839

Signpost # Chosen

Questions Posed Answers to Questions

1

Has the person engaged their passion and dreams? Can they describe the person they want to be, the life and work they want to have in the future? Can they describe their Ideal Self?

I have definitely engaged my passion and dreams. I have spent time examining what motivates and excites me as well as what kinds of things will bring me true joy. My dreams and my passion impact one another and together, they dictate my goals and how I will strive to achieve them. On a professional level, I feel that human resources is my calling and I am very passionate about being a professional in this field after graduation. On a personal level, I am passionate about the importance of my family and giving back to society. These passions have shaped my overall dreams of having a successful career and a wonderful family. I want to always be doing impactful work within my profession and always taken on roles that both excites and challenges me so that I can consistently grow, while also making valuable contributions to an organization. Beyond making an impact in a professional environment, I will strive to make an impact in the community as well. Giving back has always been very important to me it is something I want to be involved with throughout various stages in my life. Finally, and most importantly, I want to have a wonderful family. When I think about the foundation of my engagement of the world around me, it comes from the unconditional love and support of my parents. I want to provide that for a spouse and children, while always maintaining a very close and strong bond with my parents. My ideal self is a loving and caring daughter, a contributing member of society, and a successful HR professional whose work makes an impact and is always open to learning and growing.

3

Can the person articulate both their strengths (those aspects he/she wants to preserve) and gaps or discrepancies between their Real and Ideal Selves (those aspects he/she wants to adapt or change)?

In order to address this question it is important for me to have a complete understanding of both my real self and my ideal self. This helps me see how well who I am aligns with who I want to be, based on my values, goals, etc. Additionally, it helps me to see where the discrepancies between the two lie. As we learned in this reading, it is important to explore the real self in the context of the ideal self. I believe that I have an accurate perception of both my strengths, as well as the gaps between my real/ideal selves. I am very open to feedback on a continuous level and consistently seek it out from a variety of sources. Based on their feedback of I am able to assess my real self in the context of my ideal self through examining my goals, what I strive for, and value. Aside from feedback in both a personal or professional environment, this class has provided me with the opportunity to ascertain feedback in the form of an assessment. The MSCEIT also illustrated both strengths and areas for improvement. I am very good at identifying other people’s emotions. When I communicate with individuals I am able to perceive the presence of emotions and to acknowledge my understanding of the reasoning behind emotions. However, I have always been quick to express my emotions and allow them to guide my responses. This is a gap between my real self and my ideal self. This difficulty in regulating my emotions does not align with my goals. I know that I strive to become better at regulating my emotions and integrating them with my thoughts in order to respond appropriately and effectively. This is a development area for me and one I continue to practice.

Has the person help their attention on both Strengths and Gaps— not letting one become the preoccupation?

Focusing too much on one aspect or the other will skew the way you approach development and make changes to yourself. Equal attention should be devoted to understanding/leveraging strengths as well as discerning changes to be made based on gaps present. Evaluating them together aids in demonstrating how we can be motivated to grow over time. Because I can be highly critical of myself, I sometimes feel myself thinking too

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much about gap areas. However, I compensate by examining my strengths and use that as motivation to continue to leverage those and appropriately address gap areas in order to make improvements. As I previously mentioned, appropriate emotional response is not something I am very good at. I sometimes allow my emotions to dictate a response without integrating any thought. It is my goal to reduce/eliminate the presence of automatic emotional reactions and to respond/behave based on logical thought. Simultaneously, evaluate my strength in the area of identifying emotions. As someone who is striving to better manage emotions an utilize rational thought as foundation for decision making, leveraging my strength in identifying emotions will be equally important. Accurately perceiving these emotions will help understand the basis behind certain thoughts and/or actions. Additionally, identifying/addressing emotions can prevent them from escalating and can help with effectively regulating them. If only focused on trying to better manage my emotions, without focusing on the role of my strengths, I would not be as effective in instituting productive change. I must continue to leverage my strengths in order to help me improve gap areas.

6

Is the person experimenting and practicing new habits and actions?

We have learned throughout this course about the importance of practicing new habits in order to change certain automatic responses. Practicing these habits strengthens their presence and diminishes the previous responses. Practicing new habits and actions is critical to successful change. For me, reacting to a situation emotionally and without thinking before acting/speaking is an automatic response I strive to weaken and diminish. Practicing my conditioned relaxation response has been vital in helping to make this change. Especially during times of frustration or agitation, I sometimes snap at people and can have a negative attitude. Using my “I am at peace” statement helps me to calm down and acts as barrier thwarting my ability to reacting instantly. By calming down and taking some deep breaths, I am able to focus on my thoughts instead of being overwhelmed by an emotion. Thinking clearly and logically allows

Is the person using their learning plan to learn more from their experiences?

me to use the emotion appropriately and to respond in a productive manner. This has helped me to not let my emotions get the best of me and to avoid unnecessary conflict. I use my learning plan in order to learn more from my experiences. There are many good strategies and helpful pieces of advice present in the book, Emotional Intelligence at Work by Hendrie Weisinger, Ph.D., including the conditioned relaxation response and deep breathing that have been very beneficial in assisting with helping me to not react based on emotion and regulate emotions effectively. Another strategy that I have used from Emotional Intelligence at Work, is “redirecting emotional energy” (Weisinger, 1998). Especially in more negative emotions like anxiety or frustration, the physical response of the emotional energy can perpetuate the feeling and make it more overwhelming. The rapid heart rate, fluttering stomach, clenched jaw.etc; draw more attention to what you are feeling. This can increase the focus on emotion and can ultimately impact thoughts/response/behavior. To diminish the focus on the emotion, attention should be shifted to distracting tasks. Typically when I am anxious, the nervous energy increases my stress and as a result, I have at times snapped at someone. Now instead of focusing on the anxiety that I feel, I shift my attention toward some type of routine activity such as making to-do lists, vacuuming, or doing laundry. The organized process of each of these activities is therapeutic and diverts my attention from thinking about the cause of my anxiety. Not allowing this energy to buildup and intensify emotional feeling has helped me better regulate emotions and not let them control certain responses/reactions.