#244 | How To Wake Up Your Life: Increase Awareness & See More

Most people move through life on autopilot, reacting to thoughts and habits without ever slowing down long enough to truly see themselves. In this episode, we explore what it means to “wake up” in life—developing awareness of your thoughts, recognizing what may be holding you back, and honestly examining the gap between who you are and who you want to become. When you slow down and look inward with honesty, something powerful happens: you begin to see more of the world around you. Life becomes richer, clearer, and far more beautiful.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Win Today. This show is crafted for those who want to win in every aspect of their lives. Every week you will learn from a renowned thought leader that will share a piece of a winning playbook that you can incorporate into your life. If this show has a positive impact on you and you see value in it, please share it with somebody and leave a rating and review so we can help more people win.

Slow Down To See Clearly

The Research On A Busy Mind

Noticing More Changes Everything

Ask The Hard Inner Questions

Metacognition And Better Decisions

Find The Gap And Grow

The Simple Plan To Wake Up

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Have you ever noticed things in life that you thought were never there or they suddenly appeared only to later discover that they have been there the whole time? And then you wonder, man, how the heck was I blind to this or not awake to it? And maybe you might even wonder, well, what was it that allowed me to see or notice those very things? Did I have something stuck in my eye? Was I just not looking at my phone anymore? What is it? If there's one thing that I wish that everybody in this world could have is the ability to see. And I'm not talking about visually see things as in to see things through two eyes, assuming that everybody has vision, which would also be a secondary wish, but the ability to see, see the world around them, and ultimately see inside themselves. Because what I do believe is the more that we are awake to, the more that we can understand what we're carrying around that may not be serving us well, and what we do have that is serving us well that we can impart on others and make the world a better place. This whole concept of being awake and being able to see was pretty foreign to me until I really started deep diving into the personal development and more so coaching space. And I remember one of my mentors was asking me a question. He's a performance coach. He was asking me if I was awake to a certain thought. And while I can't remember the thought that we were discussing in the moment, I do understand the question now that I didn't before. When he said, Are you awake to this? And if and my first thought is, Well, of course I'm freaking awake. I'm sitting right in front of you. But what he was asking is, Are you aware? Do you have awareness of this thought? Do you have awareness of XYZ? Can you see this very thing that is holding you back right now? So my intention with this brief episode is to share a few things about what it means to see and to be awake, and how to increase your level of awareness and being awake to life. So really to be awake in your life means that you can see clearly, you can see your patterns, how you're showing up, your fears. You can really start to see the world. And one of the keys to being able to see, if we're breaking down steps now, is first slowing the heck down. This was something that especially if you're an ambitious person, which you're if you're listening to this, my assumption is that you're I'm 95% sure that you are somebody that craves more out of life than simply living life and going through the motions, which means that you're likely always focused on something and wanting to run a million miles an hour, which that serves a purpose, but doing it all of the time is what can also make you blind to life and yourself, and I know that to be true and have lived it over and over and over again, and and hence why this episode is being crafted to help others see and encourage one person to slow down. A lot of people attempt to figure out their life while they're running at full speed, but clarity doesn't come at full speed, it happens with stillness. Here's something interesting. Studies from a Harvard psychologist, Daniel Gilbert, found that forty-seven percent of our waking life is spent mind wandering. So basically, that means that we're always thinking about something other than what we're doing. So it's in other words, we're not always awake even to the very moment that we're living in. Another piece of research I always like to share, especially when talking about goals and why it's so important to slow down and put stuff on paper, is because we have 50,000 to 80,000 thoughts per day, which supports the research that our minds are always running. So when you make an effort to slow down, even if it's just briefly, you can start to notice things. You can start to see things, you can start to understand or be aware of your thoughts, your emotions, your patterns. And that's what helps build awareness. You know, one thing as I even walk around my neighborhood and go on my runs, when I would do this previously, I would, you know, get home from work usually, throw in my AirPods, and start listening to a podcast or start doing something that I thought was moving the needle forward, that I've always got to be doing something. And if I'm not, then I'm being lazy or a slouch. That was the untrue story that I was telling myself and briefly holding true. And I wasn't noticing the world around me. Fast forward, you know, I've started coming home and allowing myself to walk slowly, to not wear headphones, to simply observe, and I hear and see so much more, even in the little radius that I walk or run every day, just about, I hear and see so much more that I never even knew was there the whole time. And it may sound simple, maybe even it sounds silly, but what I've noticed in even that increased ability or increased vision, if you will, if you will, more gratitude, more solitude. Uh sense of happiness. I'm smiling more, like thank you so much for the opportunity to see. I'm I'm thanking God and the world for this ability, and I want everyone to be able to touch it. Now, once you've slowed down, I really want you to look deep inside yourself. And we have a lot of the answers that we already that we already need to move forward in life. It's not from books, it's not from even podcasts. We already have a lot of the answers, but we have to slow down and ask ourselves the questions. Things like, what am I holding on to? Where am I getting in my own way? What am I afraid to admit? What is something that is not serving me well? What's the gap between the life I have right now and the life that I ultimately dream of? And another question from one of my favorite books, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It by Kamal Ravikant. His brother also wrote an amazing book, The Almanac of Naval Ravikant. But here's a question that is all over this book. If I loved myself truly and deeply, would I let myself experience this? So, to you, if you loved yourself truly and deeply, would you let yourself experience whatever it is that you're feeling right now? Now, a lot of this intro spec in interperspective, introspective, is what's called metacognition, which is the ability to observe your thinking. It's to know what you are thinking about, it's even to think about why you're thinking things. It's looking within within. Uh, there's research from Stanford and Columbia that shows that people who reflect on their thoughts and behavior make better long-term decisions and show greater emotional resilience. So basically, that means when you watch your own thinking, you can gain power over it. You can start to wake up, you can start to see the gap between who you are today and who you want to become in the most honest way possible. Now, thinking about the gap and diving into that a little bit more, you know, if we looked at it from a character sense, here's another question that you can ask yourself that's gonna open some doors for you. Who do you wish you were? And not talking about this from a movie character sense or an athlete, but who do you wish you were in terms of how you show up in your life? Do you wish you were more disciplined, more patient, more courageous, more honest, more thoughtful, more patient? And then following that, how are you actually showing up? The gap between those things is where all of the growth resides. And a lot of people can't see that gap because they're not slowing down just to look at it. So when you begin to slow down and actually do this homework and have the honest conversations, and this is something you don't just do once, this is something that you do on a recurring basis because we're we're we're beings, we're we're we are evolving beings. But I can tell you that it's a beautiful thing when you can start to see yourself more clearly and notice the world in a different way. Like I've shared, I see more things now than I ever have before. I see more birds chirping, I see more trees, I see people much more observant. Neuroscience research on mindfulness and attention even shows that slowing down and paying attention literally changes how the brain processes sensory information. So you really get to experience more of a of a reality. It's my wish that everyone in the world was awake so that they can experience life more fully. And I see so many folks that are going through life asleep, unaware, and then unaware of why they're being held back, why things aren't working out. So my my wish for you to wake up, for everyone to be able to see, is to slow down, look inside, ask the hard questions, and be brutally honest with the responses. And then that's gonna help create the clarity to live a more awakened life and win today. Thank you.