Learner Guide: US ID: 119342 NQF Level 5

Apply client service techniques to improve service delivery
US ID: 119342
NQF LEVEL 5
LEARNER GUIDE
US ID: 119342 Learner Guide
Field 03 - Business, Commerce and Management Studies

NQF Level 5
2nd Edition Nov 2012
DISTRIBUTOR
This courseware is owned and distributed by BBT Institute t/a NSA Business and Training
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COPYRIGHT
Developed by BBT Institute
Copyright ©BBT Institute 2011. All rights reserved
No part of this Publication may reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted, in
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without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
Although every attempt has been made to ensure that the management guidelines are
safe and correct, the developer, publishers, and sponsors of the manual cannot accept
any responsibility for errors arising from the use of this manual for any purpose.
BBT-US-5-119342
LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
Every effort has been made to ensure complete and accurate information concerning the
material presented in this course. Neither BBT Institute nor its agents can be held legally
responsible for any mistakes in printing or for faulty instructions contained within this
course. The publisher appreciates receiving notice of any errors or misprints.
Information in this manual is subject to change without notice. Companies, names and
data used in examples herein are fictitious unless otherwise noted
Ethical Principles 2
Table of Content
ACKNOWLEDGMENT....................................................................................................................7
Preface:.........................................................................................................................................8
1.Introduction..............................................................................................................................9
2.2 Learner Support.................................................................................................................9
3. Assessment................................................................................................................................9
3.1 Formative Assessment.......................................................................................................9
3.2 Summative Assessment...................................................................................................10
4. Navigating the Learner Guide.................................................................................................10
4.1 Use of Icons......................................................................................................................10
Group Activity / Pair Activity:..........................................................................10
Individual Activity:..........................................................................................11
4. Learner Administration...........................................................................................................12
4.1 Attendance Register.........................................................................................................12
4.2 Learner Registration Form...............................................................................................12
4.3 Programme Evaluation Form...........................................................................................13
ETHICAL PRINCIPLES, STANDARDS AND CODE OF CONDUCT......................................................14
Introduction....................................................................................................................................14
SO1 Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of self as a unique individual.........................15
AC1; Own beliefs, interests, abilities, likes, dislikes and personal values......................................15
Self Spiral.....................................................................................................................................15
Knowing Yourself........................................................................................................................16
Self-Symbol.................................................................................................................................16
Self-Aware...................................................................................................................................17
Introspection...........................................................................................................................17
Bias..........................................................................................................................................18
Worry.......................................................................................................................................18
Conflicting Images...................................................................................................................18
Self-Control..............................................................................................................................19
Detaching our Ego...................................................................................................................19
Self as our Prototype for Others.................................................................................................19

Intimacy.......................................................................................................................................20
The Extent of Compassion..........................................................................................................20
First-Person Viewpoint................................................................................................................21
Self-Appraisals.............................................................................................................................21
Transcending Your Self................................................................................................................22
Definitions...................................................................................................................................23
Myths and Misconceptions:........................................................................................................23
Assumptions................................................................................................................................23
Firm Beliefs..................................................................................................................................23
Flipping Positions........................................................................................................................25
Beliefs Vary..................................................................................................................................25
Professed Beliefs and Actual Beliefs...........................................................................................26
My Values....................................................................................................................................26
Goal Desired Outcomes..............................................................................................................26
Definitions...................................................................................................................................26
Related Terms.............................................................................................................................26
Benefits.......................................................................................................................................26
The Roles of Goals, the Goals of Roles........................................................................................26
Appraisals....................................................................................................................................27
Impulse........................................................................................................................................27
Conflicting Goals.........................................................................................................................27
Goals Hierarchy...........................................................................................................................27
Definitions:..................................................................................................................................28
Humans are Living Organisms:....................................................................................................28
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation:..............................................................................................29
Competency:...............................................................................................................................30
Relatedness:................................................................................................................................30
Hobbies Have it All:.....................................................................................................................31
AC2; Own strengths and weaknesses.............................................................................................31
Your strengths.........................................................................................................................32
Weaknesses.............................................................................................................................32
AC3; An indication is given of what in the learner's opinion make him/her unique.....................32
Knowing Yourself........................................................................................................................32
Self-Symbol.................................................................................................................................32
Self-Aware...................................................................................................................................33
Personality Theories....................................................................................................................33
AC4; Life experiences that have influenced the individual's self esteem......................................36
Definitions...................................................................................................................................36
Related Terms:............................................................................................................................36
Antidotes.....................................................................................................................................37
Benefits and Dangers of Pride....................................................................................................37
The Paradox of Pride...................................................................................................................37
Display Rules...............................................................................................................................37
2; Demonstrate understanding of self in relation to different environments..............................38
AC1; Relationships between the individual and selected..............................................................38
How self-efficacy affects human function..................................................................................40
AC2; Reasons why an individual operates in selected environments............................................41
AC3; The beliefs, values and attitudes that distinguish a specific environment............................42
3; Use a variety of strategies to deal with life situations.............................................................43
AC1; Strategies to deal with personal issues and challenges.........................................................43
Critical Thinking in Everyday Life: 9 Strategies...............................................................................44
AC2; Strategies for dealing with personal crises............................................................................50
4; Make an informed life decision based on self-knowledge.......................................................51
AC1; Goals appropriate to the learner's life situation....................................................................51
AC1; Decision-making strategies are used to make a life decision................................................53
Definitions...................................................................................................................................53
Rules are not to be broken.........................................................................................................53
Setting the Trap...........................................................................................................................53
A better set of rules....................................................................................................................53
AC3; A plan of action is developed to enable the learner to achieve personal goals....................54
Definitions...................................................................................................................................54
Related Terms.............................................................................................................................54
Benefits.......................................................................................................................................54
The Roles of Goals, the Goals of Roles........................................................................................54
Appraisals....................................................................................................................................55
Impulse........................................................................................................................................55
Conflicting Goals.........................................................................................................................55
Goals Hierarchy...........................................................................................................................55
Self Assessment..............................................................................................................................56
Learner Evaluation Form....................................................................................................................57
ACKNOWLEDGMENTError: Reference source not foundError: Reference source

not foundError: Reference source not found7
This learning material has been entirely developed and organized by Bull’s Business and
Skills training institute (BBT Institute) under supervision of NSA Consulting.
Many people have contributed in various ways to help develop and produce the original
version and the later edition of this manual. We wish to thank all those who have
contributed in one way or another.
We are heartily thankful to BBT and NSA agency employees, family and friends, whose
encouragement, guidance and support from the initial to the final level enabled us to
compile and have an understanding of this manual.
Lastly, we offer our regards and blessings to all of those who supported us in any respect
during the compilation of this Manual, especially HWSETA, for the practical support and
resources required to put up this manual.
Other sources
 National Department of Education

 South African Qualification Authority (SAQA)
 LG SETA
 Department of labour
 The DTI
 NSA (Nsamba) consulting and training
 Wikipedia
 South African Police Service (SAPS)
 Department of Justice
 Department of Labour
 The constitutional Court
Preface:Error: Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found8
This guide should be used to prepare the learner to be able to participate in the
Management
The purpose of the qualification is to build the knowledge and skills required by employees
in junior management who have had schooling below NQF level 5. It is intended to
empower learners to acquire knowledge, skills, attitudes and values required to operate
confidently as junior managers in the South African community and to respond to the
challenges of the economic environment and changing world of work.
The mode of facilitation in this learning programme will involve “face-to-face” interaction
through group discussion and role play.
IntroductionError: Reference source not foundError:

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found
1. Introduction
The Unit Standard could be useful as a basis for a skills programme in order to provide the
learner with an opportunity to understand themselves. It will be useful for learners who
want to develop their potential and for learners in business.
The qualifying learner is capable of:
 Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of self as a unique individual.

 Demonstrate understanding of self in relation to different environments.
 Using a variety of strategies to deal with life situations.
 Making an informed life decision based on self knowledge.
2.2Error: Reference source not found Learner Support
Please remember that as the programme is outcomes based – this implies the following:
 You are responsible for your own learning – make sure you manage your study,
practical, workplace and portfolio time responsibly.
 Learning activities are learner driven – make sure you use the Learner Guide and
Portfolio Guide in the manner intended, and are familiar with the Portfolio
requirements.
 The Facilitator is there to reasonably assist you during contact, practical and workplace
time of this programme – make sure that you have his/her contact details.
3.Error: Reference source not found Assessment
Learning Outcomes:
Please refer to the beginning of each module for the learning

outcomes that will be covered per module.
3.Error: Reference source not found1Error: Reference source not found

Formative Assessment
In this Learner Guide, several activities are spaced within the content to assist you in
understanding the material through application. Please make sure that you complete ALL
activities in the Learner Guide, whether it was done during the contact session, or not!
3.Error: Reference source not found2Error: Reference source not found

Summative Assessment
You will be required to complete a Portfolio of Evidence for summative assessment

purposes. A portfolio is a collection of different types of evidence relating to the work being
assessed. It can include a variety of work samples.
The Portfolio Guide will assist you in identifying the portfolio and evidence requirements for
final assessment purposes. You will be required to complete Portfolio activities on your
own time, using real life projects in your workplace environment in preparing evidence
towards your portfolio.
Portfolio Activity:
DO NOT WAIT until the end – the programme is designed to assist
you in evidence preparation as you go along – make use of the
opportunity!
Remember:
If it is not documented, it did not happen!
In some evidence, the process you followed is more important than

actual outcome / end-product.
Therefore …
Please make sure all steps for the Portfolio ActivitiesError:
Reference source not found are shown where required.
4.Error: Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found

Navigating the Learner Guide
4.Error: Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found1Error:

Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found Use of Icons
Throughout the learning programme icons are used to focus your attention on important
aspects of the learning programme. The following icons are used in this learning
programme to direct your attention in using at as a reference guide.
Group Activity / Pair Activity:Error: Reference source not

foundError: Reference source not found
You will be required to complete an activity in your group or in pairs

with fellow colleagues / programme participants, and provide
feedback to the participants in a report back or presentation session.
Individual Activity:Error: Reference source not found Error:

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You will be required to complete an activity on your own that relates

to the outcomes covered in the module.
Portfolio Activity:
Complete the assessment activity that will be assessed as part of

your Portfolio of Evidence for the particular module.
Self Reflection:
Reflect on the question(s) asked to identify the relevance of learning

outcomes in your own working environment.
Learner Tip:
A useful tip or essential element regarding the concept under

discussion is given as a basis to further discussion.
Resources:
Possible sources for further research and study is listed under this
icon. Resources may include additional reading, handouts, web-
sites, multimedia
Facilitators Note:
Content matter that is critical to the understanding of the module.

The learner must pay careful attention to this section.
Mentored Discussion:
Refer to your Mentor or Workplace Supervisor to assist in this

activity, as they will conduct the assessment or sign off of the activity
once completed.
Learning Outcomes:
Please refer to the beginning of each module for the learning

outcomes that will be covered per module.
Self AssessmentError: Reference source not found:
You have come to the end of this module – please take the time to
review what you have learnt to date, and conduct a self assessment
against the learning outcomes of this module
4.Error: Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found

Learner Administration
Learner Tip:
The following Learner Administration is critical in assisting your

provider in managing this programme effectively.
Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the requirements.

Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found Attendance
Register
You are required to sign the Attendance Register every day of attendance. Please make
sure you sign daily!

Reference source not found Learner Registration Form
Pease refer to the portfolio Guide for the Learner Registration Form. Make sure you
complete it using the Key Document, and submit to your Facilitator before the end of the
contact session with a copy of your ID document.
Learner Tip/Truths:
Without the Learner Registration and ID Documents we will not be

able to register you with SETA for certification purposes.

Reference source not found Programme Evaluation Form
At the end of the Learning Guide is a Learning programme Evaluation Form. Please
complete the form before the end of the contact sessions, as this will assist us in improving
our service and programme material. Your assistance is highly appreciated!
ETHICAL PRINCIPLES, STANDARDS AND CODE OF

CONDUCT
Learning Outcomes:
1. The qualifying learner is capable of:

2. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of self as a unique
individual.
3. Demonstrate understanding of self in relation to different
environments.
4. Using a variety of strategies to deal with life situations.
5. Making an informed life decision based on self knowledge.
Introduction
Self-reflection is the process of examining the impact of personal values, beliefs, styles of
communication, and experiences. This process develops a deeper understanding of one’s
culture, personal and cultural biases, experiences, and beliefs as these may influence
future action and learning. Self reflection is a process that can be used to maximize
personal satisfaction and strengthen MCH commitment.
Self-Reflection: How to Do It Right
"By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by
imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the most bitter." - Confucius
For me Self-Reflection is the way to remove inner road-blocks, to first become aware of
the things that really holding me back and then tackle them by finding a solution. Of course
writing it down into a personal journal is the best way to do it. It’s also interesting to do with
a good friend who is open enough to take part. Some forms of psycho-therapy are similar
to this approach, where you have a hopefully competent listener reflecting back to you and
guiding you to a finally self-found solution.
This is a process of bringing inner road-blocks or wishes to the light are one of the most
important things to do for personal inner growth. It’s one of the best ways to attain clarity
and by that immense power.
The alternative would be not making deeper personal issues conscious. If you do this you
simply are not aware of them, maybe even denying them and by that saying ok to being
limited. But they don’t go away. They merely get stuck into the subconscious and then are
influencing from there. Then you are polluting your inner space. Seen in this way, it is like
not cleaning your room but simply looking away from your trash lying around; only that it is
inner trash now. Having an inner cleaning mechanism is what Self-Reflection really is.
If you do this for the first time in such a depth you might feel a little bit weird, writing your
own thoughts down and guiding yourself. I experienced this myself as I thought of this as
weakness, to reflect on my problems. This is nothing more than social conditioning like "a
real man (or woman) doesn’t reflect on problems, he solves them". Of course this is totally
stupid since analyzing a complex situation is the key to effective action and once I got the
benefits of this process, I never gave it up again.
SO1 Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of

