By Mariella Uwimana
Transformation to beautiful living is possible, self-awareness is the key.
Self-awareness is conscious knowledge of one’s character, feelings, motives, and desires. When you focus on yourself, rather than your environment, you compare yourself with your standards of correctness. These standards of correctness specify how you ought to think, feel, and behave. They are essentially your values and beliefs, otherwise known as your ideals.
You feel pride or dissatisfaction depending on how well your behavior matches up with your standards of correctness. If you’re dissatisfied, you might make changes to your behavior to better align with your standards. For instance, you might note feelings of discontent in your current role and recognize that you value creativity but don’t have the opportunity to exercise that passion. That dissatisfaction could lead you to pursue other creative outlets, changing your behavior to fit your standards. Self-awareness, then, is a fundamental tool for self-control.
Internal self-awareness is how clearly you see your values, passions, and aspirations, and how well those standards fit with your environment and your reactions, which include thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses. Essentially, internal self-awareness is recognizing your current job doesn’t match your true passion or feeling dissatisfied with a heated conversation you had with your colleague, which conflicts with your belief that kindness is important. Attitude refers to feelings, beliefs, and behavioral predispositions directed towards people, groups, ideas, or objects. It influences the behavior of the individuals. It decides how to act or behave in a particular situation.
If you are self-aware, you can set the wheels in motion for a successful life. You will notice which area is weighing you down and work to correct it while keeping your wheels turning. The process of self-transformation can be painful. However, if you continue the exercise of self-awareness, it leads to greater personal growth and beautiful living.
About Mariella:
Mariella Uwimana’s journey has taken her across 6 different countries on 3 continents, and taught her about the beauty of diversity. Mariella is a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. At 15, she lost her parents, most of her siblings and many extended family members to the genocide, leaving her devastated. Resiliently, she pulled herself together and went on to attend high school in Rwanda. She enrolled at Makerere University for a bachelor’s degree in Development Studies. She later moved to England, where she met a wonderful man, moved to Denmark, and started a family, while finishing a master’s degree in Development Studies and International Relations at Aalborg University. Her breadth of experience includes workshop facilitation, human resources, integration mentorship job consultation, coaching and speaking. Currently, Mariella lives in Maine and works as a diversity consultant. Mariella’s greatest satisfaction comes from inspiring and supporting others to embrace their untried capacity, reach their full potential and accomplish their dreams to the highest standards
To connect with Mariella: LinkedIn
