers, or they won’t be eager to share their experiences with you.
4.
Practice anonymous kindness. If you want to practice humility, then not all of your kind deeds have to go noticed. Donate money to charity without telling a soul about it, or donate your old clothes without saying a thing. If you notice that a person’s parking meter is expired, throw in a few quarters. Help crowdfund a worthy project. Anonymously post a kind comment on a person’s blog. Take the time to do something nice without wanting anything in return, and you will be on your way to practicing humility every day.
If you’re the only person who is aware of the good you’ve done in the world, there is something especially humbling about the experience.
You can even write about the experience in a journal if you feel like telling someone.
5.
Don’t complain so much. People who practice humility aren’t often seen complaining because they realize that life is precious and that they have so much to be grateful for. Sure, we’ve all had bad days, and it’s okay to vent once in a while, but you shouldn’t make a habit of it if you want to practice humility. Remember that so many people have it so much worse than you, and that complaining about every little thing that happened to you instead of focusing on the positive will keep you from practicing humility.
People are drawn to appreciative, positive people. If you complain all the time or form relationships based on complaining all the time, then you’ll be less likely to live a humility-filled life.
Whenever you catch yourself complaining about something, try to counter that comment with two positive comments.
6.
Spend more time in nature. There’s something very humbling about being in nature, whether you take a long hike through the woods or you spend a day just lying on the beach. Nature can remind you that there are things bigger than ourselves and our problems out there, and that we should be in awe of the world instead of obsessing over all of our little problems or thwarted ambitions. Making a habit of being in nature more often can lead you to practice humility more.
Your problems won’t seem as severe when you’re standing at the base of a mountain. As corny as it sounds, being around nature will make you see that you’re just a grain of sand on the beach that is the universe, and that you should be thankful for what you have instead of bemoaning what you wish you had.
7.
Spend more time around children. Children have a natural sense of wonder and almost never cease to be in awe of the universe. If you want to practice humility more often, then you should make a habit of spending more time with children. They’ll help you see the world through new, youthful eyes, and you’ll be able to rediscover some of the magic you may feel that you lost because of the daily grind. Making a habit of spending more time with kids, whether you spend more time with your own, volunteer with children, or help a friend out by babysitting, can help you practice humility regularly.
You may think that you have a lot to teach children and will feel humbled when you see that they have a lot to teach you, too. Listen to their perspective about the world and see how it can help you become a more humble, grateful person.
Being around children will help you rejuvenate your sense of wonder. This can help you be more appreciative of the world around you and it will keep you from taking anything for granted.
8.
Practice yoga. Yoga is a practice devoted to being grateful for the body you have been given and your time on this earth. Though some yoga practices can be a great workout, too, the most important thing with yoga is being in touch with your mind and body and not taking a single one of your breaths for granted. If you want to work on practicing humility more, then you should make yoga a regular part of your life.[7]
Taking just 2-3 classes a week can transform the way you look at the world. If you feel like you just can’t make the time to go to a yoga class, you can practice at home.
“The deepest hunger of the human soul is to be understood. The deepest hunger of the human body is for air. If you can listen to another person, in depth, until they feel understood, it’s the equivalent of giving them air.”
I think there’s valuable instruction here that all of us can use.
Creating Happiness is done in many steps. Only with self awareness can we see where our steps are taking us.
Self Awareness is having a clear perception of your personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. Self Awareness allows you to understand other people, how they perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them in the moment.
We might quickly assume that we are self aware, but it is helpful to have a relative scale for awareness. If you have ever been in an auto accident you may have experienced everything happening in slow motion and noticed details of your thought process and the event. This is a state of heightened awareness. With practice we can learn to engage these types of heightened states and see new opportunities for interpretations in our thoughts, emotions, and conversations. Having awareness creates the opportunity to make changes in behavior and beliefs.
Why Develop Self Awareness?
As you develop self awareness you are able to make changes in the thoughts and interpretations you make in your mind. Changing the interpretations in your mind allows you to change your emotions. Self awareness is one of the attributes of Emotional Intelligence and an important factor in achieving success. Self awareness is the first step in creating what you want and mastering your life. Where you focus your attention, your emotions, reactions, personality and behavior determine where you go in life. Having self awareness allows you to see where your thoughts and emotions are taking you. It also allows you to take control of your emotions, behavior, and personality so you can make changes you want. Until you are aware in the moment of your thoughts, emotions, words, and behavior, you will have difficulty making changes in the direction of your life.
Self Awareness in Relationships
Relationships are easy until there is emotional turmoil. This is the same whether you are at work or in your personal life. When you can change the interpretation in your mind of what you think you can change your emotions and shift the emotional quality of your relationships. When you can change the emotions in your relationships you open up entirely new possibilities in your life.
Having a clear understanding of your thought and, behavior patterns helps you understand other people. This ability to empathize facilitates better personal and professional relationships.
Develop Self Awareness
Self awareness is developed through practices in focusing your attention on the details of your personality and behavior. It isn’t learned from reading a book. When you read a book you are focusing your attention on the conceptual ideas in the book. You can develop an intellectual understanding of the ideas of self awareness from a book, but this is not the same. With your attention in a book you are practicing not paying attention to your own behavior, emotions and personality.
Think of learning to be mindful and self aware as learning to dance. When learning to dance we have to pay attention to how and where our feet move, our hands and body motion, what our partner is doing, music, beat, floor space, and other dancers. Dancing isn’t learned from books and Self Awareness isn’t either. A dancer needs awareness of their body movements. Self awareness is what you develop when you pay attention to your expressions of thought, emotions, and behavior.
When you become more self aware you instinctively begin to see aspects of your personality and behavior that you didn’t notice before.
If you have an emotional reaction of anger or frustration, you notice many of the thoughts and small triggers that build up towards those emotions. You also notice moments when you can change the interpretations in your mind, or not believe what you are thinking. In this heightened awareness you instinctively make better choices in your thought process long before an emotional reaction or destructive behavior.
Making changes in your behavior is much easier to do when you catch them early in the dynamic, before the momentum of thought and emotion has gathered steam. The changes in your mind, and behavior become simple and easy steps when you develop self awareness.
To live honestly, is to spend quiet time with ourselves doing nothing but thinking about life, and what we feel about it. Deeply, honestly,
I don’t mean some few random minutes of thumbnail introspection, whilst in the throes of passion, perhaps during a conflict or interaction about our strongest beliefs, followed by making a grand statement or two, spoken aloud, or to ourselves, as we putter around the house, doing laundry, or feeding house pets. Anybody can do that.
I mean really devoting specifically directed block of time, of thirty or more minutes, in quiet isolation, on a regular basis, alone with ourselves, free of interruption and distraction, thinking about what we really feel deep inside about who we are, what we want, need, and believe to be most important to help us feel balanced with, and reasonably adjusted to, the complexities, and challenges of life.
It is most important that when spending this time alone to think about who we are, we do so with no pretense, or illusion, on realistic expectations, circumstances beyond our control, or a denial of who we are, innately, instinctively, without apology, guilt, conflict, or hesitancy.
For better or worse, given the benefit or consequences, to face all of this without fear, is the only way to live honestly within oneself. It will help us be who we really are, and it will allow us to live honestly with others.
It is the only way to live.