self as a unique individual.
AC1; Own beliefs, interests, abilities, likes, dislikes and personal values
Self Spiral
Everything we do and every perception we have of the world around us accumulates over time and
contributes to the ever-changing entity we refer to as our “self”. The first time we smile as an infant we
have changed the world by stimulating others to smile back at us. Seeing their smile—and eventually
perceiving the acceptance it represents—begins to change us; it is the beginning of our self-concept, self-
image, self-confidence, self-doubt, and the autonomy, competence, and relatedness that form the basis of
our motivations.
How we engage the world changes how the world responds to us. This cycle of: do, see, perceive, assess,
learn, and do again continues at a rapid pace countless times throughout our lifetimes and forms an
ongoing spiral that begins to converge on the stable and consistent pattern of goals, beliefs, wishes, intent,
habits, talents, and behavior we call our “self”.
Events that happen to you, the choices you make, and the influential people you meet throughout your life
all contribute to what you learn and believe about the world. These factors, and the meaning you assign to
them, merge and blend with your human nature and personality to create your ever evolving self.
The moment you first tried to roll over, or crawl, or walk, or talk was either successful or satisfying or it was
frustrating for you. Your parents, or anyone who may have been watching might have encouraged your
exploration or they may have been critical and discouraging. The childhood games you played, the first time
you were left alone, the first day of school, the first time you were betrayed, or lied to, punched in the
nose, or abandoned are all important events that you have perceived, interpreted, learned from, and have
contributed to revising your self-concept.
Perhaps you begin to think of the world as a friendly and accepting place where hard work is rewarded, or
you may think of it as angry and hostile. You begin to understand the consequences of actions; the
connection between an incident and a result. Your attitude toward the world begins to take shape as those
attitude influences how you behave in the world. As you grow older you may have participated in sports, or
music, or dancing. Perhaps you were talented, perhaps you were not.
Your competence in each of these activities was assessed by yourself and no-doubt by others. As a result
your self-concept expands to include such beliefs as: “I am good at sports, not very good at music and
dancing, OK in spelling, and not so good in math.” These ideas are refined as you score your first goal, win
your first game, flunk another test, win your first trophy, get badly injured, and get cut from your first team.
Believing you are good at sports may cause you to play for more teams, which of course increases your skill
in the sport. As a teen you suffer the wrath of your peers; perhaps you are popular and attractive, or alone
and plain. You go on your first date, have your first kiss, and agonize over sex. This may go smoothly, but
more likely it does not. Learning continues throughout your life as your beliefs are challenged, refined, and
revised.
Your experiences and beliefs are constantly reinforced, interpreted, evaluated, and inevitably distorted by
your self-talk—your ever-present inner dialogue. You may believe the world is a warm and wonderful place,
or it may be full of harsh and cruel obstacles. You may be quietly confident, or you may be anxious, afraid,
and ashamed.
Although events happen to you, the choices you make are your own responsibility. What education you
complete, choices you make about drinking, driving, smoking, and drugs, the friends you keep, what you
talk about, where you hang out, choosing to be the conformist or the rebel, deciding whether or not to go
to college, career choice, and marriage choices are all shaped by your self-concept as they contribute to
your self-concept.
You may make these choices confidently and autonomously, based on your own well-considered beliefs, or
you may be greatly influenced by peer pressure, parents, or the desire to please others. Critical choice
points will reveal your own self and continue to shape your life and you’re self. Some choices will
strengthen your authentic, and others will contribute to your fictional self.
Certain people will strongly influence you and contribute to your self-concept. These include parents,
siblings, peers, teachers, coaches, bullies, heroes, role models, teammates, tormentors, competitors, and
your nemesis. You admire some, loath some, and you simply tolerate or ignore others. You learn from them
all and they all contribute to who you are today. This self-spiral continues to change you as you change the
world.
As your self-spiral grows you will accumulate intrinsic regulations—rules that you have carefully evaluated
and decided are congruent with your values and beliefs. These contribute to your authentic self. But you
are also likely to accumulate introjected regulations. These are behaviors performed to avoid guilt,
humiliation, fear, or anxiety, or to attain a false pride by enhancing your image but not your stature. These
move you away from your authentic self and toward your fictional self.
Knowing Yourself
To understand yourself, begin by understanding: human nature, what you can change and what you
cannot, your own personality traits, learned behaviors, and your values, beliefs, sense of justice, needs,
goals, and motives. Integrate these to form your personal model for human interaction. Understand what
guides you throughout your life. Discover your signature strengths, and the basis of your true stature.
Examine your self-spiral, purge the interjected regulations, integrate your values, beliefs, and actions, and
work to become your authentic self.
Self-Symbol
Your mind is organized with many thousands of symbols for many objects and concepts including: cars,
chairs, the future, your hopes, goodness, your dog, your friends, and even yourself. Your mental symbol
that represents yourself is you’re “self-symbol”. Words we use as symbols for ourselves (and others) are
often chosen from our list of trait nouns, and trait adjectives. Some of these labels are accurate and some
are not accurate representations of our self.
Self-Aware
Humans have the remarkable and perhaps unique ability to think about our own thoughts. This strange
loop allows us to become aware of our self, to plan for the future, reflect and ruminate about the past,
think about our selves as separate from others, imagine the thoughts of others, project our experiences
into the minds of others, and judge our own actions. Self-awareness provides us the unique ability to
control ourselves intentionally by imagining ourselves in the future and talk to ourselves about options for
our future.
Self-awareness allows us to imagine the world from a variety of perspectives. Not only can we contemplate
what we are perceiving now, but we can reflect on the past and imagine a variety of futures. We can also
imagine what others are thinking now, or were thinking in the past, or will be thinking in the future. Self-
awareness allows us to travel through time and read minds. But our awareness is less accurate than it may
seem.
Humans were earthbound for millions of years. Their only experience of earth was the limited view each of
us could gain from our village on the earth's surface. Mountain top vantage points gave a somewhat
broader perspective, but even the most expansive view was of only a small portion of the earth.
World-wide travel eventually allowed us to experience other regions on earth. Then in December 1968 the
Apollo 8 spacecraft broke free from the earth and gave us stunning images of the whole earth, small and
alone in the vast blackness of space. For many these images transformed the way they think about our
planet. We can achieve a similar perspective when we can detach our consciousness from originating
among our thoughts and move our awareness above, or outside of our own thoughts.
Just as Apollo 8 peered down on the entire earth, we can adopt an awareness that examines our own
thinking and contemplates it as a whole. People sometimes describe this viewpoint transformation as an
awakening. This viewpoint can help us detach our egos.
Self-awareness, introspection, and self-consciousness open us up to the emotions of pride, envy, jealousy,
guilt, shame, and hope. Our ability to imagine the world from another's perspective allows us to feel
empathy, compassion, pity, envy, and jealousy. Self-awareness allows self-appraisal, which is discussed in
more detail below.
Introspection
Our conciseness and attention is often split between what we are doing, sensing, and perceiving in the
world around us, and the thoughts we may be having about the past or the future. We constantly live in
two worlds, one outside our heads and visible to others and one inside our heads known only to us.
Because we have only a limited capacity for attention, our self-talk distracts us from the outside world and
the outside world distracts us from our self-talk.
Our attention does not always strike a useful balance here. It can be dangerous to be distracted by
rumination or planning while driving. Self-consciousness can cause us to choke under pressure when we are
called on to perform, as we meet others, in conversations, presentations, sports contests, or on stage. Self-
talk can prolong insomnia as we worry about not falling asleep.
Self-awareness is often excessive. Ruminating, reliving, and repeatedly blaming yourself for a simple
mistake in the past does more harm than good when it becomes prolonged, frustrating, distracting, and
induces and prolongs shame. Worrying about events you cannot change produces unhelpful anxiety.
When you have heard enough, it may be helpful to quiet this self talk. Meditation, either undertaken as
either a spiritual or secular activity, can be effective in quieting the self and breaking the cycle of
rumination, allowing you to relax, and return your attention to the world present outside your head.
Our self-awareness disappears when we are sufficiently absorbed in an engaging activity and we experience
the state of flow.
Bias
Since it is our self that has our attention during self-talk, we are constantly listening to an inherently biased
and one-sided point of view. This first-person viewpoint, described in more detail below, is responsible for
many distortions in perception, assessment, attribution, and reasoning. We are inherently biased. We
invariably overestimate our positive qualities; nearly everyone considers themselves above average in
characteristics important to their self-image.
We claim more than our share of credit when things go well and we avoid blame when thing go bad. We
judge people we identify with more leniently and favourably than we judge people we don't like. We offer
advice to others more easily than we accept advice from others. We judge others based on behavior and
we judge ourselves based on intent. We each tend to believe that our point of view is the correct one.
Perhaps this unrealistic view of the world helps us compensate for the bias toward safety that triggers fear,
the bias toward just action that triggers anger, and the bias toward quickly identifying foe that triggers
hate. Thinking well of ourselves provides a respite from anxiety and other negative emotions.
We can begin to counteract our inherent bias by developing a healthy skepticism toward our own ego-
directed point of view. We can more accurately assess the world when we learn to compensate for the bias
we use to perceive it. Consider a variety of viewpoints and dialogue with people who hold differing views
before making important decisions.
Worry
We worry about the future we imagine, we ruminate about the past we recall, and we worry about what
others did, thought, or might do. Anxiety results directly from our self-awareness and self-talks; it really is
all in our head. We monitor the world with a bias toward identifying actual and potential threats. Although
worry is beneficial when it alerts us to problems and urges us to avoid them, it is not helpful when there is
nothing further we can do to avoid danger or ensure success.
We also worry about threats to our own thoughts and ideas. We protect the ideas we have of our self-
concept, ideas we have about others, and our goals—our ideas about the future. Fear, anger, jealousy, and
humiliation can be evoked as easily by threats to our ego, significant others, or goals as they can by physical
threats. Many emotions are generated or sustained by how we talk to ourselves.
Conflicting Images
We imagine ourselves as similar to people in some groups and different from others. We invariably
demonstrate favouritism toward people in the in-group. This affiliation with the in-group and dissociation
from the out-group can be triggered even when only trivial characteristics or differences define the groups.
Abstract concepts select the symbols we attach to the “good guys” and the “bad guys”.
There is almost always some way for the people in the in-group to construe themselves better than the
people in the out-group. This has been dramatically demonstrated by sports fans, social clubs, cliques, the
Robbers Cave experiment, and in other research. The often misunderstood fact is that you are probably less
similar to the members of your group than you assume and you are more similar to members of rival
groups that you assume. We all share human.
The bias of egotism allows us to interpret events in self-serving ways. We take more credit than we
deserve, and accept less blame than is our due. We attribute kind motives to ourselves and evil motives to
others. We feel we are unfairly recognized and rewarded for our efforts. We feel we suffer more pain than
others understand or appreciate. Although we are egotists ourselves, we dislike others who we see as
conceited, vain, arrogant, stuck-up, pompous, snobbish, and boastful.
When our ego is threatened, we feel insulted and suffer humiliation. For some, the greatest fear is to be
seen as a wimp.
Self-Control
Our self-awareness provides us the powerful ability control our self intentionally. This requires us to be
aware and monitor what we are doing, establish and pursue goals for the future, control our impulses and
delay gratification to pursue our long-term goals, and act on the strength of our own decisions.
Detaching our Ego
If we are a two-year old caught up in our own tantrum, it is all consuming. If we are a parent and our two-
year old child is having a tantrum, it is disconcerting. If we are walking through the park and see another
child having a tantrum, we can simply notice that here is a child who has yet to grow up and gain control of
his immature impulses.
We can attain this same detachment, judgment, and self-control over our own destructive egos. We can
observe our ego wanting more, clamoring for attention, proving they right or better or blameless, distorting
facts in frantic attempts at self-justification, seduced by our first-person viewpoint, overcome with
arrogance and we can choose to stop it.
We can stare back our own thoughts and jump into the space, created by our awareness, between our ego
and our values. We can choose to act consistently with our values rather than submit once again to an
impulse. We can choose humility over arrogance, stillness over aggression and destruction, cooperation
over competition, inclusion over exclusion, needs over wants, generosity over greed, peer over power,
candor over deceit, stature over status, dignity over disrespect, compassion over belligerence, and
authentic over bogus.
The perception that our ego—our self—is somehow superior is only an illusion. What would be the basis for
such superiority? The ego has no substance, it is not real, it is only an illusion. Learn to see beyond that
illusion.
We do not tolerate tantrums from two-year olds. Don't tolerate tantrums from your ego, or anyone else's.
Quell ego rants.
Self as our Prototype for Others
To create the mental symbol we use to represent each person we consider to be very similar to ourselves,
we begin with our self-symbol and then modify it to create a unique symbol for each of our close friends.
For each acquaintance that is more distant from our own self image, we modify the symbol we have for
them more from our self-symbol.
This is illustrated on the left where our self is in the centre, our closest friends each have individual symbols
very much like our own, and our more distant acquaintances have similar, but increasingly different
symbols. This is represented here by the differences in the colour of the more distant symbols.
For strangers, or people we do not want to be associated with, we may not begin with our self-symbol, but
instead use the symbol for someone else we also distance ourselves from. The result is that the symbols for
close friends are very similar to our own, and the symbols for people we do not identify with are quite
different.
Intimacy
The word “intimacy” has several meanings. Here we consider the meaning of “a close association leading to
detailed knowledge and understanding of another person”. An intimate friend is someone we trust enough
to expose our own vulnerabilities and secrets during many reciprocal and authentic dialogues.
As we get to know more about an acquaintance we develop an increasingly complete and complex mental
symbol for that person. However, there is a limit to how well we ever know the other person. There are
limits to how much time we will spend together and there are various boundaries limiting what we will ask,
what we will tell, and what we are willing to learn about each other.
Because these boundaries limit the information exchange, the information we gather is incomplete and the
symbol we are able to create for the acquaintance is necessarily incomplete. Because the symbol is
incomplete it remains significantly different from your self-symbol. This is illustrated here by the noticeable
distance between the self and the symbol for the acquaintance.
We know more about our close friends than we do about acquaintances. The amount of time we spend
together, the number and nature of interactions and common experiences we share, the interest we have
in learning more about each other, and our willingness to share more information all help us create a more
complete symbol for our close friends. The similarity in our self-symbol and the symbol we create for our
close friends is illustrated above by the proximity of the two symbols.
Intimacy takes this information sharing to the next level. During an intimate relationship we feel safe
enough to expose and discuss our vulnerabilities and secrets. This additional information allows us to
create a more complete symbol for an intimate partner. Also, because of the completeness of the symbol
and also because the people we choose to become intimate with typically share many of our
characteristics, the symbol we create becomes very similar to our self-symbol. This illustrated in the figure
by the significant overlap of the two symbols. We feel empathy for people we become intimate with.
The Extent of Compassion
You naturally feel closer to people who seem most like yourself. The symbols you create for the people who
are most like yourself will be most similar to your own self-symbol. It is easiest to empathize with these
people who are most like yourself. You can still feel compassion, if not full empathy, for people who are
different, but still something like yourself. But even if you are a caring person, you may feel indifferent
toward people who you hardly know, or who are not like yourself.
The symbols you have for these people may be very incomplete, or they may include features unlike
yourself. In any case their symbols are unlike your self-symbol. Finally there are people who are not like
you. In fact, they are unlike you. If you consider them so distant and foreign that you allow yourself to
consider them as not quite human, hate can creep in. They are dislike you and you may choose to dislike
them.
This general scheme is illustrated here in a schematic diagram derived from the figure above. The people
most like yourself are shown close to the self-symbol. Those least like you are farther away. The most
compassionate people will have large regions of empathy and compassion with small or non-existent
regions of indifference and hate. Less tolerant people will have smaller areas of empathy and compassion
and allow the region of hate to close in around themselves as they become a prisoner of hate.
Empathy is other-awareness, symmetrical with self-awareness.
First-Person Viewpoint
Seeing things from your own point of view is always easier, and first-hand experiences seem more real than
understanding another's point of view can ever be. Your eyes, nose, taste buds, tactile sensors, and ears
connect directly only to your brain. Only you experience first-hand the direct sensory input of the world;
you, your self, are the observer. This raw sensory input is interpreted and gains meaning through your
unique perceptions and past experiences.
Furthermore, contemplation, desire, intent, pain, introspection, consciousness, and reflection are all
private and solitary. This unique first-person experience creates a fundamental asymmetry that contributes
too many of the other asymmetries that govern social interactions. It also contributes to the asymmetric
character of egotism, narcissism, selfishness, greed, and the magnitude gap. We judge others based on
behavior and we judge ourselves based on intent. Your own point of view, the way you see things, is
unique. The golden rule and our empathy struggle to overcome this fundamental imbalance.
We influence others by changing their point of view.
For the reasons just described, each of us tends to consider our own point of view as more complete, valid,
and important than anyone else's point of view. However, each of us differs in the weight we give to our
viewpoint when compared to other viewpoints. A particularly humble, considerate person may understand,
appreciate, and evaluate other points of view and grant them an importance similar to their own. They
weigh other points of view as heavily as they weigh their own, as in the diagram on the right.
It is more typical, however, to weigh your own viewpoint more heavily than others. We all have a great
need for self-justification. If one person disagrees with you, perhaps you will discount that contrary
viewpoint, but if two or three people express differing views, you will consider and adopt their viewpoints.
This is illustrated in the diagram on the left where several other viewpoints balance the first-person
viewpoint.
Egotists and others with high self-appraisals dismiss all but overwhelming evidence contrary to their point
of view. It may take tens, hundreds, or in extreme cases thousands of dissenting voices before any other
point of view is considered. This extreme imbalance is shown on the right, where the “eye” and the “I” are
just too big. Where do you strike the balance?
This phenomenon can create a problem when it comes to choosing leaders. Great leaders make decisions,
create a compelling vision, hold tenaciously to that vision, and inspire people to overcome obstacles and
move forward toward the leader's expressed vision. This vision is often an expression of the leader's first-
person viewpoint. A problem can occur, however, if that viewpoint becomes destructive, the leader rejects
alternative viewpoints, and the direction cannot be changed. This can be the making of a tyrant.
Self-Appraisals
Many types of self-appraisal, both accurate and distorted, are important to understand. Self-esteem is an
overall evaluation of your self by your self. This assessment can be favourable, neutral, or unfavourable.
High self-esteem is a favourable self assessment. An unfavourable self assessment is low-self-esteem.
Appropriate high self-esteem is (authentic) “pride”, but excessive or unjustified high self-esteem is called:
“egotism”, “arrogance”, “hubris”, “conceitedness”, “narcissism”, or a “sense of superiority”. Low self-
esteem is “shame”. “Ego” is a synonym for self or self-image.
Self-esteem includes two largely independent appraisals. One is a sense of confidence and competence,
called self-efficacy. This includes confidence in your ability to think, understand, learn, choose, and make
decisions. The other is a sense of intrinsic worth, called self-respect. This is your right to appropriately
assert your own thoughts, values, needs, and wants.
Narcissism is self-love combined with an artificially inflated ego (self-image). It includes “grandiosity” and
dominance, and is correlated with an often hostile disregard for others
A major cause of violence is high self-esteem combined with an ego threat. Violence is most likely to occur
when someone who thinks well of themselves receives feedback that contradicts their own favourable view
of themselves, and they then decide to “fight the feedback” (quite literally “kill the messenger”) rather than
assimilate the new information and revise their self-appraisal.
This is more likely to occur with someone who holds an unwarranted, exaggerated, or unfounded positive
self-image. This can be called “fragile high-self-esteem” or “wounded pride”. People who are highly
sensitive to a loss of self-esteem, e.g. “touchy”, may react to seemingly minor ego threats with
considerable hostility.
They are easily insulted and quick to anger. They may be boastful and arrogant and always trying to prove
they are good enough. The terms: wounded pride, disrespect, verbal abuse, insults, anger manipulations,
and status inconsistency all describe ego threats. People with high but stable self-esteem tend not to be
angry or hostile.
A reliable indicator of low self-esteem is the need to see other groups as inferior. This is the essence of
disrespect and a dangerous first step toward hate and violence.
People with (secure) high self-esteem generously appreciate the achievements of others.
Egotism can directly cause violence because the egotist allows their first-person viewpoint to prevail over
other relevant, important, but differing points of view. This lack of consideration reduces the typical
inhibitions to violence.
Transcending Your Self
Our self is an essential but often pesky companion. Learn to tame it. When you hear your self talking,
recognize it is only one voice among the crowd. Shape your self-symbol. Deliberately quiet you’re self when
it is not being helpful. Enjoy the resulting calm and contentment. Be sceptical of what your self is telling
you.
The self is merely an illusion, it has no substance, do not become attached to it, focus on what is real. Seek
out alternative viewpoints. Let go of your ego defence mechanisms, and control your self.
Belie what we accept as true
What do you hold to be true? Why did you choose these beliefs? Do you act according to
those beliefs? Perhaps you believe particular widely-held values that provide an excellent
standard for judging right and wrong, good and bad, important from trivial. Perhaps you
have other values and believe something else. Knowing requires a careful examination of
your own values and beliefs.
What are they? How did they originate? What are they based on? Why do you hold these
beliefs? Are they based on reliable evidence? Are your goals and actions consistent with
your beliefs? How do your beliefs align with your values? How have they evolved over
your lifetime? How do they help you live a gratifying life?
Adopt a robust theory of knowledge and use it to carefully choose your own values and beliefs.
Definitions
 A statement, assertion, or theory you accept as true.

