MEASURING SUCCESS AND MANAGING ONESELF

Jomara K. Duran Rivero

09/27/2020

This course has been helping me a lot. Every class and reading for homework address
me to know a little bit more about myself and how to improve it to be a good leader. The
article "How Will You Measure Your Life." show me different ways to be a successful
person, while the article "Managing oneself" teach me how to find myself, which are my
strengths, my weaknesses, my values, and where I belong. Relating these two articles, I
am a new person, I have new knowledge, and now I know more than I knew about
myself before starting this course. For example, I learned that success is the measure
of our lives, and before being a successful person for the world, you need to be a
successful person for yourself. In the following essay, I will describe my goals and
weaknesses and how I will use this to be successful and accomplish all my goals,
purposes, and dreams.

One of the things that personal life is based on is work. To say that you are successful
in your work life, you have to be sure that you are happy with your career, that you wake
up every morning ready to accomplish a little bit of your purpose or that you're at least
heading to that. For instance, I am engaged with my career because I know that I will do
the things that I like, and my motivations are not financial rewards. My motivation is to
fulfill my dreams. The first one is to work in a big oil field, exploring new wells and help
to produce energy without damaging too much our environment. The second one is
helping to improve my country's economics, I know that my country has gas potential,
but it has not been developed yet, I want to be one of the engineers working for that.
Finally, one of my goals that are not closely related to my career but I know that it will
help me to accomplish it, is helping others, I want to open a help center for low-income
children and educate them, for achieving this initially I will need a capital of money and I
am hopeful that I will get it working.

The second thing personal life is based on is family. A family is a group of people that
always is there to support and understand you. In my opinion, the family not necessarily
has to share a blood bond, but rather family must be attached for feelings. Usually, the
family is always with you, no matter wants to do, but it is too important to be reciprocal. I
mean… you need to give them your time, your energy, and even your money to make it
a fair deal. I try to be fair with this sharing all these resources with my family, friends,
and boyfriend. However, we cannot always do the things as we planned, now I am
allocating all my resources in other things that are not my relationships. Most of my time
is used to study, most of my money is used to buy food, and finally, most of my energy
is invested in the university. I know that now I am not giving the time that my
relationships deserve, but I am sure that is only for this phase of my life. Currently, I am
focused on address my life to my life goals and I know that university, which uses up 2/3
parts of my resources, will help me to accomplish these. However, it does not mean that
I am not giving part of my resources to my relationships. Although I am not giving them
most of the part, I try to give them what I can. I will finish university soon and after this, I
will be able to give more of my resources to my relationships.

The article "How will you measure your life." also talks about how to stay out of jail.
Although it sounds weird it is important too if you want to have a successful life. One of
the most important concepts here is the marginal cost mistake. I am sure that
everybody had faced that dilemma. Of course, I include myself, one thing that always
happens to me is that my friends ask me to hang out when I have homework or task to
do for the university. I always face this dilemma analyzing the situation, comparing the
pros and cons. My goal now is to finish the university with good grades, and I know that
a party o hanging out with my friends with not help me with that. Now I prioritize my
studies, and I am fine with that, friends and parties will be always there. I learned to
differentiate when is the moment and when not, and if I must put aside my values and
goal lifes to do a thing, probably I would be doing the wrong thing. In my point of view,
avoiding the marginal cost mistake will help you in every single part of my life, and it
includes my career for sure. I will try to do my best in every project that I will be
developing, that will make me a persistent person, I will always follow my values and do
my work with integrity, and I think that will help me to stay out of jail.
Until know I describe my dreams and purpose and what I will do to be successful but
now I have to know myself, know which are the personal characteristics that will help
me to accomplish my life goals. One of the important things to consider are strengths. It
supposed that the strengths are easier to recognize, but it was difficult for me. The first
strength that I have is ingenious. I always try to look for new and effective ways to do a
task, I like looking for ideas that never thought before and analyze if it could work or not,
most of the time people don't try to do the things differently because they are afraid to
fail, but that's not me. My second strength is perseverance, this is one that
characterizes me the most. I always like to accomplish goals, that is too satisfying. I use
this strength in all my personal goals and when somebody gives me a task too, this
strength has helped me a lot in my personal growth and doing teamwork, when I set a
goal I will not rest until I reach it. My third strength is problem-solving, when you are
working in something there are always stumbles and we need to endure these. I am the
kind of person that does not like to regret about what I did wrong or blame others. When
I have a problem, I like to look for a solution, analyze what things I have and what I
need to solve it. It helps me a lot to not waste time and do tasks efficiently.
Another important characteristic that is important to know about ourselves are our
weaknesses. I agree with Drucker’s perspective on weaknesses. I think that it is true
that we only need to focus and base our performance on things that we can do. I have
some weaknesses which I must work on. However, identifying those weaknesses
helped me to learn a little bit about myself and perform a better job too. One of my
weaknesses is insecurity, sometimes I am not sure if my tasks are being developed
correctly, I usually doubt my ability to achieve something, and that is a barrier when I
want to share my ideas. Another weakness that I have is impatience, I am used to doing
things fast, and it is not always the best, sometimes things new to be analyzed to make
the right decision. And finally, I think that I am a little bit impulsive, sometimes I do not
know how to manage my feeling and emotions, and I can become an unpleasant person
to work in a team. However, I have been working to improve this part of my personality.
First, to address insecurity I have been practicing self-approval, I think that will help me
to accept myself and develop self-confidence. Second, to addressing impatience and
impulsiveness, I will find an activity that focuses on meditation or something like that
because I need to learn how to manage my feelings and learn to be empathic with
others too. I know that people are not like me, and they work differently, but I need to
keep in mind that when doing teamwork.

In conclusion, the latest weeks were too helpful for me. I learn a lot about myself. Now I
have my goals, purposes, and dreams more clearly stated. I know when I will realize
that I am being successful not only in work but also in relationships. Besides that, I
know the resources that I have to accomplish all my life goals, I will base my
performance on my strengths and work to improve my weaknesses too. I know that
after understanding and managing myself precisely, I will understand how other people
are, how to identify their weaknesses and strengths, and how to work together. That will
be extremely useful to lead in teamwork, perform tasks more easily, effectively, and
quickly.