Personal Development and Career Planning: A Reflective Essay

ESSAY

Introduction

In the modern society where competition is escalating extensively, enhancing personal skills and attributes is necessary for acquiring success in the career planning process and experiencing growth. Personal Development is defined as the process in which an individual assesses their qualities, skills, and attributes in order to intensify their potential and set appropriate goals for growth (Orlov et al., 2018). It is essential for career growth as it increases the confidence and professionalism that are considered vital qualities for career growth. The essay will cover a reflection on personal learning and development in relation to personal future development.

Main Body

With the changing situation of society, the students must develop their capabilities and enhance their expertise to gain a high competitive advantage. Whereas, in order to create effective planning for the future improvement and achieve the right career path I have developed several skills within me in accordance with my studies. Several concepts and attributes that are important for an individual to carry out their future planning processes are decision making, communication, management, teamwork, patience and many more. Developing skills is necessary as it assists in improving the proficiency of an individual in any specific area (Lazorenko and Krasnenko, 2019). This helps in building a professional network, time management, effective communication, and negotiation skills. In accordance with the focus on my personal career development, I have extensively developed several skills that can be an effective aspect for me to achieve the right path in my career. Communication is conceptualised as one of the most necessary skills for an individual that can help them to interact with different people that can including important professionals, authorities and many more (Surwanti, 2019).

Whereas, with my higher studies I was able to develop effective communication skills that can help me to achieve my career goals and plan for my future development. This will be possible for me by interacting with different people in the same field as they will guide me on the right path to achieve it. Furthermore, after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, I learned the process of managing different works at the same time. With the management skills, I will be able to manage conflicts and tackle the issues that can hinder my career growth in the future. Patience is an important skill that every student should have as it can result in better decision-making processes and upgrade the morale and confidence to perform any task (Bülbül and Izgar, 2018). It can help in avoiding future challenges and accomplishing the aims and objectives. Hence, I focused on developing and learning the ability to be patient in different situations that will assist me to make the right decision for my personal growth.

Moreover, during learning and developing these skills and expertise I gained immense knowledge about myself and the abilities that I have, which can help me to function. Furthermore, I came to know about some of my weaknesses as well that can hinder my career growth and development. Hence, I will have to improve several knowledge and skills to acquire success in the future. The positive aspect about myself that I came to learn is that I have several skills, which can help in my growth in the future. According to Jalinus et al. (2020), team working skill is essential as it ensures that people share ideas, thoughts and responsibilities to increase productivity and lessen stress, which can result in an innovative approach. I noticed that I have effective team working skills which is a necessary approach for achieving success in my career and acquiring growth. On the other hand, Ragonis et al. (2020), opined that time management is important while working in a team as it strategies the right method to complete the tasks and create a more efficient environment. I conceptualised that, managing time is lacking my growth in studies, which can have an adverse effect on my career development in future.

Creativity can help in carrying out the work processes and tasks with innovative approaches that can help an individual to gain a high advantage while looking for growth in their career (Henriksen et al., 2018). I evaluated that, the lack of creativity has pushed me back while performing the relevant activities that can enhance my career. Moreover, my low problem-solving skill has resulted in decreasing my functioning processes and put me into a difficult situation that can negatively impact my development in future processes. Whereas, in order to tackle the implications due to the lack of problem-solving skills, I have discovered that decision-making can help in choosing the right path that will have fewer issues and problems to carry out the tasks. Hence, these attributes can be developed by several career development theories. According to Yunus et al. (2018), Frank Parson’s Trait and Factor Theory can help an individual to ideally choose their career as per their skills and traits, which will also focus on work environment and pay. It is a necessary model for me.

It can assist me to examine and identify the right job career based on the skills that I have or can help me to develop the relevant skills. On the other hand, Lee et al. (2018), provided the idea that Bandura’s social cognitive theory of career development can assist a student to increase their self-belief and thoughts to acquire the right path and control their actions with effective decisions. This is important for me as it can develop and strategies new processes of learning and development that can indulge me with the work operations.

After analysing the skills and knowledge that I have within me, I decided on my career goal to be a teacher. I decided to be a teacher because I was inspired by Andria Zafirakou. In the year 2018, a teacher from north London was awarded as the world’s best teacher, who was responsible for teaching textile and arts in a Brent secondary school (Coughlan, 2018). Several qualities of a teacher that I have are effective communication, active listener, I am efficiency to engage with the children and having patience as well. Moreover, I am inspired to be a teacher because when I was 10 years old most of my teachers scolded me to improve my handwriting. Whereas, I had a teacher that encouraged me to not focus on my handwriting and inspired me to write the right and meaningful things that provides knowledge and add value to my own skills. This situation that I went through at that age helped me to decide on my career. I decided to be a teacher because I wanted to help kids with several weaknesses and other issues that can hinder their growth. Moreover, I wanted to help myself by interacting with children and understanding their problems that affect their studies and other academic success.

In accordance with my career goals, to be a teacher I needed several skills, qualifications, experiences, and attributes. Critical thinking is an important skill that teachers should have to develop their careers and escalate their growth (Egmir and Ocak, 2020). This is necessary as tutors carry out different activities such as analysing and identifying the long-term learning and teaching goals. They are responsible for determining the needs and evaluating the progress of the student in their academics. Whereas, I have to oversee to develop of this skill within me, which will effectively help me to plan my career growth and acquire the required success in future. Moreover, it has been regarded that communication skills are the most important aspect that can increase the performing ability of an individual (Lapcharoen, 2021). This assists in effective interaction with different kinds of people that increases the chances of growth and achievement for different rewards in a specific field. I have this skill within me, as I have developed this while completing my higher studies. Hence, I will be able to acquire a teaching job career appropriately without any difficulty.