 Our basis for deciding, choosing, and acting.
Myths and Misconceptions:
Many people profess beliefs that are obviously false. Here are some of the more destructive and common
examples:
1. I had no choice.
2. He made me do it.
3. That's just how I am.
4. It's all my parent's fault.
5. It's all your fault.
6. If we don't talk about it the issue will disappear.
7. The past constrains the future.
8. Denial is a solution.
Discard these unhelpful and false beliefs along with unhelpfulprimal rules that may be harming your
decision making.
Assumptions
An assumption is an unfounded belief. Assumptions are unchallenged, unquestioned, unexamined, and

very often untrue. Many terms describe unfounded beliefs including: rumors, myths, legends, folk-lore,
blind-faith, and wives-tales. Our bias, prejudices, ignorance, and experiences manifest in our assumptions.
Apply your theory of knowledge to challenge rumors and assumptions before basing decisions on them.
Stay curious. Don't be gullible, don't be fooled.
Firm Beliefs
Possibilities and speculations may become firm beliefs after curiosity, inquiry, and exploration transform
assumptions into opinions and opinions into facts. This is the substance of wisdom.
Each of us approaches a new idea, information, rumor, proposal, or explanation with a particular
presumption. This presumption can range from a very unlikely, dismissive, and skeptical stance to a very
likely and accepting stance. This presumption is plotted on the vertical axis in the following diagram,
ranging from unlikely at the bottom, ranging through possible in the middle and extending to likely at the
top.
To determine the truth of a belief we assess the correspondence of this belief with reality. As we become
more curious about the proposal we can learn more about the evidence that supports or contradicts its
accuracy. Our understanding of the evidence begins to increase as a result of our inquiry and exploration.
As more and more information becomes available, we become better informed and create a more accurate
understanding and assessment of the situation. This accumulation of evidence is plotted on the horizontal
axis in the following diagram. It ranges from unexamined on the left to examined on the right.
The colors on the grid indicate more reliable and authentic regions in blue, and less authentic regions in
red.
The most authentic path is the blue region across the center of the diagram. Beginning on the left, a new
idea is proposed, and we begin with the neutral presumption that it is possible. We suspend judgment and
even resist forming an opinion until we can gather more facts. As we begin to ask questions and explore the
evidence we learn enough to begin to form an opinion—a preliminary or tentative belief. If the evidence is
scarce, ambiguous, or contradictory we may not be able to gather enough support for or against the idea to
confirm a particular belief. If the evidence is clear for one position or the other, we can form a belief, and
perhaps even a firm belief. Along this path you are diligent, you know what you know and how you know it.
This path applies your well-founded theory of knowledge and leads toward wisdom.
As an example, consider how your belief in the existence, importance, and causes of global warming may
have evolved. Perhaps you first heard of the issue a few years ago and did not give it much thought. After
hearing about it a few more times, you may have become curious. You probably did not know enough
about the issue to form an opinion, so you suspended your judgment. Alternatively, you may have heard an
opinion from a credible source and adopted that position as your own. As you learned more and more
about the issue, perhaps you began to believe the issue was real, and important, but did not yet believe it
was caused by human activities or that it would be consequential in your lifetime. You remain curious, you
see the movie An Inconvenient Truth , you attend geology and environmental science lectures, read books
on the topic, discuss your understanding and doubts with informed friends, follow the issue in the news,
and read some scientific papers on the topic. Eventually you come to believe, then firmly believe, the
problem is urgent, important, and caused by human activity.
But we often take other paths toward establishing our beliefs. We may be skeptical and begin with the
assumption that that idea cannot be true. We defer our beliefs until more information is available. We
demand proof. This is a cautious course and is prudent unless we act as if our skeptical assumptions are
well founded beliefs. As we gather some evidence supporting the idea, we remain doubtful. As further
inquiry and exploration uncovers more supporting evidence, we may eventually begin to believe.
Alternatively, we may hold stubbornly to our disbelief, dismissing, discounting, or distorting evidence
contrary to our original presumptions. We are obstinate, holding onto our disbelief despite clear evidence
supporting the new idea. This is the territory of the flat earth society, Holocaust denial, moon walk
conspiracy theorists, and other closed-minded people who choose to deny clear evidence. Ignorance often
thrives here.
A more foolish path is often taken. Here a gullible person is ready to believe almost anything. Rather than
pose critical inquiries or examine evidence, they believe the rumors, hoaxes, myths, legends, fantasies,
innuendos, and other preposterous claims, ideas, accusations, and proposals. Rumors are passed on, gossip
is treated as fact, and too often the truth is never uncovered or even sought. Even as evidence mounts
contrary to the idea, they remain hopeful, perhaps even detached, defiant, or contemptuous. If further
evidence is gathered, perhaps opinions can mature into well founded beliefs. But too often the idea is
firmly held onto despite clear contradictory evidence. This is the fantasy land of blind faith, alien
abductions, demonic possession, and channeling.
Consider the range of beliefs people have regarding life after death. Direct evidence for or against life after
death is minimal or non-existent. However, many people hold firmly to this belief. Elaborate and detailed
descriptions of the afterlife are studied, propagated, discussed, defended, and often relied on. Other
people simply dismiss the whole idea for lack of evidence. Passionate arguments on this topic are
commonplace, and it is remarkable how determined people can be in defending their own assumptions and
opinions.
Know how you know. Don't be seduced by assumptions, challenge them instead. Don't ignore or dismiss
evidence, be guided by it. Don't rely on blind-faith, inquire and explore.
Flipping Positions
How does passionate love so often turn into bitter divorce? The firm belief of “I love my wife” can
eventually and precipitously become “I really hate her.” Here is a theory:
A cautious style of decision making, shown in the blue region in the diagram above, is to reserve judgment;
wait until you have gathered and evaluated lots of representative and relevantevidence, then carefully
form an opinion. As you gather more evidence that opinion becomes a firm belief. But the more common
style is to presume the decision early, then to filter anddistort evidence to support that decision. This is
shown along the top red band, extending from “gullible” to “fantasy” in the above diagram.
Consider how this decision-making style might apply to the belief: “I love her.” You meet a woman and are
enamored with her. Passion helps you quickly decide she is perfect and you love her with all your heart.
You enjoy time together and are willing to ignore, or explain away any of her shortcomings. Even when she
stays out late, comes home drunk, tells transparent lies, and gambles away the family savings you distort
the evidence to support your position of “she is the perfect woman for me.”
Eventually the accumulation of evidence prevails. Your opinion changes, perhaps because of overwhelming
evidence, or just a change of heart. Your viewpoint suddenly flips from “I look at the evidence in a positive
light” to “I look at this in a negative light.” Suddenly the evidence fits better with the new viewpoint. The
spin quickly unravels. Now your opinion is “she is a bitch” and you have all the respun evidence to prove it,
and you can also spin some more.
Furthermore, you are a bit humiliated because you held onto your “I love her” position too long, well
beyond what the evidence could support. You are ashamed to think “How could I have been so blind, so
stupid, not to see what was really happening.”
Similar shifts in thinking can quickly transform pride into shame or guilt; envy, jealousy, or compassion into
contempt or gloating; hope into sadness, fear or joy; and fear into relief.
People are all human. We each have many outstanding qualities and many shortcoming. Establish an
authentic, balanced, complex, integrated, evidence-based, and evolving understanding of your lover and
yourself. Take the bad with the good and continue to refine and strengthen your relationship.
Beliefs Vary
Beliefs vary considerably from one person to the next. The website ThisIBelieve.org maintains a fascinating
collection of thousands of essays proclaiming the beliefs of many thoughtful people. Perhaps you will enjoy
reading some.
Professed Beliefs and Actual Beliefs
We can only determine what some else professes to believe. We can never know what they truly believe.
Comparing their behavior with their professed beliefs can provide clues to their true beliefs.
My Values
My values include: contribution, symmetry, empathy, ethics, congruence, integration, authenticity,

