Schneider Electric is a leading the digital transformation of energy management and automation. The firm makes it possible for IoT-enabled solutions to seamlessly connect, collect, analyze and act on data in real-time delivering enhanced safety, efficiency, reliability, and sustainability.

It is impressive how many of us have been wandering through life without questioning why, how and what really matters to us. Questions that are often referred to as journalistic questions because all news stories should answer them. W's and H questions we ask when writing about an event, an experience, or something that happened, and yet, we never use to question our personal lives.

How many times have our in-tuition, this burning sensation in our guts, tried to tell us that a decision, a route we are taking or a plan we want to make is not right for us, and yet we keep walking...

It is fear, fear of change, fear of discovering ourselves, our true selves. Fear of connecting our hearts with our minds or believing that our instincts could be as true as facts. Fear of the unknown that pulls us back every time to who we were auto-piloted to be. How comforting it is to tell our-selves this is how we do it in our family, or this is surely the

right thing to do as it is how we were raised to do it? How many times have we done the "right thing" without even thinking to whom is it "right"? How many times have we marched a path because this path has been tagged for us as women while others were specified for men?

Needless to mention the gender-based scales of ambitions we were forced to use to measure and weigh our dreams.

It is at some tipping points in our lives when some of the Ws and the H questions kick-off and we start wondering who we really were and not who we were raised to be. For some, it is as early as the teenage years, for others, it is linked to life-changing events and commonly for most people, it happens at what is referred to as mid-life crisis, regardless at age. For me, 30 was that age!

It was surely scary and sometimes painful to finally acknowledge those deep inner feelings and seek help to discover myself, my true self to realize who I really was, what I truly wanted. I finally accepted that it was ok, rather a blessing, to have unique ambitions and dreams. I learned that it is completely fine that people won't understand my journey and well, they did not necessarily need to, as it is not for them, it was only for me.

It was only then that I embarked the journey, the journey of freedom. The journey of self-awareness and most importantly, of personal choices. I realized that saying I have no choice, was already a choice. A choice to take the same train others have ridden because it's safe, or the easy way because it is easy. It is surely a choice when I kept walking and shutting down every feeling that told me otherwise.

My journey of change taught me my threshold to pain, risk and uncertainty. As much as it is true that those will always be different for each and everyone, the feeling of freedom is the same. This feeling of inner liberty will bring a sense of happiness and joy that you and only you will experience and be able to spread.

Start with your journey of self-awareness, do not be a prisoner of your own self and do not be afraid to dream. If your dream doesn't scare you, then it is not big enough for you. Don't be scared to feel and most importantly, do not accept to not have a choice, neither believe that you have no choice!