For the past 13 weeks, I have learnt more about enhancing self-awareness and self-esteem, Managing Anger and conflict. Not that I wasn’t aware of any of them earlier on, but just that I have a better and clearer picture of them and the understanding now is more in-depth.Self-awareness is important to me because it helps me to observe myself without judgment and to see myself as who I am. Self-awareness is thus the best tool to enhance my self-esteem.
Self-esteem is the foundation of everything in our lives, so to speak. A healthy self-esteem starts with self-awareness, paying attention to our needs and goals. Gaining knowledge on them enables me to understand myself better and hence I am aware of my own desires, objectives and ambition in life. In other words, I know what I want and there is a sense of direction in my life. I should be confident then.
Managing time is crucial because getting tasks done right saves us the useful time that can be used on other tasks. For instance, if I devote my time specifically to revision, I should revise wholeheartedly, after which I will be able to spend time on leisure activities, or rather making use of time while waiting for transport to revise saves me the useful time that can be used for other purposes. Often, there is too much to do and not enough time to do it.
An effective method of time management is prioritizing. By prioritizing, I can place my tasks on order of importance and deal with them one at a time. Because of time constraints, we need to know how to maximize our time at work to ensure that we complete our work both effectively and efficiently. In short using effective time management practices ensures quality use of time as well as efficiency.
In the lesson for managing anger, I have learnt several ways of managing anger. They are: listening to music, exercising, drawing, or even mediating and deep breathing. If there’s someone whom I trust, I can talk to her about my feeling and thoughts. Penning down my emotions helps as well. I have also learnt about COW Behavioral Responses to Anger (Control, Outbursts and Withdrawal; which was further elaborated and explained in my second blog.) Hence, the above strategies in managing anger aid me in dealing with anger. When I am exasperated or irritated, I wouldn’t vent my anger on others. Instead, I would contain my rage and manage my anger in whichever ways preferable to me.
Through the project that my group had done, I came to realize that compromising and collaborating were essential in handling our problems. I recognized my strengths and weakness in teamwork and conflict management. As such, identifying my weakness prompts me to perfect and develop more strength which will greatly benefit me in future projects or even relationships with my peers and family members. Adopting strategies in managing conflict can help significantly in resolving future disputes.
I understand how listening is a vital part of communicating and is necessary to make the world a better place. In this fast-paced world overloaded with communication technology, lack of personal communication skills can result in negative behavior and outcomes. I suppose those who succeed in life also succeed in communication. Personal communication specifically understands what others are trying to say. Communicating my ideas and conflict management are skills that I hope to strengthen in order to empower me to become a better person.
With effective communication skills, I will be able to express my thoughts and feelings clearly in such a way that they are understood by others. Of course, I know that proficiency in communicating is not something that can be mastered overnight. Therefore, I hope that my communication skills improves gradually in the subsequent 3 years in Ngee Ann. Additionally, we should treat others with the same dignity and respect that I would expect. With that, conflicts can be avoided. Being calm is beneficial in preventing the conflict from aggravating further.
All in all, the above topics covered in Life Management Skills have significantly help in enabling me to become a better person by understanding myself more, to become resourceful person by managing time effectively and efficiently. On top of that, I have greater confidence in managing conflict in the course of a project and not forgetting the importance of teamwork. I am sure, all that will stand me in good stead, not only academic wise, but I believe that these would be applicable when I am out there in the society too. As a matter of fact, such skills are vital in the society when we graduate. They will stay with us life-long, so to speak.
I must say that I have also enjoyed the lessons conducted by the tutor. There isn’t any communication barrier between the tutor and us, in the sense that we can joke among ourselves. I feel pretty comfortable coming for LMS as the atmosphere is rather flexible. I don’t quite know how to put it across, but perhaps that’s the reason why studies IS is different from other modules. Though stressful at times because of the project (role-play), assignments and the blogs that we have to post, I suppose that’s part-and-parcel of Poly life. Come to think of it, it’s a routine that everyone experiences. I mean it’s pretty fair, since there isn’t Exams for IS. I do admit that at times, I dread the routine of assignments and projects. Since these are the requirements, we got to abide by it. Nevertheless, it’s not easy.
Honestly on the whole, I take pleasure in attending LMS class and have really benefitted from the lessons conducted and not forgetting the movies screened. Screening movies captivates our attention and most importantly, enable us to learn and absorb better aside from the usual routine of learning from PowerPoint slides, not that it is monotonous, but using other ways of bringing across a message such as screening a part of a movie helps us in understanding concepts better.
Reference:
http://www.selfesteemawareness.com/What-is-self-esteem.htm
http://www.stfrancis.edu/ba/ghkickul/stuwebs/btopics/works/time.htm
http://homt.earthlink.net/~themariens/LeadershipCommunication.htm
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