parsimony, simplicity, elegance, honor, preventing loss, consistency, tranquility, sobriety, responsibility,
justice, curiosity, innovation, meritocracy, decision making based on evidence, clear thinking, valid logic,
objective evidence, and the scientific method.
Goal Desired Outcomes
What do you want to have happen? How do you spend your time? How do you meet your needs? How are
you living yourvalues? How do you act on yourbeliefs? What direction are you heading? Where do you
want to go? What do you want from your life? Where will you end up? Are you happy and satisfied? What
difference will you make? What will your memoirs say? What will be your legacy? We all aspire to achieve
our goals.
Definitions
1. A desired outcome
2. An endpoint
3. Setting direction
4. The future we pursue
Related Terms
Many English language words describe intent, direction, desire, or outcome. These include: aim, ambition,
aspiration, desire, destination, dream, hope, intent, intention, mark, mission, objective, plan, purpose,
target, and wish. They vary in the degree of commitment, time-frame, scope, difficulty, and realism they
express.
The phrase goal commitment refers to the importance, level of effort, and motivation directed toward
reaching your goals. Our goals establish a direction and our motivation moves us along in that direction.
Benefits
Goals set direction for our actions in both the short term and longer term. Together they establish an
important plan for living our lives.
The Roles of Goals, the Goals of Roles
Goals provide us short-term focus and longer-term perspective. We have needs that must be met for us to
survive and thrive. We have values that express what we hold as important. We have beliefs that we hold
to be true. We have aspirations, hopes, wishes, ambitions, dreams, and desires that may go beyond our
needs. We have limited time, attention, ability, and energy. We are motivated to take action to achieve our
goals. In choosing one goal, we are often abandoning several others. For example, choosing a particular
career is often a choice to abandon or at least significantly delay goals for an alternative career. Delay in
making a clear choice is often a choice to defer a specific goal. Choose goals carefully and establish a
healthy balance across all the roles you fill. We choose goals to get the most out of our life, however we
may choose to define it.
Most of us fill many different roles throughout the course of our lives. These might include: son or
daughter, student or teacher, player or coach, master or apprentice, boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or
wife, parent or guardian, aunt or uncle, leader or follower, worker or boss, caregiver or care receiver,
healer or healing, buyer or seller, speaker or listener, guest or host, giver or receiver, and friend or
philosopher. We have particular goals for each of these roles. Revise your goals as the saliency of each role
changes. It helps to keep each of these roles, and the goals for each, in a healthy balance.
Increase the congruence of your actions with your goals, beliefs, and values. Pay attention to how you
spend your time. Do the activities you spend the most time on advance your most important goals? Do your
goals reflect your values? Do your values reflect your authentic self? Is your life in balance? Reappraise your
values, beliefs, goals, and actions to improve the congruence.
Appraisals
Without a goal at stake there is no potential for stress or emotion. Any particular event may advance your
goals, thwart your goals, or be irrelevant to them. A single event may advance some goals while thwarting
others. The impact on our goals determines the extent of the stress, the coping strategy, and the type and
strength of emotions that are elicited.
We appraise events based on their impact on our goals. If an event advances our goals we are joyous and
often proud. If an event thwarts our goals we become angry, sad, jealous, or envious. If the goal is
important the impact on us of the progress or setback is great and the resulting emotions are intense.
Emotions reveal goals. Obstacles to meeting our goals cause stress and require us to cope.
Impulse
We order dessert despite our goal of losing weight. We go out with friends despite our goal to finish our
homework and study for tomorrow's test. We spend money to buy something we don't need despite our
goal to save enough money to buy a house. Often we yield to the immediacy of the moment and jeopardize
long-term goals for some immediate satisfaction.
Impulse control is the ability to suppress an immediate temptation in favour of your longer-term goals. It is
the often difficult deliberate choice to take responsibility for your actions. It is choosing an internal locus of
control. It is the decision to recognize what you can change. It is the decision not to make excuses or blame
others. It is the distinction between autonomy and irresponsibility. It is the true test of our goals
commitment and values.
Conflicting Goals
Even well-chosen goals can conflict with one another. The goal to finish college or advance a career can
easily conflict with goals to spend more time with family or have more fun. Giving careful thought to your
values, along with creative approaches to resolving conflict can help resolve these difficult and inevitable
dilemmas. Failure to resolve these conflicts leads to ambivalence.
Goals Hierarchy
Short-term goals help us reach our long-term goals. Goals establish current plans to meet our needs. We
revise our goals over time as we achieve, learn from, or abandon previous goals and as our values and
beliefs evolve. Our values express what is important to us and help us choose the most meaningful goals
from the unlimited number of possible goals. Below is an example high-level goals hierarchy, where long-
term goals are broken down into more immediate and specific goals. Proceeding from a high level to a
lower level in the hierarchy answers the question “How will you . . . ” The higher level goal answers the
question “Why do you want to do . . . ” Use this example goals hierarchy to inspire your own personal goals
Motivation
Stimulating Movement
Why do we move and act? Why do we do what we do? Many theories of motivation have
been proposed, however, the one that seems to make the most sense is “self-
determination theory”. It is briefly presented here.
Definitions:
 Why we do what we do.

 Wanting to move.
 Stimulating movement.
 Having the desire and willingness to do something
 energy, direction, and persistence
 activation (i.e. getting started) and intention.
 mobilization toward action. (often directed toward meeting goals)
Root: motive, serving to move.
Humans are Living Organisms:
While people often ask the question “How can person ‘A’ motivate person ‘B’?”, this common question is
based on incorrect assumptions about human nature. Watching a two- or three-year old child makes this
immediately apparent. Preschool children are bundles of energy and curiosity. They are constantly busy
exploring their surroundings, getting into mischief, and asking questions while walking, talking, and doing.
They don't need external motives to keep them going; they act because they are alive, they are curious,
they enjoy activity, and not much is holding them back from doing what just comes naturally to them.
The conclusion is unmistakable: people are active organisms with innate tendencies toward growth and
development. We strive to master ongoing challenges and to integrate our experiences into a coherent
sense of who we are. Humans are inherently proactive.
So the better question becomes: “How can a person's innate tendencies toward activity and growth be
sustained?” Or, “How can we unblock a person's potential for action, expression, growth, and
achievement?”
The theory is based on the somewhat unconventional premises, demonstrated through extensive research,
that:
 human beings are active organisms rather than passive objects or mechanisms,
 we are naturally inclined toward growth and development rather than relying on
programming by the social environment, and
 we all have a set of basic psychological needs which are universal rather than
culturally determined.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation:
Humans respond to a variety of motives that range from intrinsic—originating from within—to extrinsic—
responding to external controls.
Motivations exist on a scale that ranges from intrinsic at one extreme to extrinsic at the other extreme.
Here are some defining characteristics of each:
Intrinsic motivation:
 is self-motivation,
 is doing an activity for its inherent satisfactions.
 is the inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise
your capacity for activity and achievement, and to explore and learn.
 is the natural expression of humanity and the authentic self,
 originates from the human tendency toward learning and creativity.
 arises spontaneously when the activity itself is valued, interesting, or reflects a

personal commitment.
 causes people to behave based on their interests and values; for reasons internal to
their self.
 represents a principle source of enjoyment and vitality throughout life. It is the basis
of flow.
 is increased by feelings of competence, optimum challenges, and authentic

feedback when accompanied by a sense of autonomy,
 is increased by allowing choice, acknowledging feelings, and providing

opportunities for self-direction,
 often leads to deeper understanding, richer experience, more creative results, and
improved problem solving.
 is more likely to flourish in a safe and supportive (i.e. caring) environment,
 can be reduced by extrinsic rewards, threats, deadlines, directives, surveillance,

pressured or demeaning evaluations, and imposed goals.
Extrinsic motivation:
 is based on external contingencies, rewards intended to control, coercion, threats,

or other forms of external pressure,
 is based on attaining some outcome separable from the activity itself,
 causes people to tolerate an activity only to receive a reward or avoid a disincentive

(often including fear, shame, guilt, or humiliation),
 causes people to behave for reasons external to their self.
 is instrumental, the activity is undertaken to attain an outcome, only as a means to

an end.
 can be responded to either from personal endorsement and a feeling of choice, or

from reluctant compliance with external controls. The relative autonomy exercised
varies greatly in these two cases.
 only influences behavior while rewards are made available. Stop the pay and stop
the play.
 undermines people's intrinsic motivations under many circumstances.
Many motives are a blend, as is discussed below in the section on “integration”.
Extrinsic rewards include wealth, fame, and beauty. These emphasize what you have. Intrinsic rewards
include meaningful personal relationships, contributing to the community, and personal growth. These
emphasize who you are.
Autonomy refers to free choice and is formally defined as “internally perceived locus of causality”—
basically a decision from your heart or your authentic self. Intrinsic motivation decreases as autonomy
decreases. Autonomy is the opposite of being controlled.
The distinction between “I choose to do this” and “I have to do this” is the essence of autonomy.
Autonomy is:
 being self-governed.
 making your own informed decisions and choosing to act according to your own
values and beliefs,
 authentic and responsible; taking responsibility for the choices you make.
 the feeling deep inside that your actions are your own choice.
 choosing to . . .
Autonomy is not:
 individualism—pursuit of self-interest
 independence—acting alone
 detached, selfish, egotistical, or irresponsible
 compliance—behaving according to external controls, or defiance—rebellion

against external controls.
 narcissism
 irresponsible or disingenuous
 acting as a pawn
 submitting to coercion or threats
 permissiveness
 being controlled.
 having to . . .
Competency:
Competency refers to successfully meeting an optimum challenge. Intrinsic motivation increases with the
feeling of competency. But a competent pawn is not intrinsically motivated. To be intrinsically motivated
people need to perceive themselves as both competent and autonomous. Competent is the opposite of
helpless.
Relatedness:
Relatedness is the need to feel connected to others and to feel like you belong—you are part of something,
you belong to a larger community. It is your sincere caring about others and having others sincerely care
about you. It is valuing and caring about your relationships. It is the opposite of loneliness, called
embeddedness—the warm, cradled, rooted, feeling of connection to others—that we all need.
Relatedness moderates autonomy, encourages symmetry, and helps to balance our first-person viewpoint.
It also encourages responsibility because accepting responsibility for the well-being of others is an essential
element of relatedness. Socialization is the process where autonomy and relatedness combine and lead us
to choices that reflect our responsibility for the well-being of others.
Relatedness allows us to interact effectively with others. We can give and accept responsibility,
cooperation, compassion, and respect. Relatedness understands reciprocity and symmetry. Community
encourages relatedness.
An essential concept in combining autonomy with relatedness is recognizing where one person's rights and
responsibilities end and another's begin. The autonomous person understands the extent and importance
of other people's rights and responsibilities and bases mature decisions on this understanding. Trespass is
avoided. Relatedness moderates autonomy because your freedom extends only to where others' freedom
begins
Trouble brews when relatedness clashes with autonomy. When love and acceptance are offered
contingently as a means of control the manipulated person's self image is damaged and introjected
regulations are the likely result. A false or fictional self emerges in place of an authentic self. When
acceptance or esteem is offered contingently then feelings of self-worth often depend on particular
outcomes such as approval of others or obtaining extrinsic rewards. Having to choose between autonomy
and love is like choosing between food and water. Neither alternative is satisfactory because a need is
denied.
Hobbies Have it All:
It is not unusual for people who are bored, tired, careless, and otherwise unmotivated on the job to pursue
hobbies with their full vigor. Perhaps this is because participating in a hobby is voluntary, and people
demonstrate their skills to other caring hobbyists. Hobbies often provide an excellent opportunity to
exercise autonomy, competency, and enjoy relatedness.
AC2; Own strengths and weaknesses
Are you aware of your personal strengths and weaknesses? In this article we’ll look at:
 The distinction between strengths and weaknesses, and why it may be more
important to focus on strengths.
 How to identify your strengths and weaknesses
 How to manage and work around your weaknesses when focusing on your
strengths
“What are your strengths and weaknesses?” This is probably the most hated interview question, but apart
from the enjoyment of watching us squirm while trying to answer it, there’s a good reason employers might
want to ask it; it could allow them to fit you into a role in which you could use your personal strengths, and
has minimum focus on your weaknesses.
Alas, this doesn’t tend to happen – Gallup report that 68% of employees don’t get to use their strengths on
a daily basis! The thinking seems to be that there’s a global characteristic called ‘talent’, and if employers
can find people with ‘talent’, they can train them to do whatever job is necessary – after all, they’re
‘talented’!
However, talent doesn’t work like that; there are many possible talents that a person could have. When we
see someone who does well in their profession, we generally call them talented; but in fact they usually
have just focused on their natural strengths, and minimised their weaknesses. There are plenty of
examples: the genius artist who lives like a slob; the expert computer programmer with no charisma; the
incredible athlete who has no skill with numbers. You wouldn’t hire the first person to be your interior
designer, the second to lead your sales team, or the third to do your taxes, yet they are all talented.
So, ‘talent’ is not defined by being a whizz in everything you do. It’s a case of finding activities that require
your strengths but not your weaknesses, and developing your expertise in these areas.
Your strengths
How do you find out what your strengths are, so that you can use and develop them? There are several
ways, the best one will depend on your personality. If you are reflective and perceptive, you might want to
try self-reflection. If you think you’ll find this difficult, you could take a questionnaire. These questionnaires
are not the flimsy little tests you find in popular magazines; they are empirically validated measurements
based on a great deal of research. The main ones at the moment are the Values In Action model and the
StrengthsFinder model. A new model, Realise2 has recently entered the fray too and looks interesting.
Weaknesses
Weaknesses can be identified in the same way: self-reflection or questionnaires. If you take the
questionnaires, this time, of course, look at the bottom section of your results. Note that the Strengths
Finder model does not report your weaknesses; only your top strengths, so you’ll have to use the VIA
questionnaire to figure out your weaknesses in this way.
The next question that arises is, if we’re better of focusing on our strengths, then what do we do about our
weaknesses? Do we just ignore them? The answer will depend entirely on the situation. You should avoid
trying to develop your weaknesses if you can, by outsourcing or finding technical solutions if possible.
There’s more information on how to work around weaknesses
AC3; An indication is given of what in the learner's opinion make him/her

