A641.8.3.RB - Personal Balance Sheet

A641.8.3.RB - Personal Balance Sheet

Create a reflection blog that discusses your personal balance sheet that summarizes your assets and liabilities. Use the outputs from the exercises that you have completed in the course workbook and your reflections of those assessments as your guide.

In the blog, discuss your assets:

My distinctive strengths (Things I know I do well and strengths that others see in me).

-          Stay calm in a true emergency

-          Will do anything for people I care about

-          Strong work ethic

-          Can make people feel more at ease in awkward situations

-          Compassionate and empathetic

-          Have learned which battles to fight

-          Focus on the important things, not the urgent things

My potential Strengths (things I could do better or more often if I focused, or things I do well in some situations and could begin to apply more broadly).

-          Better self-awareness

-          Be more strategic

-          Be more patient with everyone, not just people I like

-          Could be a stronger leader

-          Could have a better attitude at work

-          Not take things personally

-          Say “yes” more

My Enduring Dispositions that support me (traits, habits, behaviors that I do not want to change and that help me to be successful).

-          My love of literature and writing

-          That my default expression for people is a smile

-          I listen thoughtfully and take notes all the time

-          I never assume I won’t learn something new

-          Ability to adapt and get along with pretty much anyone (build networks)

It is really hard for me to think about my strengths and in the spirit of full disclosure, my husband helped me with some of these things. This weird self-loathing I have stems from something that happened a long time ago and has done some deep seeded damage to my peace of mind and my self-image. While I’ve forgiven, I haven’t tended to my needs, the residual internal scars and that makes it difficult sometimes to see that I have any strengths at all. However…looking at these strengths typed out, taking an inventory of sorts, helps me see that I am worthy. I just need some help and better coping mechanisms. This class has really helped me see this and how critical it is to being my ideal self. Effective change involves mindful awareness of who you currently are. (Boyatzis, et al., 2008)

All of that being said, if I look at my strengths from a distance, I can see that the events that caused me to feel bad about myself also gave me that ability to empathize with people, to be compassionate. I know what it’s like to feel bad and I don’t want to do that to other people. I’ve experienced pain and great loss so I understand other people’s pain. I’m also not judgmental – I can be snarky – but I would never judge other people because of how they live their lives…with obvious exceptions: murderers, child abusers, rapists, etc. Even so, everyone has a story, everyone has something they carry deep in their heart that no one knows about and yet shapes everything they do and say in one way or another. While these factors don’t always determine how you think and act, they do interact to form the palette of color from which you make choices in life, engaging in relationships, and lead people. (Boyatzis, et al., 2008) I really like that concept. It gives me hope because colors evolve and change into deeper and more dynamic colors when you learn to mix them and use them effectively.

Discuss your liabilities:

-          My temper

-          Get too invested in something – too zoomed in

-          So much self-doubt

My weaknesses (things I know I don’t do well and I want to do better).

-          Linear thinking

-          Defend myself well

-          Negotiate

Weaknesses I want to Change (things I know I don’t do well and want to change).

-          All of them

My enduring dispositions that sometimes get in my way (traits, habits, behaviors that I do not want to change and that sometimes cause me to be less effective).

-          Even though I’m fairly social, I tend to be reluctant to do some new things – I like my solitary time.

-          Sometimes my kindness and compassion is mistaken for weakness – but I don’t want to be anything less than kind and compassionate. People need that.

-          Because I pick my battles and don’t need to answer every question I’m underestimated – but I’m not going to panic over every little thing and I don’t need to be the know-it-all. Been there, done that. Life is too short to spend so much time trying to make everyone happy.

My temper is something I’ve had to control for as long as I can remember. When I threw a fit about something as a kid, my Mom would take a picture of me crying. She would say, “Oh JoJo…I’m going to take a picture of you so we can show Grandma and Grandpa how mad you are about this sandwich having butter on it!” (…or some such silly little kid drama.) She would be laughing but not in a mean way, she was trying to help me calm down and there are a few pictures of me laughing through my tears because it worked. Her ability to see my tantrum as an opportunity to make us both laugh is a testament to how strong my Mom has always been. It couldn’t have been easy! But I tend to still get worked up about things and I need to really work on keeping my cool. For example, this last week I was in a meeting to prepare for another meeting (as usual) and we had 30 minutes for everyone to give their status on what we would be reporting on later. Two of the people took up all of the time because they started problem solving their issues. When it finally got to be my turn…45 minutes into a 30 minute meeting, I had a snarky tone and basically said negative things to the point that even while I was saying it I was thinking, “Ugh…just stop Jody! You are being ridiculous!” I was just so torked that our time was not being valued. I was torked that the facilitator didn’t know how to keep people on track and had allowed the meeting to go into scope creep overload. There was no call for my behavior. I got very zoomed in to those things and could have handled that a lot better.

I wish I knew how to negotiate better. I think that skill will develop as a result of me getting help for my self-doubt issues though. I used to work as a manager of a little flower shop on post in Germany. The owner used to tell us to make sure we were charging for our time because “we’re not gutter girls!” That used to crack me up but you know, I say it to my co-workers now. When they talk to me about things going on I like to remind them of their value…their time is just as valuable as anyone else’s! Why can I encourage other people but seem incapable of taking this advice to heart? According to Dan Rockwell, there is good doubt that can inspire critical thinking and there is bad doubt that paralyzes us. There is no progress with (bad) doubt. (Rockwell, 2014) Questioning our value could actually become a good doubt because it forces us to investigate where that feeling comes from. We may even discover new things about ourselves. It’s when that questioning leads to inaction or demanding guarantees it can be debilitating and bad. (Rockwell, 2014)

My enduring dispositions are mostly what employers consider “soft skills” but I wouldn’t change them for the world. Profound personal change and leadership development are almost always linked to looking at one’s current life holistically. (Boyatzis, et al., 2008) Anyone can learn to build a chart or think systemically about a process with enough coaching and training. But the things that some people scoff at are the things that, when it comes time for me to really stretch my leadership wings, will help me be a more effective leader. I’m able to bring people together and motivate them toward a common purpose, people know that I genuinely care about them, and those things are more important, in my opinion, than the technical stuff. I never assume that I won’t learn something new, no matter who I’m talking to. I always carry my old faithful clipboard and pen everywhere I go at work. It’s important to me to advocate for the teams I support and building that relationship is very important to me. Even if I end up spending 45 minutes looking at baby pictures, that time is valuable in the big picture. If you develop the mindset that weaknesses aren’t really weaknesses, you’ve just broken through your limitations and fears. (Babauta, 2008)

References:

Babauta, L. (2008, September 25) Attack Your Limitations: Turn Your Weaknesses Into Strengths. Zen Habits.com. https://zenhabits.net/attack-your-limitations-turn-your-weaknesses-into-strengths/

Boyatzis, R., Johnston, F. & McKee, A. (2008). Becoming a Resonant Leader. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Press.

Rockwell, D. (2014, April 26). Seven Certain Steps for Dealing with Doubt. Leadership Freak. https://leadershipfreak.blog/2014/04/26/seven-certain-steps-for-dealing-with-doubt/