My greatest strength is forming relationships and being inclusive. I know this well based on my previous personal and work relationships. Creating a safe and open environment to discuss ideas, work on projects, or just generally enjoy each other's company is the basis of what drives me in life. That's been reflected in the career choices I've made as I've generally held positions that help comminities or people in some way. I tend to follow the concept of "be more interested than interesting." It's great to get to know people, hear them laugh, and hear their stories!
During my professional career, I have best thrived in environments where colleagues and management purposefully take the time to personally get to know and value each other. When people feel valued and listened to, an incredible side of them is brought forward and great things can be accomplished. Ideas are openly shared and people feel safe to make mistakes, of which has been the genesis of my great ideas in the past. I have personally thrived best in those environments and as a teacher, I held creating that type of classroom community above all else. Looking back, those type of environments are where much of my best work was done.
Coming from the relational side, the biggest challenge for me has been to be able to maintain my enthusiasm and overall work ethic when I don't feel value in professional environments. In the past, I have shut down and even shut out certain types of people (the more pushy, controlling, and loud) at work who I feel don't value my ideas and/or contributions. I have really worked on this by becoming a better listener, honoring their opinions, and learning how to stand up for my own ideas in a professional manner. Still, I can take things personally and let my lower level self come out. Also, a close second to this developing my grit. I do think I work hard and am efficient, but I am aware that I am ever more distracted, which can cause delay in completing my work. I do very well with explicit deadlines.
I like to think I'm a fairly balanced person, able to be not overly critical and also not unrealistically hopeful. I think that will be help me a lot in software development as those characteristics can help to keep my team and I going through both set backs and accomplishments. I've been told several times in my life that I'm very perceptive of other's feelings. Indeed, I enjoy asking questions and listening, and feel that's an integral part of any career. This helps twofold: Teammates feel a part of the group as their ideas are listened to and the team gets to listen to many different ideas. If employees are silent, I find that as a huge sign of an unsafe/minimally productive environment. People need to be heard and that's what I always try to bring out. I am an incredibly supportive co-worker and strive to help everyone around me be their best. It's those moments of confidence and belonging that really faciliate great idea creation, sharing, and overall work. For the programming itself, once I get rolling on things (I can be a bit of a slow starter-I like to know all the parameters of a project first) I let my grit take over. I hold a lot of value in work/rest/work. It's important to look up from time to time to reassess projects and also consult with teammates. Finally, I enjoy linear thinking a lot and am looking forward to a career that utilizes that type of thinking.
Knowing my strengths helps to quantify what I can bring to the table and also give me guidance on job position fit. For example, I tend to enjoy working more for companies that help impacted communities, so looking for positions with those types of organizations (school districts, non-profits, etc.) is a goal of mine. Though software development involves a lot of individual coding, it also involves being able to work with colleagues and clients. One of my great strengths is bringing people together and communicating effectively. I strive to be on a team that values that. My efficiency while working will also help as well. I tend to go slow before I go fast, which I firmly believe helps solidify knowledge and production. And finally, I'm pretty flexible and don't think I have a huge ego at all. I enjoy asking questions and completing an array of tasks. I am very hopeful these strengths will be of value to organizations in my future!
What efforts do you make to manage your learning process? Are these efforts successful? What challenges have inhibited your ability to manage your learning process effectively?
To manage my learning process, I try to stay in a relaxed and curious state of mind. Instead of having the nagging feeling that I "have to" learn something, I remind myself how exciting it is to learn something. I try to enjoy it! While learning, I talk to myself a lot, mostly I try to say things in my own words and say "cool!" when I learn something new. Also, I have learned over my life that breaking things down into smaller tasks is such a great way to achieve. Small tasks seem accomplishable and reduce that anxiety level, keeping my spirits healthy.
For challenges, of late I have learned there are so many, the primary ones being feeling overwhelmed ("Oh my, I have so much to do in such a short amount of time") and feeling like I will never be good enough. I keep those feelings at bay by reminding myself of what I have accomplished in the past, and reminding myself how lucky I am just to even be a learner! More tangible challenges include keeping up with a schedule for learning, making small daily task sheets and crossing things off, and turning off all of the distractions. That is very difficult to do but once I get rolling, I find that I can do it.
I resonated a lot with Coate's article. Highs are not the norm, lows and struggle are. It's important to manage emotions to be able to sustain myself through the highs. Also, this entire journey (albeit just beginning) of even joining Turing has been about facing my fears of insecurity and challenging them. Coates is right on when he says that learning something new that is complex (like a language) involved stumbling around in the dark for a long time, but that you do get better at stumbling.
In Sierra's talk, I agree that no progress tends to be the result of feeling too overwhelmed. In the past, I have completely frozen because I have felt so overwhelmed. I'm much better now, but when your cognitive resources (or mind) is just too scattered with so many tasks, that's a recipe for little progress. I really like how she said breaking tasks up and moving little chunks over the the "C" column is a great way to go. I do that. Lists help, as does crossing things off lists. Finally, being able to look at "C" skills and reevaluate them has taken me a long time to get used to, but I feel comfortable doing it. The key really is to not be resistant to change. That gets very hard as you get older but reminding yourself that change is where growth happens is important.
What role does your emotional state of mind play in your learning? How do your successes and failures at learning affect your emotional state?
My emotional state of mind plays a huge role in my learning. As such, I am (now, I wasn't when I was younger) so much more aware of how to keep positive emotions flowing and negative emotions at bay. I've learned to see things more practically, even my own accomplishments and failures, and reflect on what went right or wrong. For me, being a people pleaser, I can really neglect myself for others (just part of being a teacher I suppose) and I've learned, in a good way, to be more selfish. I know I am efficient, but before I am efficient, I am slow, so I take steps to give myself time to be slow. If I feel rushed, anxiety can come in and freeze me. It's important in those moments for me to refer to my task list and get started. Once I get started, I'm fine.
I have learned to react with a more pragmatic eye for both failures and accomplishmemts. Usually, for failures, there was some process or commitment that I neglected. Sometimes those processes have been in my control and sometimes they haven't. Same goes for accomplishments, I now think about the things I did to achieve the goal. When I was younger, I used to be relieved by my accomplishments and embarassed by failures. I've still got some of that, but it's a lot better.
Let's go with a list for this one:
- It's been 14 years since I was a student and I feel my life is in proper order to be able to succeed at Turing. I have a loving and supportive partner, my finances are sound, and all of my time and efforts can be devoted to the program.
- Re-establish good study habits:
- pre-read lessons, take hand written notes and reread them consistently, summarize (in writing) my learning, plan out tasks, break them down, give them their proper preparation, diligence, and attention.
- Remind myself that learning is fun! Before you can be great, you have to be good. Before you can be good, you have to be bad. And before you can be bad, you have to try. It's all a process.
- Stay grateful for my life, my health, and my family and friends.
- Utilize my cohort, form relationships, and support each other. Great things are rarely accomplished alone. I've received help all along my journey. I look forward to all of the new friends I will make.
- Ask questions and park the ego.
- And finally, enjoy what I am learning and don't be too hard on myself. Stay curious!