unique.
Knowing Yourself
To understand yourself, begin by understanding: human nature, what you can change and what you
cannot, your own personality traits, learned behaviors, and your values, beliefs, sense of justice,needs,
goals, and motives. Integrate these to form your personal model for human interaction. Understand what
guides you throughout your life. Discover your signature strengths, and the basis of your true stature.
Examine your self-spiral, purge the introjected regulations, integrate your values, beliefs, and actions, and
work to become your authentic self.
Self-Symbol
Your mind is organized with many thousands of symbols for many objects and concepts including: cars,
chairs, the future, your hopes, goodness, your dog, your friends, and even yourself. Your mental symbol
that represents yourself is your “self-symbol”. Words we use as symbols for ourselves (and others) are
often chosen from our list of trait nouns, and trait adjectives. Some of these labels are accurate and some
are not accurate representations of our self.
Self-Aware
Humans have the remarkable and perhaps unique ability to think about our own thoughts. This strange
loop allows us to become aware of our self, to plan for the future, reflect and ruminate about the past,
think about our selves as separate from others, imagine the thoughts of others, project our experiences
into the minds of others, and judge our own actions. Self-awareness provides us the unique ability to
control ourselves intentionally by imagining ourselves in the future and talk to ourselves about options for
our future.
Self-awareness allows us to imagine the world from a variety of perspectives. Not only can we contemplate
what we are perceiving now, but we can reflect on the past and imagine a variety of futures. We can also
imagine what others are thinking now, or were thinking in the past, or will be thinking in the future. Self-
awareness allows us to travel through time and read minds. But our awareness is less accurate than it may
seem.
Humans were earthbound for millions of years. Their only experience of earth was the limited view each of
us could gain from our village on the earth's surface. Mountain top vantage points gave a somewhat
broader perspective, but even the most expansive view was of only a small portion of the earth. World-
wide travel eventually allowed us to experience other regions on earth. Then in December 1968 the Apollo
8 spacecraft broke free from the earth and gave us stunning images of the whole earth, small and alone in
the vast blackness of space. For many these images transformed the way they think about our planet. We
can achieve a similar perspective when we can detach our consciousness from originating among our
thoughts and move our awareness above, or outside of our own thoughts. Just as Apollo 8 peered down on
the entire earth, we can adopt an awareness that examines our own thinking and contemplates it as a
whole. People sometimes describe this viewpoint transformation as an awakening.
Personality Traits
Intrinsic differences that remain stable throughout most of our life
Personality traits are intrinsic differences that remain stable throughout most of our life.
They are the constant aspects of our individuality.
Personality Theories
Personalities are distinctive. Each individual behaves according to certain distinctive patterns throughout a
variety of situations. Humans are finely tuned to observe these behavior patterns of acquaintances and to
notice behavior differences among people.
You might use words such as talkative, cheerful, cold, disorganized, compulsive, intellectual, shrewd, short-
sighted, flirtatious, or ruthless to describe various people you know. Also, you have probably observed that
these various behaviors stay with the person consistently over time and throughout a variety of
circumstances. These persistent behavior patterns, called personality traits, are stable over time, consistent
in a variety of situations, and differ from one individual to the next. Personality can be defined as the
psychological qualities that bring continuity to an individual’s behavior in different situations and at
different times. [zimbardo]
Over the years several efforts have helped to understand and develop a common vocabulary to describe
personality traits. The most fruitful begin with the simple idea that humans introduce words into their
language to describe interesting aspects of the world around them. This idea forms the basis for the lexical
hypothesis, which states: [DeRaad]
Those individual differences that are of most significance in the daily transactions of
persons with each other will eventually become encoded into their language. The more
important is such a difference, the more people will notice it and wish to talk of it, with the
result that eventually they will invent a word for it.
Beginning with a list of more than 18,000 descriptive terms extracted from unabridged dictionaries,
researchers first selected then extensively studied a list of adjectives describing stable personality traits.
Subjects were asked to rate each term according to how well it described the behavior of particular people
they knew well. Common factors were extracted from this data and the result is the “The Big Five
Personality Factors” which is very similar to the “Five Factor Model of Personality”.
These five factors can be further understood by looking at the following two tables of single pole markers
for each trait. The table of trait markers lists the top 10 adjectives that correlate most positively with each
factor. The table of inverse trait markers lists the top 10 adjectives that correlate most negatively with each
factor.
Anyone’s personality can be measured along these five dimensions using a variety of questionnaires and
assessment instruments designed for this. The result can be displayed in a chart showing where your
personality falls between the extreme poles for each trait. The following chart is an example, where each
triangle marker represents the degree each of the five factors is present for a particular individual. The
factor numbers are in the first column, followed by the factor names. In this chart the names have been
chosen so that their first letters (E, A, C, N, O) can be rearranged to spell OCEAN, which provides a useful
mnemonic for remembering the factor names. Factor IV is listed with reverse polarity to enable this
mnemonic. The last column names each inverse trait.
In this example the person is more extroverted than introverted, but not extremely so. Note that the factor
I marker is not all the way to the left. People vary in the strength with which their personalities exhibit each
trait. Most people fall somewhere between the extremes of each pole, and are neither pure extrovert nor
pure introvert, for example. This person is somewhat antagonistic (not agreeable), quite conscientious,
rather emotionally stable and somewhat more open to experience (high intellect) than closed to
experience.
Personality is stable over very long periods of time; personality traits do not change. They form the stable
second layer in thearchitecture for interaction model. Understanding, accepting, and applying your
personality traits is an important part of knowing yourself.
Another study focused on descriptive nouns. [Saucier] An analysis of the results extracted eight factors.
Their names, along with the five nouns having the highest correlation for each factor are shown in the
following table.
Factor 1:Social Unacceptability, relates to inclusion or exclusion from a social group. This is a basic decision
humans make as social animals. The poles, or underlying primal decision, can be though of as: Exclude↔
Include
Factor 2: Intellect, relates to human intelligence and higher levels of cognition. Smart is sexy and it has
been said that the brain is the most important sex organ. Many believe that intelligence distinguishes us as
humans, and it may be interpreted as an indicator of evolutionary advancement. Intelligence is an
important indicator of stature. The poles can be described as: Bright↔ Dull
Factor 3:Egocentrism, relates to a lack of empathy and respect for others. It may be related to an
overzealous display of status, a generous or false self-image, failure to counterbalance the first-person
viewpoint, or a counterfeit display of stature. Its poles can be labelled: Arrogant↔ Humble or
Narcissistic↔ Empathetic.
Factor 4: Ruggedness, relates to dominance, aggression, and power. Its poles can be labelled: Dominant ↔
Submissive
Factor 5: Delinquency, relates to cheating. The theory of reciprocal altruism describes the importance and
effectiveness of “cheater detectors” for the social interaction of humans. The poles can be labelled:
Cheater↔ Plays fair
Factor 6: Attractiveness, relates directly to sex and procreation. The poles can be labelled as: Sexy ↔
Repulsive, ugly, disgusting.
Factor 7: Liveliness, relates to attracting attention, perhaps as a strategy for attracting a mate. The terms
seem to describe a real party animal. Possible labels for the poles are: Loud↔ Quiet, reserved
Factor 8: Disorientation, relates to competence and reliability. Poles can be labelled: Incompetent↔
Competent.
AC4; Life experiences that have influenced the individual's self esteem
Feeling good about yourself
We become proud when we have good reason to think of ourselves as special. Pride is the
emotion reflecting an increase in stature, while shame reflects a decrease in stature.
Because stature is often considered competitive and relative, expressing our pride
carelessly or unjustifiably may offend others.
Definitions
1. Feeling good about yourself.

2. Satisfaction from our assessment of an increase in stature
3. Approving of your own actions or accomplishments.
4. A sense of accomplishment.
5. Expression of competence.
Pride reflects an increase in stature, not necessarily a high level of stature. As a result, pride is inherently
temporary.
Related Terms:
Many mental states are often confused with authentic pride. The confusion is generally related to a
mismatch in a subjective appraisal or projection of stature with an objective evaluation of stature. The
mismatches are based on discrepancies in the following assessments:
 Authentic stature—An actual, authentic, and objective appraisal of stature based

on representative evidence.
 Self-esteem—What you believe about your stature,
 Image—What others believe about your stature.
We have many words that describe a variety of misalignments between authentic stature, your estimate of
your own stature, and what others believe about your stature. These represent counterfeit forms of pride.
Several words are defined here in terms of these stature appraisals.
 Hubris: Unrealistically high self-esteem; self-esteem exceeds authentic stature.

You appraise your stature to be unrealistically high and reject evidence-based
comparisons to authentic stature. It is a failure to recognize your own defects.
Synonyms include arrogance, conceit, egotism, narcissism, and vanity. It can be
caused by your first-person viewpoint.
 Bluster: Projecting your stature as higher than you believe it to be. Attempting to
create an image that exceeds your self-esteem. Synonyms include false pride,
immodesty, boasting, bragging, showing off, and know it all.
 Stubborn Pride: You are unsure of your actual stature, so you hold fast to your
position as an attempt to show strength. It can be manifest as a reluctance to
apologize or take responsibility for your own actions. The likely cause is that your
self-esteem is fragile or variable; you are insecure about your stature because you
are not confident your authentic stature is high. Synonyms include smug??,
 Humiliation: An image change reflecting a decrease in what others believe about

your stature. A public humiliation is the result of an insult and is generally painful
enough to provoke anger. If you believe the insult is justified, then the humiliation
may result in shame rather than anger. Synonyms include losing face, feeling
foolish, hurt, and disgraced.
 Humility: A quiet and sincere confidence that comes from a realistic appraisal of
your stature that recognizes you are doing well, while recognizing your
shortcomings. It is an incentive to continue to learn, improve, and do more. Self
esteem is aligned with authentic stature and is judged to be satisfactory and with
room for improvement within a humble person. Humility reduces our need for self-
justification and allows us to admit to and learn from our mistakes.
 False Modesty: An insincere attempt to project an image of stature lower than your
self esteem or authentic stature.
 Contempt: Feeling superior to others. Our self-esteem exceeds the image we hold
of another.
Antidotes
Harmful mental states related to pride can be extinguished by appreciating the achievements of others,
becoming aware of our own shortcomings, and working to increase our genuine stature.
Benefits and Dangers of Pride
Pride is an intrinsic reward for being good and doing well. It provides an incentive for working to increase
stature. People seek challenges to increase pride. Because stature is so valuable, many counterfeit versions
of pride have developed. These are discussed above.
The Paradox of Pride
Humility is essential for learning and learning is essential for continued personal growth. But pride is the
result of that growth. Well adjusted people learn to move quickly and skillfully from pride to humility to
continue their progress. Pride is considered one of theseven deadly sins, probably because of confusion
with hubris, arrogance, vanity, narcissism, bluster, stubborn pride, or boasting. While we admire people
with high stature, we dislike braggarts.
Display Rules
Display rules guide us in making the distinction between what we are feeling and what we are sharing.
Most of us learn not to express pride too effusively when others may be offended or challenged by it, or if
we are expected to remain humble.
2; Demonstrate understanding of self in relation to

different environments.
AC1; Relationships between the individual and selected
Sense of Self in Relation to Others
The Sense-of-Self continuum is perhaps the most challenging and elusive aspect of ethnic
identity to comprehend. Philosophical belief systems, found to varying degrees across
cultural groups, influence the sense that an individual has of being separate from or
connected to others. In some philosophies, such as those found in Native American, Latin,
East Indian, and Buddhist cultures, the self is often conceptualized as connected to other
living beings or only temporarily separated from a collective "spirit" of being. In other
cultures, such as those originating out of Northern Europe, the sense of self is more
individuated, and persons are more likely to think of themselves as being separate and
distinct entities.
The sense-of-self related to ethnic identity is likely to influence how students interpret
knowledge and in what contexts they learn best. A highly connected student is likely to
filter knowledge through their cultural or familial community to ascertain its validity (Deloria,
1999; Van Hamme, 1996). For example, an African American doctoral student expressed
her frustration with the lack of a cultural lens in her educational experience in this manner:
Sensing/Interpreting/Knowing
The Sensing/Interpreting/Knowing of ethnic identity outlines a continuum of modes for

validating and absorbing information. A student who uses the mind as the primary tool for
gathering and interpreting knowledge is likely to do well in traditional learning
environments. This type of learning is often validated and rewarded through test taking
and step-by-step, additive learning processes. Students from cultures that value and teach
the use of mind, body, and spirit as interactive tools for gathering and interpreting
knowledge are likely to feel cut off and confused in these same learning environments.
Gardner's (1993) work outlining seven intelligences (verbal, logical, musical, visual,
intrapersonal, interpersonal, and physical) reinforces the need for understanding the many
ways people make sense of the world around them.
Ethnic Community Responsibility
Ethnic Community Responsibility is a construct outlining the extent to which specific

individuals feel personal responsibility for their own cultural community. Many cultural
groups who have experienced long-term oppression have banded together for protection,
support, and the retention of cultural traditions and values. These expectations are
transmitted overtly through verbal direction and indirectly through oral histories, stories,
and role modeling, and/or may be a result of seeing the plight of persons in their cultural
group and feeling a responsibility to make things better. There are strong indicators that
individuals from legally defined minority groups often come to learning environments
because of and with a strong responsibility for gaining education for the express purpose
of creating a better world for the people of their origins. Their experience is a catalyst for a
sense of responsibility for others within one's group as well as for human rights in general.
A sense of responsibility has direct implications for students' learning environments that
often seem normed around the concepts of individuality, competitiveness, and abstraction
rather than implications and applications of knowledge (Deloria, 1999). Educators must
understand that students with tendencies on the right side of these continua are likely to
live by concepts of success based in a priority of family and culture above work or even
education. Many of these students are likely to be interested in education as the
development of wisdom rather than knowledge; wisdom acquired specifically for the
benefit of their cultural community. A Navajo student questions, "How do I live up to my
responsibilities when I come to a university that imparts not wisdom or humanity but only
facts, and many of them limited or harmful to future generations?" (Chávez, 1995, p. 12).
This sense of cultural responsibility reaches across to other oppressed groups. Activist
Cherríe Moraga (1983) wrote,
Cultural Imprinting
The Cultural Imprinting construct outlines the extent to which a particular individual is
immersed in a specific and deeply lived cultural environment. To varying degrees,
individuals are raised in environments where cultural imprinting of traditions, behaviors,
social norms, values and expectations are overt, deeply held, and consistently transmitted.
These imprinting environments can be limited to a family unit or can be as broad as an
entire community and still have a strong ethnic/cultural identity development influence. On
the other hand, some individuals are raised in environments where cultural imprinting is
done in invisible ways by teaching core principles, norms, and behaviors with an absence
of identified connection to the cultural origins of these principles.
In contrast, those with conscious ethnic identity are more likely to be highly adept at
negotiating multicultural environments, yet are also likely to struggle with a context that
prioritizes only ways of doing and values inconsistent with their cultural norm.
Ethnic/Racial Contrast
The Ethnic/Racial Contrast construct outlines the most evident trigger or catalyst for a
student's conscious sense of having an ethnic or racial identity. Living, learning, and
working in environments that are normed on a culture or cultures different from one's own
is likely to cause individuals to become aware and even hyper-aware of their own cultural
identity. Ways of doing things, values, beliefs, and assumptions become painfully obvious
when we are in contexts where we are the outsider or "foreigner."
Challenges for Learning and Teaching in a Multicultural World
It is difficult to understand the culturally constructed nature of educational environments

