Self-Aware Millennial

Today, I want to talk about self-care. With all the heavy-lifting you do at work, with friends, family, and in the community, taking care of yourself is essential for your health in every aspect of the word.

More to the point of this show, it’s paramount to your success in building self-awareness.

Why’s that? Building self-awareness is like lifting weights. Anyone who exercises regularly will tell you the importance of rest days, proper, nutrition, and stretching. The same applies to internal exercise. When you work hard to let go of past hurts, to step into your power, and to be the best expression of yourself, you break yourself down, just the way muscles break down when you work them out. If you aren’t nourishing yourself regularly and well, the muscles never build back up. You did all that lifting for nothing.

Self-awareness is knowing when to say no, slow down, take a break, give yourself space, relax, etc.

So, while the idea of massages and naps sounds like the most fun part of self-awareness, it’s the one we’re the worst at. Even some of the most evolved people I know still burn themselves out. You might think you have to go, go, go or you risk losing something. Maybe, sometimes, that’s true, but you stand to lose so much more if you don’t take care of yourself.

In fact, I read an article in Business Insider years ago that changed my perspective. It was the 5 Things People Regret Most on Their Deathbed.

They are:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

If that doesn’t make the case for slowing down, nothing does! So let’s have a serious discussion about self-care for the present moment and for our future dying selves.

I wanted to take some time to talk about what exactly “self-awareness” is and some of the ways you can begin cultivating it in your own life.

To me, self-awareness is developing a deep understanding of who you are to yourself and in the context of community. It’s a conscious, intimate relationship with your core that, over time, allows you to step into your most authentic self. In simple terms, being self-aware means having clarity about what you like, don’t like, your strengths and obstacles, all with the end goal of living a life your design. When you take the time to know yourself truly and fully, you give yourself all the power you need to live whatever life you want.

But, how do you get there? How do you “get to know yourself” any better than you already do?

There are a lot of ways to do this, and I’ve tried a handful, so I’ll share some of those. I am a lover of science and spirituality, so there’s a healthy balance of both types of solutions.

How many times a day do you complain? How many times a day do you listen to complaints? 

Complaining is a tricky business—it does absolutely nothing productive, but our brains convince us we’re getting satisfaction (justice even) when we whine, cry, and moan about everything that’s wrong. 

Instead of investing all your time and energy into such an unproductive habit, Alexsys Thompson presents another way: building a gratitude practice. This is something I have been working on and building over the last year and HOLY RESULTS BATMAN! has it made a difference. 

Listen to this episode to learn how you can gain freedom from complaining. Freedom from inauthenticity. Freedom from your inner critic. Limitless opportunities to live a life you design, one that's aligned and mission-driven.

“They’re thrust in the real world and in an instant they find out they’re not special, their mums can’t get them a promotion, that you get nothing for coming in last - and by the way, you can’t just have it because you want it.” -Simon Sinek

This season is all about taking responsibility for your power. And, I think a discussion about power dynamics and millennials is incomplete without looking at the struggles we seem to have with other generations. If you ask Google, they’ll tell you the problem with millennials is: 

• “They’re so lazy and entitled!”
• “They expect too much attention.” 
• “None of them think the rules apply to them.”

 While these blanket statements lack context and nuance, it’s the frustration beneath them I want to discuss. Because let’s be honest—no one complains about something that doesn’t feel threatening, and if something is threatening, it holds some power. In this case, that means millennials have power. What exactly that power is and how millennials can positively tap into it is what we’re discussing today with Meagan Johnson. 

We live in a world obsessed with labels, and most of them with good reason. Labels help us identify all kinds of things: what’s safe, what’s not (obvious labels on food, cleaning products, construction sites), what we like, what we don’t (flavors, genres, activities), find our tribe (special interest communities like clubs, sports teams, LGBT), etc.

Labels help us make sense of a messy, complicated, dynamic world.

But sometimes the helpfulness gives people false permission to impose labels onto others beyond what’s “helpful.” It’s easy for labels to become weapons of oppression for those wielding them and prisons for those they target.

Either way, labels are important in our society and unavoidable. So, how do we avoid giving away our power when it comes to labels?

Liv and her guest, Drew Bensen, scratch the surface of how impactful and pervasive labels are and how self-awareness can help us take our power back.