26 April 2018
SOC240 World Cultures
Write Your Own Success Story
I have three goals that I plan to work on to increase my self-efficacy: I will publish a written work, I will teach a computer skills class, and I will reach a level of detail with my weekly work reports to my boss such that he is satisfied with them. I feel confident in my goal to publish a written work because I have already put in the effort to be competent at writing, and it is relatively simple in this day and age to publish something and make it available to the public. The key factor that would determine my ability to publish something, my “Achilles heel,” is the courage necessary to put something of my own out for others to critique. I can surmount this obstacle by planning out how to achieve my goal. I will start by creating a blog. On this blog, I will post a short story once a week. Once I reach the point where I feel confident enough in what I’ve written, I will compile the best short stories into a book and publish it through Amazon’s system. While it is doubtful that many people will read my stories, that is not what this goal is about. This goal is about improving my writing and overcoming my fears associated with writing. For my second goal, I am already on my way to teaching a computer skills class. I have taken courses on Excel and Word, so I already feel confident in my ability with those two subjects. I am currently taking a course on website building, so I will soon feel confident in my knowledge on that subject as well. After this course is completed, I will visit the library and ask them if I may teach a class once a week on one of those three subjects. Assuming that I am successful in that, it is simply a matter of preparing the material for class each week. I already have experiencing making and teaching lessons, so the biggest factors are becoming confident in the material and approaching the library. For my third goal, I just need to make sure that I keep a consistent record throughout the week of what I do. Before, I was just keeping some notes throughout the week and then filling out my report to my boss at the end of the week. Instead, my new plan is to spend the last twenty minutes of each work day filling out my weekly report with what I did that day. I feel confident in my ability to do this because I already have had success with making timers for other events in the workday to remind me of what to do, so all I have to do is add another timer to go off twenty minutes before the end of the workday.
I sometimes struggle with putting off things I wish to accomplish. They stress me out, so I put them on the shelf and let them collect dust. I take motivation from my dad when this happens. He has the same problem, and he told me “honestly, just get it done. You’ll feel so much better afterward.” When I feel like putting a goal off, I think on this quote, and it reminds me of how much better I’ll feel if I just throw myself into the work. You make it past that first step, and then everything feels so much better. That is how I find my grit.
By achieving my goals, I will feel more confident handling tasks that I am unfamiliar with. I will also feel more confident in my ability to please my boss with my work. Thus, my self-efficacy will increase. This will create a shorter power dynamic between us, which means we will be more effective in accomplishing work together and I will have greater freedom in approaching tasks independently.