Self-Awareness: Unlock Your Superpower

Summary

In this episode of the Given a Purpose podcast, Jacques LaGrange explores the importance of self-awareness in personal growth and development. He discusses how living on autopilot can hinder progress and emphasizes the need for self-reflection, emotional intelligence, and spiritual alignment to unlock one's true potential. Through practical tools like journaling and seeking feedback, listeners are encouraged to cultivate self-awareness and build stronger relationships, ultimately leading to a more purposeful life.

Takeaways

Self-awareness is crucial for personal growth.
Living on autopilot can lead to stagnation.
Journaling helps in tracking thoughts and patterns.
Feedback from others can reveal blind spots.
Emotional intelligence enhances communication and relationships.
Self-knowledge aligns you with your divine purpose.
Confidence stems from self-awareness and self-acceptance.
Mindfulness practices can improve self-awareness.
Understanding your emotions affects how you relate to others.
Living with purpose requires ongoing self-reflection.

Transcript

Jacques LaGrange (00:00.84)
Let's unlock our superpowers next on the Giving a Purpose podcast.

Jacques LaGrange (00:31.03)
Welcome to the Giving a purpose podcast where we bridge the highs and lows the lessons learned through life's journey and filling in The gap you already know it is this a new week fresh episode. I'm your host as always mr. La man Thank you guys for tuning in to another week another episode So, you know what? need you to do. I need you if you're on YouTube I need you to hit that subscribe button if you listen still subscribe on

all major platforms. Also, let somebody know that you're getting some good stuff. All right, man, please share and let everybody know what's going on. Now, I got a question. Have you ever felt like you're living on autopilot?

I am a victim of that. Like sometimes I've known just going through the journey of life, it just feels like you wake up, you're on your routine and just everything just goes from there. It's just like you wake up at the same time you eat and maybe sometimes the same things for breakfast and driving in the same lane. You get to work and it's the same old thing. And it was one of it was actually one of the frustrations I had.

in being in the classroom. I taught math. Math doesn't really change. Definitely hasn't changed probably since I was in school. But what I realized is, yes, I can change my approach on how I deliver it. But usually after getting to that second quarter or that second semester of the school year, I was definitely on autopilot.

It was just like, all right, I already know what to do. It was crazy one time because of course we would get, you know, do evaluations from, you know, admin and different things like that. And I had two different admins come in one time and say, you're doing the same exact lesson you did at this point last year. So yeah, you know, I've been doing this for a while. I'm like on autopilot. So it's just like, this is what I.

Jacques LaGrange (02:47.63)
I know what I'm doing. So, and that's what messed me up in a little bit because I didn't have that challenge because I was on autopilot. And so I didn't like the fact of being on autopilot. All right. But the great thing about that is I understood and I was self-aware. All right. Self-awareness is not.

You're just any old self-help jargon, all right? Knowing that unlocks your confidence, your peace, and your purpose. When you're self-aware and you know what's going on with you, it makes it better to understand yourself and unlock your real superpowers, right? Self-awareness is the ability to recognize your thoughts, your emotions, your behaviors.

and your patterns like I talked about before. All right? It's the mirror that shows you not just how the world sees you, but how you see yourself. Does that make sense? The foundation of all of this is self-confidence. If you can't believe in yourself, nobody else will. You wanna believe in yourself more than anybody else will believe in yourself.

And I'm going to tell you guys that I've told you before, that was one of my biggest struggles as I grew up or once when I was little. Like I was good in sports, I would do certain things, but I always wasn't 100 % confident. I really didn't pour into myself a lot. And I wanted to...

the approval of others. If that makes sense. Like I wanted the approval of others more than wanting the approval from myself first. So I was always looking for that, you know, somebody to affirm something that I was good at. I wanted that support. So the lack of having self-awareness, guess what happens?

Jacques LaGrange (05:09.612)
You repeat these cycles. All right. You have blind spots and you self-sabotage. And that's how we get into being on autopilot. All right. So sometimes with with the lack of of self-awareness, listen, we do crazy things we do like we chase bad relationships, we chase bad careers, or we do goals that do not align with our true self.

And that's when it really sucks is when you're not in alignment with who you really are. And you're definitely not in alignment with who God made you to be and the seed that he planted in you. Right. People often make the mistake of busyness for progress. And without you being aware, you move, but you're never actually growing. All right. So some of the tools,

that you can do to build your awareness. There's some of the things that we always talk about all the time. So hopefully, I hope you guys are putting this into your everyday practice. You gotta start journaling. Track your thoughts, your identifying patterns, make sure your unconscious is visible, all right? Be mindful, be mindful. Observe without judgment.

aid your response and not already ready to react. All right. It's always good to respond and not react to everything. Cause usually when you react to everything is usually out of emotion. It's a knee jerk type of thing. And then you just want to do the first thing that comes on your mind. Instead of assessing the situation.

making sure it aligns with your true self and then moving forward. All right? And then sometimes you got to ask for feedback. I know when I was doing my certification for being a speaker, our instructor had us do something. had our five greatest weaknesses and five greatest strengths, but we had to call people that we trusted at that time to give you those five things.

Jacques LaGrange (07:35.566)
And you gotta always be good with healthy feedback. Others sometimes can show you your blind spots you can't see yourself. I've realized through life, the closer we are to a thing, sometimes we don't see. Sometimes we may not see things that are close up to our face. Sometimes we may be in relationships and because you're closer to, you don't see everything. Sometimes you gotta take a step back and look at things from afar.

or in that relationship, you may not see the harm or the things that you're causing because you're so close to it and you may be blinded by other things. So always accept feedback. It's good to have a good circle around you. So you can, you can definitely adjust and pivot the way you need to be. All right. Self-awareness and of course, emotional intelligence go hand in hand.

All right, couple of things you want to know. The emotional intelligence begins with your awareness, knowing what you feel, understanding how it affects others, not just you, but how it affects others. Awareness leads to awareness of that and having emotional intelligence leads to empathy, leads to healthier communication.

and a stronger relationship with whatever you're doing, friendship, love relationship, career, different things like that. And when you're open to having empathy and healthy communication, it's going to build stronger relationships going forward. So it's an awesome thing. All right. Also spiritually, right? Spiritually being self-aware, remembering who you truly are and whose

you truly are a part of, Knowing who's your father, knowing who guides you and who you're trying to stay in alignment with, right? In many traditions, like self-knowledge is divine knowledge, right? When you see yourself clearly, you see the divine within you and you align

Jacques LaGrange (10:02.86)
with the purpose that you were here for. Listen, we all have a purpose and making sure that the seed that was planted in you as your purpose, make sure you water it, make sure you feed it, make sure you give it some sunlight, make sure you give some time and some rendering and some tendering of the soil and that'll help you grow. But that all comes with self-awareness, all right? Remember,

Knowing and having self-awareness is the foundation of your confidence, of all the relationships that you're gonna have, how you'll grow spiritually, and how you'll be a great leader. All right? Start your day off with doing some of these things. Make sure you're mindful and make sure you reflect. How well do you know yourself? Are you self-aware?

Jacques LaGrange (11:05.333)
Are you?

Sure of yourself? Are you building confidence? Are you growing? Do you want to grow? Are you in alignment? Ask those questions to yourself and kind of see, are you on the right track? Are you self-aware? How well do you know yourself? Hopefully this blessed somebody. Hopefully you got something from it. So I need you to do the two most important things I always ask you to do.

Make sure you live on purpose and make sure you live in purpose. I will see you guys next time. Peace.