The purpose of self discovery is to discover the truth about who you are and what you want to do with your life. This is easier said than done! The first step I took towards self discovery was when I
completed the Myers Brigg. It helped me to discover many traits about myself such as strong-willed and forceful in presenting my ideas. The Meyers Brigg is a self scorable test that helps show you how you like to look at things and how you like to go about deciding. Discovering who you are as a person can be fun, yet surprising.
On paper I’m a totally different person than I thought I was. By completing and analyzing the Myers Brigg, I’ve discovered a lot of things about myself that I never knew before. Self discovery has helped me to grasp who I am as a person and to become more aware of my career choices. Now I am considering other options and different career choices. The Myers Brigg also helped me to see what type of study habits I’ve incurred over the years and what type of characteristics I need to acquire for my career choices. My characteristics have been mostly good, but not perfect. I am a good reader, but my mind tends to wonder off.
Now that I have a better sense of me, I can carefully decide what path I want to follow. The traits that I have discovered are not set in stone! I can add a few characteristics and tame a few others to make me out to be the best person that I can be. I plan on attending school, work, and my home with a better knowledge of my own preferences, while keeping others’ in mind. I will also strive to be better in all aspects of perfection. It is not an option for me to limit my characteristics to that of an “ENTJ” from the Myers Brigg assignment.
Reading
Reading is something that everyone has to do at least one time in their life. Having reading skills can take you a long way in the work place. This chapter discusses various reading techniques needed to be successful. I enjoyed exercise 14 which explained how to relax and take a timed break before going back to reading. Muscle reading is also a technique that was discussed in this chapter and that can help the average person minimize the amount of times their mind may drift off into space. This technique is also a way to “decrease effort and struggle by increasing energy and skill.” (Ellis, page 125)
Learning and mastering the three phases of muscle reading is what I concentrated most on during this chapter. It has helped me to comprehend what I’m reading better. This is very helpful to me because I will be in college for the next three years and being in school requires an extensive amount of reading. My career field, which is criminal justice, also requires a lot of reading, paper work, and good communication skills. Since reading is in fact required for every college course and my career choice, exercise 14 has taught me how to relax more while reading. It has also taught me that it is okay to take a break as long as you’re disciplined enough to come back to it.
Before I graduate from Westwood College, I hope to have mastered the muscle reading technique. I have always loved reading for pleasure, but when I have to read for an assignment or work, I instantly freeze up. I don’t want to waste any more valuable time rereading a paragraph because of lack of understanding and comprehension. Now, when I open a book, I will be more confident and sure of myself. Reading isn’t so bad after all, and this chapter helped me to see that.
Planning
Planning is a key necessity to have in order to be successful in the real world. This chapter explains the advantages of time management and planning. My favorite exercise in this chapter was exercises 5 which consisted of monitoring my days for two weeks and record everything that I do in 15min. intervals. By doing this, I’ve learned that I waste much of my time during the week and get most things done over the weekend. Now that I know that I have bad time management skills, I can work on planning my day according to things I may have to do.
There is always a time when someone will say that they don’t have enough time to do something. In reality they’re just not taking the time to plan their day out. I am a true victim of this scenario! Planning has helped me tremendously by teaching me how to avoid the activities that I don’t have to do. Now I can make a list of things to do in order of priority and caring them out successfully.
Applying planning and time management to everyday life can be helpful in school, work, and personal activities. I now realize that if I take a few minutes out of my day and plan my week in advance, I can accomplish a lot of things. One major thing is homework and my key graded assignments for all of my classes. There is no time to play around and my grades are important to me. “Planning involves determining what you want to achieve and how you intend to go about it.”(Ellis, page 61)