Conscious Behaviour

Deliberately being thoughtful about your behaviour and monitoring the effect it is having on other people.

Being conscious of your behaviour is considered by most people to be the opposite of behaving naturally. Conscious behaviour is relatively unpopular because people object that:

• it takes effort and deliberate concentration
• it impairs overall performance because concentrating on one aspect of behaviour means other aspects go unchecked
• it is unethical because the behaviour is being artificially created rather than occurring naturally.

Despite these objections, making behaviour conscious and deliberate is an inevitable, but thankfully temporary, stage during the acquisition of new or additional behaviours. All so-called natural behaviour, with the obvious exception of some basic reflexes, was at some stage unnatural in the sense that you couldn’t do it effortlessly or skilfully. The advantages of conscious behaviour are that:

• it makes you more aware of your behaviour and the effect it is having on other people
• it forces you to employ behaviours that you would not otherwise use.

Rejecting the need for conscious behaviour is a recipe for standing still and not expanding your repertoire of behaviours. Some rather brash advice is, ‘If at first you can’t make it, fake it’.