Participating in the Petullo Insight program has helped me greatly in discovering new aspects of myself. We had meaningful discussion in groups focusing on self-awareness and personal values. In the end, discussed how to effectively manage ourselves to develop leadership skills and achieve greater success in different aspects of life.

 

To be more aware of my personal traits and tendencies, I completed a survey called the Clifton StrengthsFinder. My top five signature themes are harmony, developer, futuristic, includer and responsibility. I can see myself in these five traits, especially in harmony, developer and includer. Harmony means the tendency to look for similarities and agreements, and avoiding conflicts. Reflecting in my life, I tend to avoid conflicts with friends, and I am very good at finding people’s strength and complimenting their strengths. In work and study, I like to put emphasis on common goals among a group as well, and encourage others to put efforts together towards the same goals. Developers are people who see the potential in others and encourage them to strive for success. I can see my developer theme when I mentor other students in their Mathematics classes. I always encourage my students, no matter if they are succeeding or struggling. I see room for improvement for the students I mentor. If the student is doing well, I encourage them to challenge themselves more; if the student is facing some hardship in the course, I encourage them that they will be able to make progress if they don’t give up and keep trying. Includers are people who are considerate of other people and strive to make everyone feel like belonging to part of a group. I think I am an includer because I have experienced being left alone when I was a kid, and so when I grew up and became more popular with more friends, I try to include more people who seem to be left out, and be friends with them.

 

After discussing with other group participants about our own personality traits and tendencies, I am much more aware of who I am and what I want. I have also identified values that are the most important to me, which are family, courage, belonging and happiness. These values give me direction for my personal development and also serve as my “bottom lines”. In another words, they are the things that I will keep searching for if I don’t have them and are the things that I won’t sacrifice no matter what.

 

One important thing that I  learned  in group discussion is to keep doing self-assessment over time. This is because, people can change over time, and it is important to be aware of these changes. Based on these self-assessments, we can adjust our self-development plans accordingly, and make sure they align with our personal values. Moreover, we can also better identify our strengths and weakness overtime, and adjust our plans from time to time to improve our weaknesses and develop our strengths effectively. Another important method that we came up with as a group is to make detailed timetable for each week and list the goals that we want to work on for that week. In this way, the short-term goals can keep us motivated every week, and thus keep working towards our goals over time.