Personal and Professional Development Essay Example

Personal and Professional Development

The report presents the process of implementing and reviewing the personal and professional development plan developed. The report presents one main development activity of the proposed personal and professional development plan, which is self-awareness. This activity was chosen since among many other skills, it is important in influencing the professional development success. Thus, the report presents why the activity was chosen, the learning style that will be employed to implement the activity. The report begins with a report on the tasks completed, then a discussion and conclusion that summarizes everything in the report.

Report Analysis

The activity I undertook involved engaging in the self-awareness skill development. Self-awareness is an emotional intelligence component, which comprises of the emotional awareness of an individual, accurate self-assessment and self-confidence. Self-awareness is an important skill that lies on ensuring one completely understands their emotions, which can be strengths or weaknesses in both personal and professional lives. Self-awareness determines the self-worth of an individual, which leads to the improvement of the self-confidence of an individual. Self-awareness is a skill that ensures one is aware of their emotions in different situations. It ensures one understands how different actions and thoughts trigger different emotions, and how these emotions impact the general performance and how this emotions guide the personal values.

In engaging in the self-awareness skill development, the intention was to effectively develop a self-analysis activity to recognize emotions in different areas and how these emotions come up. More importantly, the activity would help in understanding how these emotions affect the performance attained. The activity will improve the emotional intelligence skill, which involves increasing the awareness of one’s personal and professional views. The activity involves engaging one in a process that ensures they understand their weaknesses, strengths, limits and inner resources (Moon, 2013). It is a very important activity in competitive environments since it allows one to know their limits and focus on their resources and strengths to shine in the industry. Self-awareness is an important skill since it allows reflective learning, experienced learning and also using feedback as a process of effectively learning. Self-awareness eliminates barriers to success such as developing unrealistic goals or ideas, and other blind ambitions or relentless hard work. However, self-awareness increases the recognition of these blind spots mainly by learning from experience, feedback, observations and other learning strategies.

Self-awareness also includes the issue of increasing self-confidence. Self-confidence leads to an improvement of a strong self-worth. Self-confidence increases the presentation of oneself, which depicts a charismatic leadership style of an individual. It also increases the assertiveness of an individual, which is imperative in making the right decisions. Self-confidence is important since it increases the performance of an individual in both personal and professional lives.

Learning strategies used include the process of learning through experience to increase awareness of the personal style, interactions with others and feedback from people in different categories. The learning style used to develop the self-awareness skill is learning from other people and situations among other (Olsen, 2015). The activity focused on learning through experience and feedback line managers, team members and from others. Other styles that could have been used included learning through training, mentoring, observation, tutorials, and supervisions. However, learning through experience and feedback was better since it involved one’s participation in learning how the styles affect the learning process.

Monitoring, Reflecting and Planning –

Based on Kolb’s Learning Cycle (1984)

Development Need: Self-Awareness

Activity: Learning from others through feedback and experience

Date of Activity: 15/6/2017 – 19/6/2017

Personal Development Record

Name: Self Awareness Skill Learning Activity

Period Covering: 15^th – 19^th June of 2017

Personal Development Plan

Discussion

Self-awareness involves the process of assessing the knowledge, skills, behaviours, qualities and values of one. Including reflecting on their experiences to guide on the personal and professional development. To implement the personal and professional development plan using the self-awareness activity first included defining the activities to include for the self-awareness development. The entire process also needed to define the learning style that would help learn and effectively implement the skill through the personal and professional development plan (Nicholls, 2014). To implement the developed personal and professional development plan, one has to undertake some activities to effectively implement the plan. Self-awareness is one of the activities to help in effectively implementing the plan. Self-awareness is an important skill since it helps one to identify their feelings and emotions and how they are affect one’s performance and decision making. It helps one to determine when to make decisions and when not to make them based on how different emotions affect one’s judgement. To implement the self-awareness activity of the personal and professional development, I will start through engaging in different projects where I will use some learning styles such as feedback from others, and experience to learn about my self-awareness.

The aim of the exercise was to determine how well am aware and conscious of my emotions. This includes identifying how different emotions affect different decisions and what triggers the emotions. The overall process was determined to evaluate how different emotions occur, and their impacts on overall performance. The entire process as presented above was documented to show my progress. As evidenced below, my first activity was involved in identifying my weaknesses and strengths. This activity was important since it would help in presenting my limits and opportunities in attaining my set goals. That is; once I discovered my inner resources I can use them to advance on my goals by using my strengths to help in meeting my set goals either in terms of education requirements or other personal set objectives. That is; my first activity proved that my strengths are very important since they impact my decision making.

I have major self-awareness skill such as, I can manage stress and other negativity triggers that may affect my decision making to ensure positive outcomes. This was the process in which the results of my activities were measured. Showing how self-aware oi am of my emotions and how they do not always affect my decision making negatively presented the successful completion of the exercise. I also learned that I don’t have inner conflicts to affect my personal and professional learning. However, my personality due to my assertiveness is sometimes perceived as the arrogance, and rudeness among others. This is one of the weaknesses I have, which I must control to ensure my performance is not negatively impacted.

Learning styles refers to the best manner in which one learns or applies their skills to personal and professional learning. To implement the developed personal and professional plan, one needs a learning style that they can effectively learn from to implement and make changes to the plan as the implementation is occurring (Hadar & David, 2013). The most appropriate learning styles, as the exercise presented include learning from experience and feedback. The activity was effective since the strengths and weaknesses, and also the most appropriate learning styles were identified. The information is effective in supporting the personal and professional development learning process, which influences lifelong success.

The report analysis above provides a documented evidence of the learning activity and how it will be implemented in the personal and professional development. The activity was successful in teaching on one’s strengths and weaknesses, which also gives rise to the limitations and internal resources that can be used to support personal and professional development. The current personal and professional development plan, differs from the original slightly. The current PPD identifies the need of personal skills, which are as important as my primary goals to meet my objectives. Personal skills such as self-awareness and other learning styles help in achieving the set engineering goals. To effectively learn and meet my goals in school and possible internships to influence my personal and professional development one must have the appropriate personal skills.

Conclusion

Self-awareness is an activity that increases one’s capability to understand themselves and their values, where they can respond to their emotions and those of others effectively to improve the performance of the task at hand. The activity was informative on showing the importance of personal skills in influences the development of professional skills and goals. The development activity presented that self-awareness is an important personal skill that plays a major role in the professional goals attention. That is; it determines the process of decision making and learning among many others that influence the projected development. The current development plan, differs from the original plan in that the current identifies the need of personal development and skills to ensuring effectiveness in the professional development, which determines the lifelong success. Thus, the activity on self-awareness implementation gave light to the need of personal skills in achieving professional goals leading to the given updated plan.

Feedback information from team members showed that my assertiveness maybe perceived as negative aggressiveness. Thus, my response to this feedback was ensure that my personality is well identified, where confidence and professional presentation skills are used to make sure the audience understand my assertiveness in a positive light. The activity presented that one of my major strengths lies in the capability to manage and make appropriate decisions when under stress. Thus, other than my assertiveness, which can be viewed as a weakness, my strengths show I have major leadership qualities.

References

Hadar, L. L. & David, L. B., 2013. The interaction between group processes and personal professional trajectories in a professional development community for teacher educators. Journal of Teacher Education , 64(2), pp. 145 — 161.

Moon, J. A., 2013. Reflection in learning and professional development: Theory and practice. New York: Routledge.

Nicholls, G., 2014. Professional development in higher education: New dimensions and directions. New York: Routledge.

Olsen, B., 2015. Teaching what they learn, learning what they live: How teachers’ personal histories shape their professional development. New York: Routledge.