As I have already conceptualised that the lack of time management can affect my career growth and achieving success in the relevant job that should be acquired for me to experience growth. Time management skills will help me as a teacher to be punctual in the institute and become an ideal teacher as well as an idol for the students. This will become an assistant for me to achieve my desired goals and aims of becoming a teacher. There are some qualification aspects as well to becoming a teacher, which include a 2:2 degree, a C/4 grade in GCSE and several previous convictions for entry-level (prospect.ac.uk, 2021). Moreover, in order to become a good teacher, I need to have several qualities as well such as the ability to relate to different people whether a student or parents.

I have managed to learn different skills and expertise that can help me to encourage myself to develop a feeling of acquiring success and growth in my career development. I oversaw to develop communication skills by collaboratively working on the class presentation and becoming the speaker during presenting it to teachers. Moreover, communication can help a person to effectively interact with different people and share their thoughts and ideas in order to develop an effective connection (Lapcharoen, 2021). While working on different class projects and tasks I was able to develop the team working skills that will help me in enhancing my career and provide me with high job opportunities in order to accomplish my career goals. Whereas, the right decision-making skills that I have developed me was due to having a vision of tackling the problems that can negatively impact me and my future as well.

Hence, with effective decision-making skills, I will be able to decide on the right approach that will be needed for me to achieve the desired aims and objectives. I have a habit of taking the responsibility for everything that is beneficial for me and also provides growth to other people. Thus, this helped me to develop a feeling of adaptability and management within me that positively affected my work processes and assisted me to gain a high competitive advantage in my academics as well as career planning procedures. Hence, these are my current skills and evidence that assisted me in the completion of stage 1 of the Career Development Award. Whereas, in order to experience the development in future I will have to assess several strategies and skills that are needed for my growth in future.

Table no. 1: SMART Table

(Source: Created by the learner)

Table No. 2: Personal Development Plan

(Source: Created by the learner)

Conclusion

The summary of the above essay has provided an idea of personal development and its necessity for choosing a career. It has also included the career development process in the essay, which consisted of a self-reflection on learning and development approaches for the future. It has included several career development theories that provided the idea of choosing the right career path for development in future and acquiring the right job. A personal development plan has been included in the essay that encouraged me to develop several skills and expertise.

References

Bülbül, A.E. and Izgar, G., 2018. Effects of the Patience Training Program on Patience and Well-Being Levels of University Students. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 6(1), pp.159-168.

Coughlan. S., 2018. UK teacher wins global best teacher prize [Online] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/education-43422199#:~:text=A%20teacher%20from%20north%20London,facing%20many%20of%20her%20pupils. [Accessed 28 April 2022]

Egmir, E. and Ocak, I., 2020. The Relationship between Teacher Candidates' Critical Thinking Standards and Reflective Thinking Skills. International Journal of Progressive Education, 16(3), pp.156-170.

Henriksen, D., Henderson, M., Creely, E., Ceretkova, S., ?ernochová, M., Sendova, E., Sointu, E.T. and Tienken, C.H., 2018. Creativity and technology in education: An international perspective. Technology, Knowledge and Learning, 23(3), pp.409-424.

Jalinus, N., Syahril, S., Nabawi, R.A. and Arbi, Y., 2020. How project-based learning and direct teaching models affect teamwork and welding skills among students. International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change., 11(11), pp.85-111.

Lapcharoen, S., 2021. Twenty-First Century Competencies: How Can Teacher Education Programs Prepare Teacher Candidates for Successful Teaching Career Paths?. FWU Journal of Social Sciences, 15(4), pp.20-33.

Lazorenko, L. and Krasnenko, O., 2019. The importance of developing 21st century skills for advanced students. Publishing House “Baltija Publishing”.

Lee, C.G., Park, S., Lee, S.H., Kim, H. and Park, J.W., 2018. Social cognitive theory and physical activity among Korean male high-school students. American journal of men's health, 12(4), pp.973-980.

Orlov, A.A., Pazukhina, S., Yakushin, A. and Ponomareva, T., 2018. A study of first-year students’ adaptation difficulties as the basis to promote their personal development in university education. Psychology in Russia: State of the art, 11(1), pp.71-83.

prospect.ac.uk, 2021. How to become a teacher [Online] Available at: https://www.prospects.ac.uk/jobs-and-work-experience/job-sectors/teacher-training-and-education/how-to-become-a-teacher [Accessed 28 April 2022]

Ragonis, N., Hazzan, O. and Har-Shai, G., 2020. Students’ awareness and embracement of soft skills by learning and practicing teamwork. Journal of Information Technology Education: Innovations in Practice, 19, pp.185-201.

Surwanti, D., 2019. Improving Effective Communication in Students’ Classroom Presentation. Journal of English Education, Literature and Linguistics, 2(2), pp.1-14.

Yunus, A.R., Hassan, S.S., Kamarudin, M.F., Abd Majid, I. and Saad, M.S., 2018. Integrated personality profiling framework using traits and factors theory for Malaysian HLI enrolment: A new approach. International Journal of Human and Technology Interaction (IJHaTI), 2(1), pp.57-60.