and to develop an awareness of the effect of our own culturally defined sense of learning.
Difficulties arise for many domestic and international students of color when they attempt
to negotiate learning environments constructed by a different ethnic base of values,

behaviors, beliefs, and assumptions. The unquestioned norms of individuality, competition,
linear thinking, and compartmentalization of subject matter serve as foundations for the
construction of United States learning environments.
How self-efficacy affects human function
Choices regarding behavior
People will be more inclined to take on a task if they believe they can succeed.
People generally avoid tasks where their self-efficacy is low, but will engage in
tasks where their self-efficacy is high. People with a self-efficacy significantly
beyond their actual ability often overestimate their ability to complete tasks, which
can lead to difficulties. On the other hand, people with a self-efficacy significantly
lower than their ability are unlikely to grow and expand their skills. Research shows
that the ‘optimum’ level of self-efficacy is a little above ability, which encourages
people to tackle challenging tasks and gain valuable experience.
Motivation
People with high self-efficacy in a task are more likely to make more of an effort,
and persist longer, than those with low efficacy. The stronger the self-efficacy or
mastery expectations, the more active the efforts. On the other hand, low self-
efficacy provides an incentive to learn more about the subject. As a result, someone
with a high self-efficacy may not prepare sufficiently for a task.
Thought patterns & responses
Low self-efficacy can lead people to believe tasks are harder than they actually are.
This often results in poor task planning, as well as increased stress. Observational
evidence shows that people become erratic and unpredictable when engaging in a
task in which they have low self-efficacy. On the other hand, people with high self-
efficacy often take a wider overview of a task in order to take the best route of
action. People with high self-efficacy are shown to be encouraged by obstacles to
make a greater effort. Self-efficacy also affects how people respond to failure. A
person with a high self-efficacy will attribute the failure to external factors, where a
person with low self-efficacy will attribute failure to low ability. For example; a
person with high self-efficacy in regards to mathematics may attribute a poor result
to a harder than usual test, feeling sick, lack of effort or insufficient preparation. A
person with a low self-efficacy will attribute the result to poor ability in mathematics..
Health Behaviors
Health behaviors such as non-smoking, physical exercise, dieting, condom use,

dental hygiene, seat belt use, or breast self-examination are, among others,
dependent on one’s level of perceived self-efficacy (Conner & Norman, 2005). Self-
efficacy beliefs are cognitions that determine whether health behavior change will
be initiated, how much effort will be expended, and how long it will be sustained in
the face of obstacles and failures. Self-efficacy influences the effort one puts forth to
change risk behavior and the persistence to continue striving despite barriers and
setbacks that may undermine motivation. Self-efficacy is directly related to health
behavior, but it also affects health behaviors indirectly through its impact on goals.
Self-efficacy influences the challenges that people take on as well as how high they
set their goals (e.g., "I intend to reduce my smoking," or "I intend to quit smoking
altogether"). A number of studies on the adoption of health practices have
measured self-efficacy to assess its potential influences in initiating behavior
change (Luszczynska, & Schwarzer, 2005). Often single-item measures or very
brief scales (e.g., 4 items) have been used. It is actually not necessary to use larger
scales if a specific behavior is to be predicted. More important is rigorous theory-
based item wording. A rule of thumb is to use the following semantic structure: "I am
certain that I can do xx, even if yy (barrier)" (Schwarzer, 2008). If the target
behavior is less specific, one can either use more items that jointly cover the area of
interest, or develop a few specific sub-scales. Whereas general self-efficacy
measures refer to the ability to deal with a variety of stressful situations, measures
of self-efficacy for health behaviors refer to beliefs about the ability to perform
certain health behaviors. These behaviors may be defined broadly (i.e., healthy
food consumption) or in a narrow way (i.e., consumption of high-fibre food).
Academic Productivity
Research done by Sharon Andrew and Wilma Vialle also show the connection between personalized self-
efficacy and productivity. They studied the academic achievements of students involved in science classes
in Australia and found that students with high levels of self-efficacy show a boost in academic performance
compared to those who reported low self-efficacy. The researchers found that confident individuals
typically took control over their own learning experience and were more likely to participate in class and
preferred hands-on learning experiences. Those individuals reporting low self-efficacy typically shied away
from academic interactions and isolated themselves in their studies.
AC2; Reasons why an individual operates in selected environments
1. Experience - a.k.a. Enactive Attainment
"Mastery experience" is the most important factor deciding a person's self-efficacy.

Simply put, success raises self-efficacy, failure lowers it.
"Children cannot be fooled by empty praise and condescending

encouragement. They may have to accept artificial bolstering of their self-
esteem in lieu of something better, but what I call their accruing ego identity
gains real strength only from wholehearted and consistent recognition of real
accomplishment, that is, achievement that has meaning in their culture." (Erik
Erikson)
2. Modeling - a.k.a.
"Vicarious Experience"
“If they can do it, I can do it as well.” This is a process of comparison between
oneself and someone else. When people see someone succeeding at something,
their self-efficacy will increase; and where they see people failing, their self-efficacy
will decrease. This process is more effectual when a person sees him- or herself as
similar to his or her own model. If a peer who is perceived as having similar ability
succeeds, this will usually increase an observer's self-efficacy. Although not as

influential as experience, modeling is a powerful influence when a person is
particularly unsure of him- or herself.
3. Social Persuasions
Social persuasions relate to encouragements/discouragements. These can have a

strong influence – most people remember times where something said to them
significantly altered their confidence. While positive persuasions increase self-
efficacy, negative persuasions decrease it. It is generally easier to decrease
someone's self-efficacy than it is to increase it.
4. Physiological Factors
In unusual, stressful situations, people commonly exhibit signs of distress; shakes,

aches and pains, fatigue, fear, nausea, etc. A person's perceptions of these
responses can markedly alter a person's self-efficacy. If a person gets 'butterflies in
the stomach' before public speaking, those with low self-efficacy may take this as a
sign of their own inability, thus decreasing their self-efficacy further, while those with
high self-efficacy are likely to interpret such physiological signs as normal and
unrelated to his or her actual ability. Thus, it is the person's belief in the implications
of their physiological response that alters their self-efficacy, rather than the sheer
power of the response.
AC3; The beliefs, values and attitudes that distinguish a specific

environment
Our personal values are many and precious to us. It’s hard to even fathom the idea of only
having one value.
Knowing What Our Values Are
Let’s define personal values first. When I think of personal values I’m thinking of those
things that we hold nearest and dearest to us. The things that we determine to be the most
important part of our lives. The things that determine how we act and how we behave. Our
values don’t just come out of thin air, we accumulate them throughout our lives. We
develop our values over time from our parents, friends, school, our religion and even our
cultural heritage and many of our core values are with us since childhood.
Effective leaders not only know what their values are, they also understand how important
it is to be able to articulate these values to others and to live a life that is consistent with
their values. When we are able to live a life that is consistent with our values, everything
feels right with the world. But it can be hard work. We constantly face challenges to our
values and if we are not crystal clear on what we value, we run the risk of finding ourselves
in a moral dilemma.
What Do You Value Most
With the day-to-day pressure that we are constantly under, we rarely take the time to stop
and reflect on what it is we value most. That’s where the exercise I mentioned earlier
comes in. Here is a modified version for you to try:
Step 1: Write down seven words or phrases that describe things that you value most in
your life. These could include things like: having a family; money; freedom; working with
others; appreciation of others. Take the time to determine the right word or phrase, you
really want the right description of what you value most. You don’t need to put them in any
special order, just sort of brainstorm.
Step 2: Now for the really hard part. Once you have your list, imagine someone made you
give up one of your values by saying that we live in a world that only allows you to have six
things that you can value. Be thoughtful as to why you are willing to give this one up before
the others. Put a line through the one that you would reluctantly give up.
Step 3: Slowly continue this giving up and crossing out process, and this is the key, by
crossing out one at a time. After you have crossed off each one, stop and reflect on what
you have left. The goal is not to race to the end of the list, it is to be thoughtful and
understanding about why you are removing and keeping each value as you make your
way through the list.
Step 4: When you find yourself looking at six crossed our values, circle the remaining one
on the list. This ostensibly is the one thing that you value most in your life. The one thing
that you would be willing to give up everything else for.
Living Your Values
I’ve used this exercise in workshops and in the classroom many times and participants
always report having difficulty in two parts: coming up with the original list (even when
provided with a list of over 80 values to choose from) and crossing off the final two values.
But all have found the exercise helpful in clarifying what they value most.
When we’re able to articulate what we value, we are able to constantly monitor whether or
not we are living in accordance with our values, which some would call acting with
integrity. When we aren’t able to walk the talk as leaders, when we espouse values that
we don’t live by, we lose credibility with others. Living our values starts with being able to
know, understand, and accept what we value most.
3; Use a variety of strategies to deal with life

situations.
AC1; Strategies to deal with personal issues and challenges.
Empathy and Psychopathology
The importance of empathy-related skills to everyday functioning is obvious to those

treating people with psychiatric disorders.
New research into the brain mechanisms of empathy offers some intriguing hypotheses
about why perception of self and others may be linked. An emerging neurocognitive model
suggests that inferences about the emotions of others are made by first stimulating their
actions cortically. This simulation may allow the observer to access his own associated
emotions during similar movements, and to then use this information to infer the emotions
of the other person. In this way, we see the world as a mirror of our self; a provocative idea
that resonates with both phenomenology in psychiatric disorders, and with concepts in
psychodynamic theory.
This paper will focus on neurocognitive mechanisms thought to underlie the phenomenon
of empathy, and finish by considering insights these models bring to the phenomenology
and treatment of personality disorders.
Implications for Personality Disorders
The simulation model of empathy predicts that people make inferences about the
intentions and actions of others based on their own internal repertoire of intentions and
actions. Our default is to suspect that others will act as we have acted in the past. By
extending the model to human emotions and thoughts, it suggests that we believe others
will feel as we ourselves would feel or think in the same situation. This theory has relevant
implications for work with personality disorders.
As discussed earlier, a core dimension of personality pathology is a problem in perceiving

and interpreting both self and others. This fits very well with the simulation models: if it is
true that we perceive the world based on our internal model of ourselves, it would
necessarily be the case that disordered perceptions of self and others would go together.
In fact the model implies that distorted perceptions of others are really the consequence of
a dysfunctional internal model of self. This could be useful in planning a treatment
strategy.
Limitations and Future Directions
Although the findings related to the mirror system are exciting, the theories remain quite
speculative, and several issues remain to be addressed.
First of all, several years of replication and further study are needed to better establish the
validity of these ideas in actual biology. A compelling piece of evidence would be
demonstrated impairment in empathic ability following injury to the brain areas implicated
in the mirroring system in humans. In addition, discovery of mirror neurons in other
animals might allow evolutionary insights as to whether this is a phenomenon of primates,
or a more generalized mechanism of perception, conserved in evolution across many
species.
Critical Thinking in Everyday Life: 9 Strategies
Most of us are not what we could be. We are less. We have great capacity. But most of it is dormant; most
is undeveloped. Improvement in thinking is like improvement in basketball, in ballet, or in playing the
saxophone. It is unlikely to take place in the absence of a conscious commitment to learn. As long as we
take our thinking for granted, we don’t do the work required for improvement.
Development in thinking requires a gradual process requiring plateaus of learning and just plain hard work.
It is not possible to become an excellent thinker simply because one wills it. Changing one’s habits of
thought is a long-range project, happening over years, not weeks or months. The essential traits of a critical
thinker require an extended period of development.
How, then, can we develop as critical thinkers? How can we help ourselves and our students to practice
better thinking in everyday life?
First, we must understand that there are stages required for development as a critical thinker:
Stage One: The Unreflective Thinker (we are unaware of significant problems in our thinking)
Stage Two: The Challenged Thinker (we become aware of problems in our thinking)
Stage Three: The Beginning Thinker (we try to improve but without regular practice)
Stage Four: The Practicing Thinker (we recognize the necessity of regular practice)
Stage Five: The Advanced Thinker (we advance in accordance with our practice)
Stage Six: The Master Thinker (skilled & insightful thinking become second nature to us)
We develop through these stages if we:
1) accept the fact that there are serious problems in our thinking (accepting the
challenge to our thinking) and
2) begin regular practice.
In this article, we will explain 9 strategies that any motivated person can use to develop as a thinker. As we
explain the strategy, we will describe it as if we were talking directly to such a person. Further details to our
descriptions may need to be added for those who know little about critical thinking. Here are the 9:
1. Use “Wasted” Time.

