What is self-awareness? Self-awareness is knowing about yourself in various aspects. It's about knowing your skills, talents, areas of strengths, weaknesses, personality, values and preferences.

Being self-aware gives you a starting point in this journey we call life. With this knowledge, you can wildly thrive in your career. Whether you are employed, an employer, an intern or self-employed, this gives you a purpose and enables you to make goals that do not tire you endlessly. You are able to list accomplishments that resonate with you and the ones that you are able to achieve by pushing yourself a little harder. All in all, self-awareness is detrimental when it comes to career choices, management and development.

Self-awareness can benefit your career development in a number of ways. First, you will be able to pursue a career that you enjoy and will be great at and for this reason you may succeed and enjoy it. Secondly, you will like your career. Thirdly, financial gain will be realised.

Once you know yourself and turn your career into something you love, money will follow you. Can you imagine being a money magnet as you will incredibly be good at what you do over time? Regardless of your career, you will get that bonus, that partnership and those clients once you are exceptional at what you do.

Self-awareness will also help you know how to develop your career using your skills and personality traits. You will be able to know what makes you tick and what doesn't. This is very important in the environment you will work in since you will know if working in the outdoors appeals to you more than working indoors. The environment you work in can either drag you down or boost your productivity and knowing yourself will aid you in knowing where you can work to reap the most benefits.

Applying and accepting jobs will also be easier due to knowing what you can tolerate and what you can't tolerate in the workplace. Your pros and cons list will be much easier to make and much more valid once you know what you want in your life. Knowing yourself means you will never settle for less because you already know at what point you are ready to draw the line. You will rarely be in doubt because you have your own set of skills and values that will push you forward and pave the way for you to reach your goals. When you are self-aware, you are able to improve on the skills you need to reach the goals you want to attain. You are able to assess yourself and fix the areas that need fixing so that you can get that promotion. This makes you level-headed and more focused in your life and you can never go wrong with this amount of self-certainty.

Do you know how to realise this potential? Career and College Readiness course will help you discover yourself, and much more! This is an online transitional course for youth leaving high school into life after high school. The course is designed to impart skills to anyone aspiring to join tertiary education or any post-secondary training locally or internationally and other post high school options available. It is able to answer questions like; Who am I? What next after high school?  What are the different types of post high school options? What is College success? What if i don't go to college? The course takes Four (4) Weeks and has interactive activities to enrich your learning experiences. It helped me discover unlimited possibilities!

Mugure Waithaka is a 1st year student taking English and Creative Writing course