Self Awareness and Success -- Part 1

Emotional Self Control Leads to Greater Success and Outcomes

While greatness does not automatically emanate from self awareness, those who have achieved greatness in any area of life tend to have a deep sense of self awareness. They have not passed themselves by without wondering.

On the other hand, perhaps greatness can be born through a highly elevated sense of self awareness. As Carl Jung wrote, "Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."

Of course, self awareness is only one pillar creating the foundation for greatness. In the words of Lord Tennyson, "Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control ── these three alone lead to sovereign power."

Whatever emotional state you are in will dictate your behavior. This can be both a positive and a negative thing, depending on your emotional state.

By being aware of your emotional state, and thus giving you an opportunity to control this state, you prevent yourself from just having to accept and take whatever the world dishes out to you. 

You control how events and people impact you, simply by controlling how you feel and think about these events and people.

Here's what two people from opposite ends of the literary spectrum have said on this subject:

Nothing has any power over me other than that which I give it through my conscious thoughts.  ~Anthony Robbins

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. ~William Shakespeare

 Your emotional and social states are closely tied together, for the emotional side of your life will be primarily (though not exclusively) created, developed and troubled by your relationships with others.

An inability to notice true feelings as they are occurring leaves you at their mercy. There is a crucial difference between being caught up in a feeling and being aware that a feeling is about to sweep you away through what Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, aptly calls "an emotional hijacking."

As Goleman points out, emotional self-control, such as delaying gratification and stifling impulsiveness, often leads to greater success and outcomes.

This article is excerpted from the Amazon top-seller Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in paperback and Kindle formats.