2. A Problem A Day.
3. Internalize Intellectual Standards.
4. Keep An Intellectual Journal.
5. Reshape Your Character.
6. Deal with Your Ego.
7. Redefine the Way You See Things.
8. Get in touch with your emotions.
9. Analyze group influences on your life.
There is nothing magical about our ideas. No one of them is essential. Nevertheless, each
represents a plausible way to begin to do something concrete to improve thinking in a
regular way. Though you probably can’t do all of these at the same time, we recommend
an approach in which you experiment with all of these over an extended period of time.
First Strategy: Use “Wasted” Time. All humans waste some time; that is, fail to use all of their time
productively or even pleasurably. Sometimes we jump from one diversion to another, without enjoying any
of them. Sometimes we become irritated about matters beyond our control. Sometimes we fail to plan well
causing us negative consequences we could easily have avoided (for example, we spend time unnecessarily
trapped in traffic — though we could have left a half hour earlier and avoided the rush). Sometimes we
worry unproductively. Sometimes we spend time regretting what is past. Sometimes we just stare off
blankly into space.
The key is that the time is “gone” even though, if we had thought about it and considered our options, we
would never have deliberately spent our time in the way we did. So why not take advantage of the time
you normally waste by practicing your critical thinking during that otherwise wasted time? For example,
instead of sitting in front of the TV at the end of the day flicking from channel to channel in a vain search for
a program worth watching, spend that time, or at least part of it, thinking back over your day and
evaluating your strengths and weaknesses. For example, you might ask yourself questions like these:
Second Strategy: A Problem A Day. At the beginning of each day (perhaps driving to work or going to
school) choose a problem to work on when you have free moments. Figure out the logic of the problem by
identifying its elements. In other words, systematically think through the questions: What exactly is the
problem? How can I put it into the form of a question. How does it relate to my goals, purposes, and
needs?
1) Wherever possible take problems one by one. State the problem as clearly and
precisely as you can.
2) Study the problem to make clear the “kind” of problem you are dealing with. Figure
out, for example, what sorts of things you are going to have to do to solve it.
Distinguish Problems over which you have some control from problems over which
you have no control. Set aside the problems over which you have no control,
concentrating your efforts on those problems you can potentially solve.
3) Figure out the information you need and actively seek that information.
4) Carefully analyze and interpret the information you collect, drawing what
reasonable inferences you can.
5) Figure out your options for action. What can you do in the short term? In the long
term? Distinguish problems under your control from problems beyond your control.
Recognize explicitly your limitations as far as money, time, and power.
6) Evaluate your options, taking into account their advantages and disadvantages in
the situation you are in.
7) Adopt a strategic approach to the problem and follow through on that strategy.
This may involve direct action or a carefully thought-through wait-and-see strategy.
8) When you act, monitor the implications of your action as they begin to emerge. Be
ready at a moment’s notice to revise your strategy if the situation requires it. Be
prepared to shift your strategy or your analysis or statement of the problem, or all
three, as more information about the problem becomes available to you.
Third Strategy: Internalize Intellectual Standards. Each week, develop a heightened awareness of one of
the universal intellectual standards (clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, logicalness,
significance). Focus one week on clarity, the next on accuracy, etc. For example, if you are focusing on
clarity for the week, try to notice when you are being unclear in communicating with others. Notice when
others are unclear in what they are saying.
When you are reading, notice whether you are clear about what you are reading. When you orally express
or write out your views (for whatever reason), ask yourself whether you are clear about what you are trying
to say. In doing this, of course, focus on four techniques of clarification :
1) Stating what you are saying explicitly and precisely (with careful consideration
given to your choice of words),
2) Elaborating on your meaning in other words,
3) Giving examples of what you mean from experiences you have had, and
4) Using analogies, metaphors, pictures, or diagrams to illustrate what you mean. In
other words, you will frequently STATE, ELABORATE, ILLUSTRATE, AND EXEMPLIFY
your points. You will regularly ask others to do the same.
Fourth Strategy: Keep An Intellectual Journal. Each week, write out a certain number of journal entries.
Use the following format (keeping each numbered stage separate):
1. Situation. Describe a situation that is, or was, emotionally significant to you (that is, that
you deeply care about). Focus on one situation at a time.
2. Your Response. Describe what you did in response to that situation. Be specific and exact.
3. Analysis. Then analyze, in the light of what you have written, what precisely was going on
in the situation. Dig beneath the surface.
4. Assessment. Assess the implications of your analysis. What did you learn about yourself?
What would you do differently if you could re-live the situation?
Strategy Five: Reshape Your Character. Choose one intellectual trait---intellectual perseverance,
autonomy, empathy, courage, humility, etc.--- to strive for each month, focusing on how you can develop
that trait in yourself. For example, concentrating on intellectual humility, begin to notice when you admit
you are wrong. Notice when you refuse to admit you are wrong, even in the face of glaring evidence that
you are in fact wrong. Notice when you become defensive when another person tries to point out a
deficiency in your work, or your thinking. Notice when your intellectual arrogance keeps you from learning,
for example, when you say to yourself “I already know everything I need to know about this subject.” Or, “I
know as much as he does. Who does he think he is forcing his opinions on me?” By owning your
“ignorance,” you can begin to deal with it.
Strategy Six: Deal with Your Egocentrism. Egocentric thinking is found in the disposition in human nature
to think with an automatic subconscious bias in favor of oneself. On a daily basis, you can begin to observe
your egocentric thinking in action by contemplating questions like these: Under what circumstances do I
think with a bias in favor of myself? Did I ever become irritable over small things? Did I do or say anything
“irrational” to get my way? Did I try to impose my will upon others? Did I ever fail to speak my mind when I
felt strongly about something, and then later feel resentment? Once you identify egocentric thinking in
operation, you can then work to replace it with more rational thought through systematic self-reflection,
thinking along the lines of: What would a rational person feel in this or that situation? What would a
rational person do? How does that compare with what I want to do? (Hint: If you find that you continually
conclude that a rational person would behave just as you behaved you are probably engaging in self-
deception.)
Strategy Seven: Redefine the Way You See Things. We live in a world, both personal and social, in which
every situation is “defined,” that is, given a meaning. How a situation is defined determines not only how
we feel about it, but also how we act in it, and what implications it has for us. However, virtually every
situation can be defined in more than one way. This fact carries with it tremendous opportunities. In
principle, it lies within your power and mine to make our lives more happy and fulfilling than they are.
Many of the negative definitions that we give to situations in our lives could in principle be transformed
into positive ones. We can be happy when otherwise we would have been sad.
We can be fulfilled when otherwise we would have been frustrated. In this strategy, we practice redefining
the way we see things, turning negatives into positives, dead-ends into new beginnings, mistakes into
opportunities to learn. To make this strategy practical, we should create some specific guidelines for
ourselves. For example, we might make ourselves a list of five to ten recurrent negative contexts in which
we feel frustrated, angry, unhappy, or worried. We could then identify the definition in each case that is at
the root of the negative emotion. We would then choose a plausible alternative definition for each and
then plan for our new responses as well as new emotions. For example, if you tend to worry about all
problems, both the ones you can do something about and those that you can’t; you can review the thinking
in this nursery rhyme:
“For every problem under the sun, there is a solution or there is none. If there be one, think til you find it. If
there be none, then never mind it.”
Let’s look at another example. You do not have to define your initial approach to a member of the opposite
sex in terms of the definition “his/her response will determine whether or not I am an attractive person.”
Alternatively, you could define it in terms of the definition “let me test to see if this person is initially drawn
to me—given the way they perceive me.” With the first definition in mind, you feel personally put down if
the person is not “interested” in you; with the second definition you explicitly recognize that people
respond not to the way a stranger is, but the way they look to them subjectively. You therefore do not take
a failure to show interest in you (on the part of another) as a “defect” in you.
Strategy Eight: Get in touch with your emotions: Whenever you feel some negative emotion,
systematically ask yourself: What, exactly, is the thinking leading to this emotion? For example, if you are
angry, ask yourself, what is the thinking that is making me angry? What other ways could I think about this
situation? For example, can you think about the situation so as to see the humor in it and what is pitiable in
it? If you can, concentrate on that thinking and your emotions will (eventually) shift to match it.
Strategy Nine: Analyze group influences on your life: Closely analyze the behavior that is encouraged, and
discouraged, in the groups to which you belong. For any given group, what are you "required" to believe?
What are you "forbidden" to do? Every group enforces some level of conformity. Most people live much
too much within the view of themselves projected by others. Discover what pressure you are bowing to
and think explicitly about whether or not to reject that pressure.
Conclusion: The key point to keep in mind when devising strategies is that you are engaged in a personal
experiment. You are testing ideas in your everyday life. You are integrating them, and building on them, in
the light of your actual experience. For example, suppose you find the strategy “Redefine the Way You See
Things” to be intuitive to you. So you use it to begin. Pretty soon you find yourself noticing the social
definitions that rule many situations in your life. You recognize how your behavior is shaped and controlled
by the definitions in use:
1. “I’m giving a party,” (Everyone therefore knows to act in a “partying” way)
2. “The funeral is Tuesday,” (There are specific social behaviors expected at a funeral)
3. “Jack is an acquaintance, not really a friend.” (We behave very differently in the two
cases)
You begin to see how important and pervasive social definitions are. You begin to redefine situations in
ways that run contrary to some commonly accepted definitions. You notice then how redefining situations
(and relationships) enables you to “Get in Touch With Your Emotions.” You recognize that the way you
think (that is, define things) generates the emotions you experience. When you think you are threatened
(i.e., define a situation as “threatening”), you feel fear. If you define a situation as a “failure,” you may feel
depressed. On the other hand, if you define that same situation as a “lesson or opportunity to learn” you
feel empowered to learn. When you recognize this control that you are capable of exercising, the two
strategies begin to work together and reinforce each other.
Self Exploration
Researchers have found that people are more successful at their job tasks and find more
personal satisfaction with their occupation if four personal factors match the occupational
characteristics. In order to increase this match, career counselors have found that it is
helpful for individuals to become aware of their personality, abilities, interests, values and
past experiences. If you gain more self-awareness about these personal factors, it can
“PAIVE the way” (pronounced pave) to success and satisfaction with your chosen
occupation. Having a greater knowledge of yourself makes it easier to decide if the
characteristics of a job are a good match for you.
This section on Self Exploration is designed to give you strategies and tools to get more
information about your PAIVEs and to explain the role that each of these personal factors
can play in your occupational choice. As outlined in the above diagram, the strategies and
tools for Self Exploration include: formal inventories, self reflection and personal reactions
to different experiences (such as, personal, work and school). In the self exploration
sections we will give you access to these tools and strategies to get more information
about your personality, abilities, interests, values and past experiences. There will be
informal exercises as well a links to online inventories.
Inventories: Inventories are designed to help you identify your interests, skills, abilities,
personality traits and or values. They may be referred to as questionnaires, personality
tests, mental tests, psychological tests, etc. There is no correct answer to an inventory
question. They are simply a reflection of what you know or believe about yourself.
However, they are comprehensive by covering a large variety of activities and thoughts
regarding your personal characteristics. Second, they provide information about you in
comparison with others, i.e., how you are similar and different from other people that take
these tests. They often compare your responses to individuals who reported a high level of
satisfaction and success in careers. Third, they usually provide suggestions of alternate
occupations that might be of interest to you outside your previous range of experience and
knowledge. If done on the internet, they may have immediate links to Career Exploration
web sites that describe those careers.
To begin the self exploration process start where ever you wish:
Personality - Traditionally, personality is defined as ones consistent manner of behaving

and responding to the world or events that is somewhat stable in a variety of situations.
Personality is both how you behave as well as the feelings and thoughts that influence
how you behave.
Abilities - Abilities are the things you are naturally good at. The things you have an
aptitude for. They are the things you were able to do without a lot of effort and that you
learned how to do relatively easily (when compared to other things you tried to do).
Interests - Interests are those things you like to do and are attracted to doing without
anyone telling you. They are the things that hold your attention or arouse your curiosity.
Values - Your values are the things that you believe are important in your life and your
work. They may include: money, family, religion, ethics and morals, respect, social status,
creativity, power, etc. They can be the source of motivation for what you choose and do in
different aspects of your life and should form the goals you pursue in your life.
AC2; Strategies for dealing with personal crises
Factors in Resilience
A combination of factors contributes to resilience. Many studies show that the primary
factor in resilience is having caring and supportive relationships within and outside the
family. Relationships that create love and trust, provide role models, and offer
encouragement and reassurance help bolster a person's resilience.
Several additional factors are associated with resilience, including:
 The capacity to make realistic plans and take steps to carry them out
 A positive view of yourself and confidence in your strengths and abilities
 Skills in communication and problem solving
 The capacity to manage strong feelings and impulses
All of these are factors that people can develop in themselves.
Strategies For Building Resilience
Developing resilience is a personal journey. People do not all react the same to traumatic
and stressful life events. An approach to building resilience that works for one person
might not work for another. People use varying strategies.
Some variation may reflect cultural differences. A person's culture might have an impact
on how he or she communicates feelings and deals with adversity -- for example, whether
and how a person connects with significant others, including extended family members
and community resources. With growing cultural diversity, the public has greater access to
a number of different approaches to building resilience.
Some or many of the ways to build resilience in the following pages may be appropriate to
consider in developing your personal strategy.
Resilience involves maintaining flexibility and balance in your life as you deal with stressful
circumstances and traumatic events. This happens in several ways, including:
 Letting yourself experience strong emotions, and also realizing when you may need
to avoid experiencing them at times in order to continue functioning
 Stepping forward and taking action to deal with your problems and meet the
demands of daily living, and also stepping back to rest and reenergize yourself
 Spending time with loved ones to gain support and encouragement, and also
nurturing yourself
 Relying on others, and also relying on yourself
4; Make an informed life decision based on self-

