Gaining Self-Awareness

Chapter Six

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Gaining Self-Awareness

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Recognizing When You Are Off Course

• Self-sabotage – is when we make choices that worked against our goals and dreams.

• Unconscious forces – tend to influence our daily choices, and our based on our past experiences, long after our conscious minds have forgotten them.

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Identifying Your Scripts

• Eric Berne proposed that dysfunctional behavior is the result of self-limiting decisions made in childhood in the interest of survival. Such decisions culminate in what Berne called the "life script," the pre-conscious life plan that governs the way life is lived out. Changing the life script is the aim of transactional analysis psychotherapy, which was founded by Dr. Berne

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Recognizing When You Are Off Course, Journal 19

Focus Questions– In which of your life roles are you aware of

being off course? – Do you know how you got there?– More important, do you know how to get

back on course to your desired outcomes and experiences?

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Identifying Your Scripts, Journal 20

Focus Questions– What habit patterns in your life get you off

course? – How did these habit patterns develop?

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Anatomy of a Script

First Part• Thought patterns – include habitual self-talk

such as “I’m too busy, I’m good at math, I always screw up, I can’t write.”

• Emotional patterns – include habitual feelings such as anger, excitement, anxiety, sadness, or joy.

• Behavioral patterns – include habitual actions such as smoking cigarettes, always arriving on time, never asking for help, exercising regularly.

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Anatomy of a Script

Second Part• Core Beliefs – lie deeper in our

unconscious mind and are more elusive. We form these beliefs early in life, about the world, about other people and about ourselves. We’re seldom aware of our beliefs, however these unconscious judgments dictate what we consistently think, feel and do.

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Scripts Model

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Rewriting Your Outdated Scripts, Journal 21

Focus Question– How can you discover and revise the

self-defeating patterns that keep you from achieving your full potential?

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Write Your Own Rules, Journal 22

Focus Questions– What personal rules do you have that

dictate the choices you make daily? – Which of these rules will help you create

high self-esteem?

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Three Success Rules

1.

2.

3.

I show up.

I do my best work.

I participate actively.

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Changing Habits

Once we follow our own rules long

enough, they are no longer simply rules.

The become habits. And once our

positive actions, thoughts and feelings

become habits, few obstacles can block

the path to our success.