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Created August 19, 2020 22:57
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Mod 1 Week 1 Career Journal
Mod 1 Week 1: Understanding your strengths
Describe one of your strengths
I think one of my greatest strengths is my self sufficiency. I know how to keep myself on track, both professionally and personally. This includes healing and growth in both of these fields. This flows beyond just a strength, it is also my belief that to make the world a better place, you must first make yourself a better person.
What is something you have learned to do well (list a skill)?
I have learned to be quite self sufficient. This ability comes with holding myself responsible for both my failures and successes. These acts also come with not beating myself up over mistakes, and not gloating over things I have done well, respectively.
What is something you know about (list some knowledge/expertise you have)?
I know what to do in order to heal/recharge, and build myself up for continued success. Some of these things include how to take care of my body and mind, how to utilize time for work and time for breaks, and what to do/where to look for help when I am struggling beyond things I can figure out.
What is something you have a natural ability to do well (list a talent)?
I have a natural ability to follow logic and reason beyond my own understanding. Sometimes it can be confusing in contrast to my own belief, but I value the truth and reality as paramount in advancing my future and that of others.
How do those combine to create a specific strength?
All of these traits listed combine to make me a dedicated and self controlled individual. I use logic as a path to follow, self-care as a structure for propulsion, and self responsibility as a base to build from.
Read through your Top 4 results from Pairin
In your own words, what do these top 4 qualities tell you about yourself?
Maverick, Intuitive-Conceptual, People Developer, Lover of Knowledge and Wisdom
I am very self motivated and driven towards learning and understanding the expression of knowledge, through the facts and feelings that I have aquired.
Do they resonate with you? Why/why not?
Some of these I feel make sense as to describe me. Maverick, for instance, is very self oriented. I feel that I understand this trait about myself quite well. I learn better when figuring things out on my own. However, I don't quite follow the logic behind the Intuitive-Conceptual trait, as it states "synthesizing cause and effect" and using one's "gut". I have always considered myself as someone who uses logic as a main factor in my decisions as opposed to my "gut". I also don't know if the Maverick trait fits very well next to the People Developer trait.
How do they relate to the strength you wrote about in Prompt #1?
I think the maverick trait defines me quite well. I work well on my own and I enjoy the peace of solitude.
Challenges with strengths
What can make it challenging to recognize your strengths? How can you work through those challenges?
I think it’s hard to see one’s self from an outside perspective. We spend so much time looking at others, but we never really watch ourselves, or understand why we feel certain feelings.
Do you ever see yourself overusing certain strengths? In what circumstances would you want to use them less and amplify other strengths? How could you adjust your approach in those instances?
I often see myself overusing my comfort for solitude. I know that being around friends and family makes me feel better, especially after a long time alone, but it’s hard sometimes, once you get on track. I think in a learning aspect it is especially necessary to talk to others and learn from them. I know this is something I am going to have to consciously do throughout my time at Turing and the rest of my adult life.
Strengths in action
Write 1-2 sentences describing how you like to work (i.e., Do you pre-plan? Do you talk through your ideas first? Do you work better with deadlines? How do you stay organized?)
I think all of the prompts listed are beneficial ways to put in work. I try to use most of them as much as I can. Other than that, I do have a few “tricks” that I use, such as tricking myself into believing/feeling a deadline is a day or two sooner.
How could you talk about these working preferences with your project teammates? Your mentor? Your instructors?
I think one of the best things to do when you start a team project is to go over work preferences. It is a great way to line out what people's strengths are in order to better utilize them. As far as mentors go, I think taking information from them on how they prefer to work is quite valuable and can give and can give some insight or an edge one might not know they have. Talking with instructors might be a little different, as they most likely have a work plan set out already, i.e., when a deadline is, weather to describe a plan or let students delve into things themselves.
What would you need to be aware of when working with people who have different strengths from you?
Understanding other peoples’ work styles will set you up for better synergy and success. If my work partner prefers to plan things out and I prefer to have set deadlines, we can now plan out our deadlines. Each person in the group can add their strengths to combine to make a more powerful working machine.
How could your Pairin results help you better understand your everyday working preferences?
The parin results are a representation of some of the traits we use best. Once we better understand them we can use them to reinforce the things that make us great people. They’re sort of a guideline we can use to help grow our interactions with people.
Continued growth
Is there any particular strength you'd like to sharpen while you're at Turing? Any area you consider a weakness that you'd like to strengthen?
I would like to be better at communicating both my working knowledge and my personal feelings towards work related events. I haven’t always had the greatest ability to communicate when I don’t understand something, or feel something is wrong. I feel like this is the double edged sword of the mavrick trait.
What are some steps you could take here?
I know that I need to continuously work to reach out to others when I am in need. I feel that I usually do a pretty good job of understanding others, while I often overlook my own struggles.
How could you be aware of progress you're making?
I think journaling is the best way to review progress. A lot of the times we will be making micro-advancements that are hard to see in the present, but when these are contrasted over time it is a lot easier to see how far we’ve come.
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