Reflective Journal
An idea to improve myself on a
daily basis raised many questions and with a hope to get solutions related to
personal development made me join a soft-skill course. Things that were bothering
me at the time of enrolment were ineffective articulation skills, poor stage
presentation, despite of making full effort, not getting expected returns and
too much influence of others in my life. How 1st session of soft –
skill brought transformation within me has been described through this journal.
Writing about things that I am
good in along with my weakness was
the first step when I clearly know where to improve. My strengths include punctuality, obedience and cleanliness and wanted
to improve my speaking skills, gain confidence and develop team spirit. I have
an opportunity to open myself from the defined boundary, make new friends,
discuss my career path with teachers, but on the other side I was threatened by
time waste and insecure feeling. The course gave me a tool to understand myself
better using “Johari window”. It helped
me to know now what was unknown earlier from the people whom I can trust and
know that they will not flatter me. It gave me confidence to know that I have a
capacity to understand people well and place myself in their shoes while
solving their problems. I often became jealous with my peers and manipulate
things before them so a feeling of unauthenticity brought me down. So I have to
work hard on these issues.
Me being submissive and not
aggressive had to bring a balance, so I am giving myself due importance for my
values and the stage in which I perform. This has helped me to gain confidence
and am able to make eye contact while speaking in public. I want to be
assertive because I consider that it is essential to show the real self than
backbiting. In order to keep standing it is necessary to have a clear idea
about one’s personality. I realise how important is the way we speak up things
because it can turn the table in our favour. I have to stand in my thoughts without
hurting others opinion. I am also bias because I remain myself in front of people
whom I know will be there despite of whether I am right or wrong, but portray a
different picture when it comes to people with whom I think will be useful in
future. Solving one and facing other problem was a big challenge for me.
In the process a psychology
session helped me to reflect my feeling, behaviour and attitude through the well-known
ABC’s of psychology, i.e. Affect
(short tempered) – Behaviour
(submissive) – Cognitive (self-importance).
I consider myself to have a low self-esteem and associate “flower” as my metaphor. The confidence to do something is there but
I do not consider myself to be worthy enough to accomplish those work. I am
easily plucked by people and is used as per their need. The reason why I felt
this was that when I walk I often look down. Now when I walk I particularly
look upfront and try to make an eye contact with people moving beside.
A chance given to introspect
helped me pushing myself ahead in esteem and belief. I was unhappy to know that
negative list of things like my habit of comparison with peers, blaming myself,
i.e. internalising situations, lack of good communication skills and over
emphasis on others thought rather than my own that made me go far from success,
were more than in comparison to positive things that will help me go towards my
goal. After analysing the reason why I felt insecure sticks to the fact that I
had not decided my career path yet. I was doing things as it came in my way. So
to build confidence it is important to make a choice as how I see myself in fifteen to twenty years down the
line. After being aware of what is
my destination I started bringing changes
in my life.
Important things that I learnt
from Lt. Col. Jaykumar brought
confidence in me. Though being good in planning and organising, yet
understanding how important it is to develop reasoning ability, current
affairs, and attitude to optimize usage of resources helped me to articulating
things better. A smiling face is essential which makes an aspirant fully
dressed. To improve on stage presentation
it was important for me to interact with people and work in a team. Transactional analysis helped me to
become socially intelligent which focused on building capacity, a step beyond
ability. My Egogram gave a result
that matched with my belief. Adult ego system which should be highest for an
expected undergraduate in IIT showed a low value. So the required balance which
I should have between practical and ideal was missing. This was a clear need
for me to become more assertive. Low Value for “controlling parent ego state”
showed my submissive nature which I am working by speaking a loud and clear
with my peers as a daily practise.
My struggle for a month to
reinforce my weakness and making myself available for the practical world was
given an impressive cover with an hour presentation by Sid from Cognizant. One thing which I felt was the most important
was “how different I am to make changes in the organisation”. Only knowing my
aim will not help me progress towards it, but pushing to create things, raising
questions , seeking solutions and yet feeling motivated till the goal is achieved
is important. During an interview I will try to make interviewer ask those
questions which I am comfortable with and will be truth to myself in all
respect.
Many important points that I
learnt from the ten minutes group
discussion session are ; it is good to know names of competing members for
reference. Structure in first one minute by writing key points to ponder later.
It is not advised to frequently look down on the paper rather make eye contact
with the members with clear and logical sentences. Conclusion of a group
discussion should incorporate relevant points discussed. Cross conversation and
aggressive tone should be avoided. Eagerness to apply a month
analysis about the solutions that will help me mitigate some issues helped me
to do a five minutes presentation on “Elevator
Etiquette”. I realised that it is important to have confidence while
speaking comes from knowledge about the topic and courage to face the audience.
To improve on the second I think having a heart at peace and making eye contact
with the audience helped me to perform to the best of my ability. Group
exercise of “human knot” helped me
to understand the importance of strategy before execution of a task. Any task
can be made simpler if it is properly planned. Another activity of “non-verbal communication” reflected the
power of expression and getting things done with no words used. I was confident
and did the exercise successfully.
From now I will consider each
hindrance to be a stepping stone and with all awareness about myself I will
work hard with perseverance for that single degree that will push me from
ordinary to extra ordinary.
Feedback
- Sequence of the session was well planned.
- Recruiters brought actual state of affairs and present need .
- Collaboration of videos , G.D. session, group work made it completely different from other courses.
- Due to lack of time Ma’am was unable to finish many things , still she was patient and never scolded when there was a time exceed from student presentation.
- One – on – one interaction during group work helped to solve some personal issues.
