Week 2 - Finding Our Purpose and Strengths
To start off with week 2, we had a discussion on what each one of us wants from life and work. Some of the points that came up were:
- fulfillment
- satisfaction (my personal favorite)
- fun
- balance
- value to society
- freedom
We were then introduced to the concept of Ikigai. Ikigai roughly translates to 'a reason for being'; a simpler way to think of it is 'why we wake up every day'. Using this principle, we performed a simple exercise to understand how our interests and talents can be put together to come closer to finding a calling that resonates with both.
| What I Love Most | What I am Good at | What Can I Get Paid For | What the World Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Problem Solving | Problem Solving | Software Engineering | Software Devs |
| Helping Others | Mentoring | Teaching/Coaching | Teaching/Coaching |
| Seeing the Bigger Picture | Analysis of information | Consulting | Consulting |
A quick analysis brought up a lot I knew about, and some more I previously haven't thought about. It was good to see that there is a strong correlation between what I like and what I'm good at, and also between careers the provide value (money) to me, as well as to the world.
My current interests lie in Software Engineering, but teaching was something I didn't consider. I would like to do some social work at some point, so maybe teaching on a voluntary basis would suit me. I had also disregarded management and/or consulting, feeling that it was attractive because it was flashy. But coming to think of it, I may have good scope in those fields at a later stage.
To wrap up the discussion on purpose, Viji ma'am suggested Victor Frankel's "Man's search for Meaning", so that's where I'm using my next Audible credit xD.
Moving on to strengths, we watched a video by Marcus Buckingham of the Gallup Organization and discussed its content. The idea was simple, and yet so counterintuitive to the way we work and live.
In our current system, we identify our strengths and weaknesses and then work on weaknesses. The idea is to make sure every student or person is a well rounded individual.
However, the video, and our further discussions suggested otherwise. That is, we should rather spend most of our time working on our strengths. As we grow, our personality grows around these strengths. So, instead of ignoring them to work in weaknesses, we should hone them to perform our best.
Obviously, the suggestion isn't to work on weaknesses at all. But rather, to acknowledge one's weakness, and once a baseline skill is reached, to focus on strengths. Although it is very much possible to negate one's weakness, it takes a significant amount of time and effort, and one is better served to work on their strengths instead.
Based on this, we took a self-awareness quiz, to better understand our strengths. My strengths came out to be emotional care and analytical thinking. This much, was pretty obvious to me. On the other hand, I found out only personal care (physical and emotional) were the only aspects I lacked severely to the point of requiring focus. Other "weaknesses" I thought I had, such as creativity and enjoying beauty, were average enough for me to not necessarily worry about them. This too, gave me a better idea on where I should focus my self improvement on.
To wrap up, we discussed some simple tips to start working on different aspects of our personality we wanted to work on, and we discussed the power of habits and starting small in aiding this process.
Comments
Post a Comment