There are seven levels of awareness. These categories are areas in your life that if shaped correctly, will directly result in an improved quality of life. We will describe each level and how it relates to your ability to reach your goals. They are: Animal, Mass, Aspiration, Individual, Discipline, Experience and Mastery. Let’s take them one at a time.
The Animal level of awareness centers on your fight or flight response. This is an instinct that is in response to external stimulus. There is not a whole lot of thinking involved here, or none at all actually. You are relying on your physical senses. You are reacting rather than responding. You may do it in a more elegant way than an animal, but you experience the same basic animal reaction to things. If your natural reaction to any sort of resistance is to cower and quickly relieve the tension by compromising your ideas, this will have a prolonged effect on your well being.
Let’s take a scenario of turning your annual salary into your monthly salary. You think: “Wow, that would be fantastic! What a great idea.” So the first thing you do is you go to your spouse and explain your idea. Your spouse likes it and you feel relieved. You weren’t too sure about this new idea that you had been toying with so you feel as though you’ve dodged a bullet by getting an initial positive reaction. “That’s great, my spouse supports me.” Well, then as you are telling your wonderful new idea to a friend, you notice a skeptical look come over his or her face, which becomes more cynical as you continue. Your enthusiasm in now beginning to wane and by the time you are done talking, you are starting to doubt yourself. The anticipated first words of their response come in the form of a sarcastically delivered: “Good luck with that.” Now you are thinking: “Well yeah, it was probably a silly idea anyway.” And so you back off and you lock that dream away and go back to doing the same old thing. What you have just experienced is a flight response to criticism. The first sign of difficulty and you fled.