knowledge.
AC1; Goals appropriate to the learner's life situation.
Creating a Reflection Practice: Goals.
There are some basic steps that we need to follow in order to create an effective reflection
practice:
Set aside time every day
Once we recognize the need to stop and reflect, it has to become a habit. The only way to
create and maintain this habit is to do it on a regular basis, after all that’s what makes it a
habit. We need to find a time in the day that belongs only to us. Allow no interruptions; no
phones, no computers, no screaming kids, no screaming coworkers. The best thing to do
is to actually set aside this time in our daily planner and make it unchangeable. We
shouldn’t let anything else replace it in our schedule if at all possible.
Find a place conducive to reflecting
The goal here is to find a place that will allow us to quiet our mind and body. It really can
be anywhere, but for the duration of the reflecting period we should remain still. So we
need to find a place that is quiet, with a minimum of distractions where we can sit
comfortably. We want this space to comfortable in a non-painful sort of way, not in a “this
is so comfy I want to fall asleep” sort of way. The temperature in the space should not be
too hot or too cold. We want to minimize anything that can distract us from our purpose at
hand.
Quiet the mind
Once we have found our quiet, comfortable place, we can begin to quiet our mind. At first
this can be difficult for many folks. We spend our entire day running from place to place,
dealing with issue after issue and it’s hard to just turn all of that off. But here is the good
news: it really can be done. Start by sitting still. You can keep your eyes open or close
them. Personally.
In order to quiet the mind, we need to focus on something else. For centuries focus on
breathing has been a choice for many and for good reason. It is something we have to do
while we are sitting and something we usually don’t pay any attention to throughout our
day. We just breath naturally, in and out, in and out. But as we do it as part of our
reflection practice, we need to pay attention to each breath. Let everything else go and
focus on each breath. If you need help staying focused on each breath, try counting
breaths backwards from 50. Each inhale is 1/2, each exhale the next whole number. So as
we start, inhaling the first breath, we think 1/2. On the exhale we think 50. The second
inhale is 1/2, exhale is 49 and so on. This helps to keep the focus on our breathing.
Choose a reflection focus
As we get more adept at focusing on our breathing, we find that our mind begins to quiet
down. It is at this point that we are able to begin seeing what is most important. With a
quiet mind we can begin to bring to the front of our thoughts those things that we want to
reflect on today. It is not possible to reflect on all of the aspects of Reflection Leadership at
the same time, so this is the point where we need to decide what our reflection focus will
be today. Maybe it is our personal values or understanding why certain systems in the
organization are blocking us from success. Whatever it is we need to choose what today’s
focus will be and put a clear statement in our mind of exactly what we want to reflect upon.
Accept what you find
The key here is not to force any particular thoughts or feelings to the surface. While
continuing to focus on each breath, we need to pay attention to where our thoughts go. At
this point we shouldn’t judge or try to influence the flow of thought, just let them happen
and experience them. If we find that we are heading away from our reflection focus for the
day, we need to calmly review the clear statement of exactly what we want to reflect upon.
Reflect on what it means
After we have allowed ourselves to generate what seem to be random thoughts about our
reflection focus, it is time to reflect on what it all means and what we can do about it. While
we are still in our quiet time and space we should start to reflect on what we have found.
Sometimes there will be a clear picture that gives us the answer that we are seeking.
Sometimes the picture isn’t so clear. It may be that we won’t get any answers from a
particular reflection session and will need to come back to the same reflection focus again.
We may need to take our reflection away with us to another place and time where we can
be more creative in our reflection. But at this point we have accomplished the act of finding
the issues that are most important for us to pay attention to.
When we are able to take these steps and follow them everyday, we will have a reflection
practice that begins to yield results. We will be able to quiet our minds to cut through the
daily noise so that we are able to focus on those things that are most important.
AC1; Decision-making strategies are used to make a life decision.
Analysis and Decision Making
To simplify analysis and decision making, we reduce many of our beliefs to simple rules.
Taken together this set of rules becomes our worldview. Stress, including our responses to
threats, attacks, abuse, and insults often cause us to revert to primal thinking based on the
fallacy ofpolarized thinking. The primitive rules often create a rigid and absolute notion of
good and evil.
Definitions
1. Simplified basis for drawing conclusions.
Rules are not to be broken
When we see others breaking our rules we want to punish the cheaters; often violently.
Setting the Trap
Some hypersensitive people with fragile self-esteem establish a system of (often unwritten) rules so
extensive, complex, and unreasonable that their rules will inevitably be broken. Then they use the broken
rule as an excuse to retaliate; often violently.
A better set of rules
Perhaps adopting these well-chosen rules can help increase your emotional competency and enjoyment of
life. You may want to print out thisthis one-page version and keep it with you or share it with co-workers.
 Expect respect. Don't tolerate disrespect. Don't show disrespect toward others.
Don't ignore disrespect directed toward yourself or others. Learn to discern genuine
respect from patronization.
 Don't make assumptions. Suspend judgment until you can gather representative
evidence, confirm the facts, and consider a variety of viewpoints. Challenge and
investigate the source of rumors rather than passing them on.
 Don't overlook logical fallacies or meaningful factual errors. They are clear
evidence of faulty and careless thinking, and often of deliberate deception. Apply
the theory of knowledge continuously to evaluate all you see and hear.
 Dignity is unalienable; it is our humanity and it cannot be taken away.

Consistently acknowledge with your words and deeds the dignity inherent in
yourself and all others.
 Don't tolerate Ad hominem attacks. Do not make them yourself. Do not ignore
them when you see or hear them. They are a fallacy and a dangerous precursor to
hate.
 Refuse to hate. Understand and reconcile your loss, hurt, or distress through
careful analyses, not by blaming others or by hating others. Emphasize all the
important things you have in common with others, not the small ways you differ.
Hate is only sustained by cognitive error. Find and correct that error.
 Always act congruently with your well-chosen values and beliefs. Be

authentic. Improve your values and beliefs deliberately as your world view expands.
 You are a competent, autonomous adult. You are fully responsible for all your
words and actions, as are other competent adults. You are not helpless. Be
impeccable with your word; do what you say.
AC3; A plan of action is developed to enable the learner to achieve

personal goals.
Goals Desired Outcomes
What do you want to have happen? How do you spend your time? How do you meet your needs? How are
you living your values? How do you act on your beliefs? What direction are you heading? Where do you
want to go? What do you want from your life? Where will you end up? Are you happy and satisfied? What
difference will you make? What will your memoirs say? What will be your legacy? We all aspire to achieve
our goals.
Definitions
1. A desired outcome
2. An endpoint
3. Setting direction
4. The future we pursue
Related Terms
Many English language words describe intent, direction, desire, or outcome. These include: aim, ambition,
aspiration, desire, destination, dream, hope, intent, intention, mark, mission, objective, plan, purpose,
target, and wish. They vary in the degree of commitment, time-frame, scope, difficulty, and realism they
express.
The phrase goal commitment refers to the importance, level of effort, and motivation directed toward
reaching your goals. Our goals establish a direction and our motivation moves us along in that direction.
Benefits
Goals set direction for our actions in both the short term and longer term. Together they establish an
important plan for living our lives.
The Roles of Goals, the Goals of Roles
Goals provide us short-term focus and longer-term perspective. We have needs that must be met for us to
survive and thrive. We have values that express what we hold as important. We have beliefs that we hold
to be true. We have aspirations, hopes, wishes, ambitions, dreams, and desires that may go beyond our
needs. We have limited time, attention, ability, and energy. We are motivated to take action to achieve our
goals. In choosing one goal, we are often abandoning several others. For example, choosing a particular
career is often a choice to abandon or at least significantly delay goals for an alternative career. Delay in
making a clear choice is often a choice to defer a specific goal. Choose goals carefully and establish a
healthy balance across all the roles you fill. We choose goals to get the most out of our life, however we
may choose to define it.
Most of us fill many different roles throughout the course of our lives. These might include: son or
daughter, student or teacher, player or coach, master or apprentice, boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or
wife, parent or guardian, aunt or uncle, leader or follower, worker or boss, caregiver or care receiver,
healer or healing, buyer or seller, speaker or listener, guest or host, giver or receiver, and friend or
philosopher. We have particular goals for each of these roles. Revise your goals as the saliency of each role
changes. It helps to keep each of these roles, and the goals for each, in a healthy balance.
Increase the congruence of your actions with your goals, beliefs, and values. Pay attention to how you
spend your time. Do the activities you spend the most time on advance your most important goals? Do your
goals reflect your values? Do your values reflect your authentic? Is your life in balance? Reappraise your
values, beliefs, goals, and actions to improve the congruence.
Appraisals
Without a goal at stake there is no potential for stress or emotion. Any particular event may advance your
goals, thwart your goals, or be irrelevant to them. A single event may advance some goals while thwarting
others. The impact on our goals determines the extent of the stress, the coping strategy, and the type and
strength of emotions that are elicited.
We appraise events based on their impact on our goals. If an event advances our goals we are joyous and
often proud. If an event thwarts our goals we become angry, sad, jealous, or envious. If the goal is
important the impact on us of the progress or setback is great and the resulting emotions are intense.
Emotions reveal goals. Obstacles to meeting our goals cause stress and require us to cope.
Impulse
We order dessert despite our goal of losing weight. We go out with friends despite our goal to finish our
homework and study for tomorrow's test. We spend money to buy something we don't need despite our
goal to save enough money to buy a house. Often we yield to the immediacy of the moment and jeopardize
long-term goals for some immediate satisfaction.
Impulse control is the ability to suppress an immediate temptation in favour of your longer-term goals. It is
the often difficult deliberate choice to take responsibility for your actions. It is choosing an internal locus. It
is the decision to recognize what you can change. It is the decision not to make excuses or blame others. It
is the distinction between autonomy and irresponsibility. It is the true test of our goals commitment and
values.
Conflicting Goals
Even well-chosen goals can conflict with one another. The goal to finish college or advance a career can
easily conflict with goals to spend more time with family or have more fun. Giving careful thought to your
values, along with creative approaches to resolving can help resolve these difficult and inevitable dilemmas.
Failure to resolve these conflicts leads to ambivalence.
Goals Hierarchy
Short-term goals help us reach our long-term goals. Goals establish current plans to meet our needs. We
revise our goals over time as we achieve, learn from, or abandon previous goals and as our values and
beliefs evolve. Our values express what is important to us and help us choose the most meaningful goals
from the unlimited number of possible goals. Below is an example high-level goals hierarchy, where long-
term goals are broken down into more immediate and specific goals. Proceeding from a high level to a
lower level in the hierarchy answers the question “How will you . . . ” The higher level goal answers the
question
Self Assessment
Self Assessment:
You have come to the end of this module – please take the time to
review what you have learnt to date, and conduct a self assessment
against the learning outcomes of this module by following the
instructions below:
Rate your understanding of each of the outcomes listed below:
Keys:  - no understanding
 - Some idea
 - Completely comfortable
SELF
RATING
NO OUTCOME
  
1.
The qualifying learner is capable of:
2.
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of self as a
unique individual.
3.
Demonstrate understanding of self in relation to different
environments.
4.
Using a variety of strategies to deal with life situations.
Learner Evaluation Form

Learning Facilitator Name
Programme Name
Learner name Dates of

(Optional) Facilitation
Employer / Work Date of

site Evaluation
Learner Tip:
Please complete the Evaluation Form as thoroughly as you are able

to, in order for us to continuously improve our training quality!
The purpose of the Evaluation Form is to evaluate the following:
 logistics and support

 facilitation
 training material
 assessment
Your honest and detailed input is therefore of great value to us, and
we appreciate your assistance in completing this evaluation form!
A Logistics and Support Evaluation

No Criteria / Question
Below Standard
Sufficient
Excellent
Standard
Above
Poor
1 Was communication regarding attendance of the

programme efficient and effective?
2 Was the Programme Coordinator helpful and efficient?
3 Was the training equipment and material used
effective and prepared?
4 Was the training venue conducive to learning (set-up
for convenience of learners, comfortable in terms of
temperature, etc.)?
Additional Comments on Logistics and Support
Above Standard
Below Standard
Sufficient
Excellent
Poor
B Facilitator Evaluation
1 The Facilitator was prepared and knowledgeable on the
subject of the programme
2 The Facilitator encouraged learner participation and input
3 The Facilitator made use of a variety of methods,
exercises, activities and discussions
4 The Facilitator used the material in a structured and
effective manner
5 The Facilitator was understandable, approachable and
respectful of the learners
6 The Facilitator was punctual and kept to the schedule
Additional Comments on Facilitation
Sufficient
Excellent
Standard
Standard
Above
Below
Poor
1 2 3 4 5
C Learning Programme Evaluation
1 The learning outcomes of the programme are
relevant and suitable.
2 The content of the programme was relevant
and suitable for the target group.
3 The length of the facilitation was suitable for
the programme.
4 The learning material assisted in learning new
knowledge and skills to apply in a practical
manner.
5 The Learning Material was free from spelling
and grammar errors
6 Handouts and Exercises are clear, concise
and relevant to the outcomes and content.
7 Learning material is generally of a high
standard, and user friendly
Additional Comments on Learning Programme
D Assessment Evaluation
Sufficient
Excellent
Standard
Standard
Above
Below
Poor
1 2 3 4 5
1 A clear overview provided of the assessment
requirements of the programme was provided
2 The assessment process and time lines were clearly
explained
3 All assessment activities and activities were discussed
Additional Comments on Assessment

Learner Guide: US ID: 119342 NQF Level 5

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Apply client service techniques to improve service delivery

Field 03 - Business, Commerce and Management Studies

Self as our Prototype for Others.................................................................................................19

ACKNOWLEDGMENTError: Reference source not foundError: Reference source

 National Department of Education

 NSA (Nsamba) consulting and training

 South African Police Service (SAPS)

 The constitutional Court

Preface:Error: Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found8

IntroductionError: Reference source not foundError:

The qualifying learner is capable of:

 Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of self as a unique individual.

2.2Error: Reference source not found Learner Support

3.Error: Reference source not found Assessment

Please refer to the beginning of each module for the learning

3.Error: Reference source not found1Error: Reference source not found

3.Error: Reference source not found2Error: Reference source not found

You will be required to complete a Portfolio of Evidence for summative assessment

If it is not documented, it did not happen!

In some evidence, the process you followed is more important than

4.Error: Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found

4.Error: Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found1Error:

Group Activity / Pair Activity:Error: Reference source not

You will be required to complete an activity in your group or in pairs

Individual Activity:Error: Reference source not found Error:

You will be required to complete an activity on your own that relates

Complete the assessment activity that will be assessed as part of

Reflect on the question(s) asked to identify the relevance of learning

A useful tip or essential element regarding the concept under

Content matter that is critical to the understanding of the module.

Refer to your Mentor or Workplace Supervisor to assist in this

Please refer to the beginning of each module for the learning

Self AssessmentError: Reference source not found:

4.Error: Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found

The following Learner Administration is critical in assisting your

Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the requirements.

4.Error: Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found2Error:

Without the Learner Registration and ID Documents we will not be

4.Error: Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found3Error:

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES, STANDARDS AND CODE OF

1. The qualifying learner is capable of:

Self-Reflection: How to Do It Right

SO1 Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of

Detaching our Ego

Self as our Prototype for Others

The Extent of Compassion

Empathy is other-awareness, symmetrical with self-awareness.

We influence others by changing their point of view.

Transcending Your Self

Belie what we accept as true

 A statement, assertion, or theory you accept as true.

Myths and Misconceptions:

3. That's just how I am.

4. It's all my parent's fault.

5. It's all your fault.

6. If we don't talk about it the issue will disappear.

7. The past constrains the future.

An assumption is an unfounded belief. Assumptions are unchallenged, unquestioned, unexamined, and

Professed Beliefs and Actual Beliefs

My values include: contribution, symmetry, empathy, ethics, congruence, integration, authenticity,

Goal Desired Outcomes

4. The future we pursue

The Roles of Goals, the Goals of Roles