Awareness

Awareness is an interesting, neccesary, and frankly, freeing thing. It's been for me once I looked at "IT" a little more closely.

When you have actual awareness, there comes the option, the opportunity to make a choice. Every day and every moment, I am realizing just how many things, situations, moments, are a cross road. There's an opportunity to make a choice. And many of those choices are at the core of how we act, interact, show up, what we say, what we do, what thoughts we allow to come into our mind, how much we are essentially aligned to our values. In those aware and conscious moments we are given an opportunity to recalibrate, reset and create at that moment something, someone, new, a new version of ourselves by maybe simply making a different choice and going left instead the choice we make in a specific situation by default of always going right. Habituated choices. Maybe for safety. Old habits die hard.

A few years ago, when I was writing a talk, I realized and then actually wrote about it, that life is like a pearl necklace. And we are invited to build our own necklace. There are many pearls on the necklace. For some people, all those pearls on that necklace need to be the same size, the same color. Or they only like one specific color of pearls on that necklace. But we all look at a pearl as something unique and precious and very valuable. It’s all the small pearls we collect just like moments in a day, moments in our life that ultimately build that necklace, our like. One pearl at a time. Precious. Beautiful. And with every pearl we are given the moment of awareness and as a result - choice. Presence. And I recall in my life that there were times and moments I wanted to walk away from. I didn't act on it. I silenced my gut and instincts and complied with exceptions or what I felt was the easier route.

So while I may have awareness of what may serve me well or better or different to make a new, a different choice, I get stuck with the same choice and same path I take, even though there is a moment of awareness. I repeat the same choice even though I have awareness and may seek a new outcome, but I get stuck in past patterns and what feels like the possibly more familiar and safe choice. Not useful. Often we do realize that there are options and choices that are different. Some of the options and choices are even better than the ones we are considering pursuing. Still, we enter into that vortex that is an never ending circle

It's that rotary that we can't exit as the choices are like cars piling up on our outside, while we drive the smallest circle on the inside of the rotary until we run out of gas, being afraid to switch lanes to finally exit. And guess what - It leads absolutely nowhere. We're are literally spinning out.

If you’re sitting there now thinking of things, situations, circumstances, maybe even people and relationships, and you can relate to this analogy, then that is actually your first step to change, and that is the awareness I am talking about. This moment, this specific awareness: The, your first step towards change.

See, awareness is simply realizing what you're doing. Awareness is the core square of emotional intelligence. The first step so to speak. Observing myself, noticing what I am reacting to and how I feel about it. The triggers I feel. Being able to see myself like an audience. Seeing me, the situation, feelings, the current action, from a bird's eye perspective for a moment.

Awareness I believe is a powerful catalyst of clarity to what not only the situation or circumstance is, but also as the necessary invitation to make a change and recognize that I, and only I, can shift perspective and then make that choice that may be the change.

In today's world of business, EQ and our power to adapt is one of the most valuable skills we can have and continuously practice. The world is evolving and changing rapidly fast, and in a very fundamental, human way, having awareness and being aware of our own emotions and triggers allows us to redirect, choose and move in a direction when we need it that may serve us and for that matter others around us better. And not comply with someone else's demand, expectation or with simply an expectation - be it personal or professional.

Happy Friday,

Stephan