Who am I By
Leigh-Anne Rome
Who am I By
Before you can make changes in yourself, you have to know what there is to work with right?? Becoming self-aware is the process of understanding yourself...... Ok, so easier said than done. What about the certain situations in your life, whether it be personal or professional that keep recurring, challenges that you consistently get faced with, surely there is a“ lesson” to learn!?
One of the challenges I consistently seem to get faced with is dealing with negative people, the type of people that seem to thrive on turmoil and belittling others, I’ m sure there is a lot of you that know exactly what I am talking about..... Sometimes we are lucky and deal with them for a short period. It’ s a one-time scenario, however, other times we are not that lucky. Whether it is at work or among friends and family. I’ m sure we all have at least one negative person we try and avoid. In my experience with negative people, they were always right and I was always wrong, their opinions were the only ones that mattered. They found ways to underestimate and undermine me and my accomplishments. They managed to ridicule everything I said and did. Treated me as if I was nothing of importance- even when I was defending a serious cause or sticking up for someone else, whom of which had been hit with the“ blame stick” and had to bare the curse of carrying other people’ s monkeys. I allowed their negative energy to consume me because they made me believe what they were saying to be true- as the saying goes“ The bad is always easier to believe”( whoever“ they” are!)
Why?? why did I allow them to treat me in that way??
What was the part of me that accepted it, as if it was allowed?? WHY was the big question and WHAT was I going to do to stop it.....
Until one day- just one day out of nowhere, I had just about enough... ok, ok I had MORE than enough. I had enough of the nasty and patronising comments and decided to distance myself. I decided I wasn’ t going to be the subject of their cruelty any longer.
Leigh-Anne Rome
Once I decided, I wasn’ t going to put myself in a situation that made my life a living hell. I had daily handed them the bat to beat me with( so to speak) that’ s when I realised these particular people suffered from low self-esteem and lack of motivation. Furthermore, I learnt negative comments are not constructive comments. Negative people choose to focus on others instead of improving who they are. Negative comments are meant to belittle your aspirations, your opinions and your successes. Do not give them the power!! We all have very different situations and very different“ challenges” get to know“ YOU”.
Self-awareness is the foundation of personal growth and success. Daniel Goleman calls it“ keystone” of emotional intelligence.
Know Yourself Emotional awareness means being able to recognise the emotions that you experience, understand the feelings associated with these emotions and understand what you think and do as a result. When you are aware of your strengths and weaknesses( limits), you will be more confident about what you can and can’ t do. Self-confident people tend to be more assertive as to what they believe to be right. Being assertive doesn’ t mean you will always get things your way, but rather that you convey your thoughts confidently and justify why you believe your particular decision to be the right one.
Self-awareness is essentially the building blocks for emotional intelligence. Becoming self-aware is a journey, we can spend a lifetime learning about ourselves through the different phases of our life journey. As we improve our self-awareness, we ultimately improve our experiences of life, therefore creating better opportunities for life and work balance. Become aware of your emotions and improve your ability to respond to change.