10 September 2021
Identity, Values and Strengths
The challenge for creating this blog post was to reflect on who we are as individuals. Specifically reflecting on our identity, values and strengths. My own reflections on these topics have been thought provoking, however it was a struggle to put it into words for this post. Nevertheless, you can read my attempt below.
Identity and Values
I believe that the culture in which someone is raised in has great influence on how they define their identity and ultimately what they define as being their core values. Although I was raised in an Indian household, I was born and raised in a western society. Being exposed to both cultural backgrounds have moulded me into the individual I am today.
Having taken time to explore what my values are, the ones I find most important include, respect, kindness/compassion, hardwork, effort/commitment, honesty/trustworthiness, and growth.
All these values have been instilled in me by my parents. I grew up in a very peaceful household that was filled with love and placed great importance on family. Growing up I was always taught to show others respect, kindness, and compassion. Often people are struggling with things that they don’t openly share and showing kindness towards them can make all the difference. Even something as small as a simple smile or asking them how they are and letting them know that if they ever want to talk, you are willing and able to provide them a judgment free space to do so.
I also greatly attribute my work ethic to my parents. They owned and operated their own business for 16 years, working 7 days a week. They have worked so hard and without complaint in order to give my sister and I the best opportunities in life. It is because of their example, I always give my best effort and am committed to improving myself in whatever I do.
You only get out of it what you put into it. If you are a sheep in this world, you're not going to get much out of it.
-- Greg Norman
Honesty and trustworthiness are also high on my core values list. I really admire when people are honest. I find it is much more freeing and somehow less hurtful when people are honest rather than lying to make someone else feel better in that moment. I also really admire trustworthiness in people and like to think that everyone in my life can trust me too.
Finally, I consider growth and openness as a strongly held value. Life itself is proof that every opportunity allows for learning and growth. The only way we have the chance to learn and grow as individuals is by being open: to new people, new places, and new ideas.
Strengths and Areas for Developemt
Trying to judge my strengths and areas of development objectively is something I have never been good at. Especially focusing on my strengths, I tend to focus more on what I can’t do rather than what I can. To help me in this endeavour I took a Myers-Briggs Test on the 16 Personalities website and found my MBTI to be INFJ-T (The Advocate). This is what I found to be an accurate representation of my strengths and limitations:
Strengths
Insightful – I like to understand people’s true motivations, feelings, and needs. When people tell me their problems, I think I am pretty good at being able to look at the problem from a both their perspective but also from a different perspective.
Compassionate/Empathetic – I can empathize with all sorts of problems, even if I haven’t faced those same challenges myself. When someone trusts me enough to open up, I make sure they know that I am always there if they ever need to talk. I try to reach out to check in on them.
Hardworking – I always try to give my best effort when working. I don’t want to let others down by not doing my share of the work. I am less concerned with getting praise for doing a good job but making sure that whatever I do makes it easier for the entire team I work with.
Areas for Development
Sensitive to criticism – I struggle with self-belief and often when criticized I take it personally, and it makes me doubt myself even more. I need to work on getting better at not taking criticism as an attack on me as a person but take what was said and try to use it in a constructive manner.
Prone to burnout – I always try of give my best effort at all things I do, but often spend so much time trying to make sure everything gets done to a high standard and to completion. I find it hard to just walk away from something without completing it first and will often shorten my breaks or not take any at all. I find when I do take breaks, I end up worrying/stressing about all the things I still need to do. This causes me to become exhausted, and neglect my own wellbeing.
Reluctance to open up – Even though I am always willing to listen to the struggles of others, I find it difficult to open up and be vulnerable about my own struggles. This because I feel as though I need to solve my problems on my own and don’t want to burden other people with my issues. This reluctance to be open and honest about my feelings often results in me creating distance from those closest to me.
Previous Challenges
I’m sure no one reading this is a stranger to experiencing tension when trying to work productively with others. One such example I have is from a previous job. I was tasked with training a colleague in the troubleshooting process. From my perspective, I found that my colleague was not putting in any effort to learn and stick to the defined standard operating procedures for dealing with specific issues. I found that my teaching strategy was and so I spoke with my team leader about the challenges I was facing and if they had suggestions on how I should resolve the issue. Looking back on the situation, the strategies I would try now to help facilitate and encourage my colleague in the training process would be to get to know what their learning style is. This would have helped them pick up what I was trying to teach faster and they may have put more effort into learning the procedures.
As I mentioned above one of the things, I value the most is honesty, but I also don’t like conflict. One ethical decision I had to make was to be honest with my previous employers about struggling with my work hours. This was a hard decision for me as I am generally the type of person who will always say that I’m fine and not want to make things more difficult for others. Working in a lab that is open 24/7, means lots of shift work involved. The shifts I was working were taking a toll, but I was reluctant to bring up the issue as I knew it meant that if I got taken off them, then someone else would be put on them. However, in my performance appraisal I knew I had to be honest with my managers about how I was feeling about my working situation. Unfortunately, a request for a change in my hours was unable to be accommodated. This then led me to make the decision to leave my job in favour for a career that not only challenged me and had more flexible hours. Although this meant that I had to make things harder for my colleagues and employers, it was ultimately a choice that was best for me.