Self Consciousness Has Several Views
One interpretation of self consciousness is negative and creates stress. The other is positive and enables authentic performance.
Positive Self Consciousness
The positive view of self consciousness is that you have a clear understanding of who you are. You have true self awareness. You might call it “Self Subconscious.” Here you focus on communicating your true authentic subconscious self. Concentrating on what you know about yourself, your beliefs and values, and your priorities of what you want to share with others. You are NOT impeded by the conflicts of what you deduce how others might be evaluating you. You can freely and smoothly share your authentic inner self with confidence You are comfortable in your own skin and you reflect that naturally.
Negative Self Consciousness
The negative view of self consciousness is being self judgmental. Where you analyze your actions and/or appearance using some unknown criteria. Most often this criterion is controlled by outside sources. Negative self consciousness causes you to judge yourself based upon what you imagine others will think or expect from you.
This creates a conflict within yourself between your perspective of your actions versus what you think others think of your actions or appearance. This type of self-judgment conflict creates false and imagined stress and anxiety. This will constrict your positive actions because you focus on these clashing forces, instead of what you do and present.
One of the most common forms of self consciousness is when you become fearful of what you Think an audience thinks about you. Inhibiting your ability to perform well. Here you are imposing your fears of how you imagine others are appraising you, over what you want them to receive from your appearance and/or communications. You are only considering the imagined perspectives of OUTSIDE views of you. These are the factors of your conscious mind.
Convert Negative Self Consciousness into Positive Self Awareness
The path to eliminating the negative form of self consciousness to benefit from the positive form of self Subconsciousness is to focus on improving your self awareness. So you are able to authentically present yourself in a genuine relaxed non-conflicted manner. And when you attain true self awareness you become the “World’s Leading Expert on You”. By doing so you gain the Ultimate in Clarity, the Ultimate in Confidence and the Ultimate is Stress Free Power of Choice.
Example of Transitioning to Positive Self Consciousness
For example, I transitioned from the negative interpretation of self consciousness to the positive Self Subconscious during my Dale Carnegie Speech classes. The teacher instructed me and 3 others to give a 1- minute speech about ourselves at the outset of the first class. The other 3 shared things about themselves for their minute very well. But I was so self conscious imagining what the audience would think of me; I only spoke for 5 seconds. Only giving my name while staring at the tops of my shoes. Ugh! Learning to share a speech felt impossible.
I transitioned to my positive self consciousness with my clear authentic self later when I was instructed to tell a true funny story in the next class.
I easily shared how as a young 15-year-old SCUBA diver in 1961, on my first open water dive about 5 miles off Pensacola, Florida I had fooled a boat of fisherman into thinking I was a huge shark in 60 feet of water. The fishing boat was not there when I went under water about 45 minutes earlier. Dive flags were not used or recognized at the time.
I was shocked when several baited lines dropped on top of me, and I carefully grabbed one. After cutting the line to dispense with the hooks, I wrapped the line around a piece of heavy wood I found, and I yanked on the line like a huge fish. He yanked back and the fight was on. I stayed on the bottom to keep from being seen. We both fought hard. But eventually I began running out of air laughing so hard that I gave it one last hard yank and released it as the wood fell away. So it appeared the line snapped.
I was greeted with shouts by my dive mates in the boat about a big shark in the water, when I returned to the surface about 120 feet away out of sight of the fishing boat. They slipped me into the boat as I was laughing too hard to do it myself. Then I informed them that they were looking at the shark. We drove by the fishing boat and thanked them for the warnings and left the scene. My nickname for the rest of the trip was “Sharky.” By sharing my positive subconscious self, I never experienced fears or anxiety about what others thought of me. And I was well received. And a more confident speaker was born.
Blog Author
Brought to you by Bill Dueease Founder/President of The Coach Connection who struggled through 27 coaches in 6 months to find the good life coach who was right for him. And find him he did. Bill is not a coach, but a thrilled coachee. Through the remarkable life coaching self-awareness process, he discovered his passion and talents were to create and operate his own business so that others would be able to find and select their ideal life coach with only one call and avoid all the pitfalls he encountered. He started TCC in 2001 to fulfill all his goals and personal requirements and never looked back. He shares his full story in his online book entitled “Go To Play Every Day and call it work” which he has been enjoying since 2001
I encourage you to avoid suffering negative self conscious anxieties. Instead, attempt to enjoy the benefits of practicing your positive self subconscious whenever you can.
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