Step 1 of My 6 Step Formula To Beat Phone Addiction: Self-Awareness

My 6 step formula helps people create a healthy relationship with their phone. It’s not just about using your phone less, but also about becoming digital and media literate. To become insightful regarding the detrimental effects of excessive phone and social media use. To understand why we are hooked on social media and why we keep using those platforms in order to find some happiness that we never fully achieve online. It’s also about becoming aware of your own life and desires, seeing your life from a macro level. Step 1 of the formula is self-awareness. This is vital when you want to introduce change in your life. You have to understand what and where your current position is in life. Step 1 is all about asking questions to yourself and answering them in all honesty. Questions like: How much am I using my smartphone? What feeling or thought triggers me to go for my phone or to stay on my phone? Am I often triggered by external (e.g. notifications) or internal (feeling of loneliness) triggers? What is the desired result of grabbing and using my phone? What bothers me about my social media and smartphone use? How is this behavior affecting my life, relationships, future, objectives? How do I want to see my life, relationships, career, and future? How is my smartphone involved in that desire life? You have to be clear about why you want to change. Change can be hard to implement. The less clear and determined you are to change anything, the harder it is to introduce and maintain change. The clearer and more motivated you are to change, the less challenging this becomes. Entering the arena is easy. Saying Yes I will change is easy. Staying in the area and fighting off those thoughts and feelings that want to lure you back to your phone takes a lot more willpower. You want to prepare for the “battle” with your current self that will soon become your old self. When you maintain that persistence and perseverance, that current self will become your desired self. Your “self” will associate itself more with that vision of you who has control over her or his smartphone. That’s why step 1 can’t be skipped. Be clear where you are now and where you want to go, so no excuse can change your mind. You have revealed yourself to yourself. Your ego can say whatever it wants to you in order for you to check your smartphone again. You’ve already anticipated that. You know better now. You know that behavior is not serving you. Nothing will surprise you or catch you off guard. Of course, sometimes you will slip up and that’s normal. The only difference then when that happens, is that the slip up becomes an exception instead of the norm it used to be.