Here we will realize the whole idea from the prospective of an individual that how one can evaluate himself in the light of some of major personal attributes and skills required for a better and bright career.
The whole personal skills area can be distributed in few sections under which come few questions identifying the presence of that particular skill in your personality through the responses you give against those questions.
I have divided the audit in 5-6 such sections naming Ability and eagerness to learn new things, Information seeing skills, Reading and note making, Communication skills , General business skills, management skills , leadership skills etc. now under these sections are the questions against which an individual’s response is recorded these responses may be in terms of ratings one gives to a particular attribute that is how important a particular skill is or it can be the other way which I have adopted.
Few sections and questions that I have used for my personal skills audit will be presented here to give the exact idea of the whole scenario. The responses are divided in four categories Can do this, need more practice to do this, can’t do this, priority of the skill.
Learning and organization-
I plan my strategies to manage my time
I am able to work under deadlines
I am able to prioritize my tasks and continue learning
Communication skills –
I am good with expressing my views verbally
I am confident and have a very little stage fear
I am ready to listen views of others and appreciate it
Management and leadership skills-
I am good with managing my resources and bring the best out of them
I work well as a part or member of the team as well as the leader of the team
I am good with convincing people and get my work done
I am good at addressing and motivating my team mates
Stress management-
I know what the causes of stress are
I know my extent of handling the stress
I can use my strategies to handle any kind of mental stress
These questions will be answered in the responses can do, need practice to do and can’t do along with this they will be given a priority number according to the importance of an individual skill in one’s personality.
Next part is analyzing the Personal development planning which will directly be linked with the personal traits we have discussed above as on the basis of our responses given against each of the question under each section we can figure out our strong and weak points and know what we are really good at and what not which will help us to bring our best qualities out and strengthen them also there might be some attributes of our personality which may be hidden and might come out after this analysis and can be used later on for some good.
Under personal development planning our first question is-
Am I able to identify my personal goals?
As we know without a goal a person is nothing but a rolling stone which goes in any direction he is kicked but that only because he cannot think about this we human beings have this ability to set and figure out personal goals for ourselves and make efforts to achieve them. Every individual might have a different goal some of us want to be big business men and some want to be social workers for me it is a combination of both I want to be an entrepreneur who can bring technology to masses and give them its advantage.
Am I being able to judge my strengths and area of development?
The idea behind the personal skills assessment was bringing out strong and weak points of an individual’s personality and find the scope of improvement in the weak points if any . so its very important to know your strengths and use them in a constructive manner.
Am I being able to spot opportunities of learning and growth of my career?
This is one very important point for every ambitious individual who is looking to grow the field of his expertise. Spotting out opportunities which can give you chance to enhance your learning and scope to grow your career is of utmost importance in any working environment and should always be kept in mind.
Now these questions are needed to be asked in a regular interval of time from ourselves and take the feedback of how much we are following the plan we had set for ourselves. This feedback will always help us to asses us in the light of the goals set before us and give us the exact idea of any further improvements if needed.
The objective one puts in front of himself is the ultimate goal he is looking for but things like this do not come very easily and soon. There is a lot of effort and regular monitoring is involved. I review my objectives and steps I suggested to be taken to achieve the same in every month and analyze the extent I am close to it and what were the right steps I took in this direction and what were wrong. for example if I have decided to read a particular book at the starting of a month and I have spend most of the time in other activities rather than reading that book then at the end of the month when I will review the whole situation it will come out itself that my focus and will power is not that strong and I need to work on that which will help me to achieve my objective ultimately which is reading the book in this case and as this is just an example the concept can be understood in a broader prospective which is career and life.
Each individual has its own way of learning and analyzing the information in different way. While most of the people deliver the information is one convenient way still here we will analyze different important and famous learning styles which are used today.
There are many ways to classify the learning styles and most of such classifications are based on individual’s perception. On the basis of the perception of one such individual we have categorized the learning styles in four categories listed below-
Converging- It is based on understanding the abstract concepts and implementing them practically
Diverging – It is based on coming up with new ideas and seeing things from a different prospect
Assimilating- It is based on building theoretical models by inductive reasoning
Accommodating- It is based on actively participating in the important ideas going around
My learning style among these four categories is Converging as I believe in understanding the concept first and then visualize it in a real time scenario with the help of technical and personal skills I am having.
The concept of lifelong learning is not new usually people expect learning to be a source and medium too to build a bright career and earn a pile of money which is not at all wrong but that should not be the ultimate objective as we say it’s not all about luxury but for the life as well.
Four very important factors this whole idea strongly lies on are
Learning to know
Learning to do
Learning to live together
Learning to be
It also proves the point that learning is an integral part of life not only to earn money but also to live a happy and transient life.
My suggestion to encourage the lifelong learning is the same frame of mind which promotes education and learning beyond the money and luxury column and it should always kept in mind that learning doesn’t have any age or status bar and it is supposed to move with you throughout your life being a very integral part of your life.
The major time management strategies I have adopted to achieve my objectives are following with their importance in one’s daily schedule.
Don’t waste time – Seems quite obvious but very important point. I used to waste a lot of time watching videos, checking email often and using social networking websites which consumed most of my time without giving me any valuable knowledge so I decided to quit that.
Make a Calendar- Running things that you have to do in your head is not an ideal way to keep track of things it will be better to have a calendar and mark important date in it because if you are free it might be easy to keep such things in mind but once you have a lot of work it is hell of a job and in a fast era like today you are not allowed to make many mistakes so keep yourself updated.
Work from anywhere and everywhere- Use online tools like Gmail, Google documents and others so that you can work from anywhere from your computer as internet is available everywhere today it will help you to stay ahead of the curve.
Break your work into chunks- Do work in small pieces as it might be possible that you have a little time but a lot of work so you might not start as you can’t finish it in that much of time so break your work in small pieces.
