I believe the American standard of living is unsustainable and must be streamlined.
I believe it is crazy how we expect a pill to cure us from our own bad habits.
I believe we need to reduce our consumption of 'things' to reach a sustainable lifestyle.
I believe every individual is responsible to live sustainably.
I believe it is appropriate for government to nudge us toward a sustainable lifestyle.
I believe a sustainable lifestyle is incompatible with our current free market economy.
I believe we need affordable health care for all Americans, sick and well.
I believe we need to worry a lot more about educating our children and a lot less about war and crime.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
How to Find The Ideal Career for Me?
In my effort to find the ideal career for myself, I have engaged with a career counselor. At this point in the process, I have done a few exercises to help me better understand my likes and dislikes; comfort and discomfort zones; and wants and needs. This is a challenging task for me and I have more work to do in order to fully develop my thoughts.
One of the exercises is the DISC tool. This tool identified my tendency to be Steady and Compliant with help from Interactivity butt almost no Dominance. The analysis of this shows that I am flexible to work with both the dominant visionaries and the crew that gets the work done. I am able to see merit in differing points of view. The benefit of this analysis is that I can better understand my tendencies and adapt to other styles to improve my communication.
Advice from my counselor is to practice those areas where I am less comfortable in order to be ready to use them when called for in certain communication situations. My homework includes exercises to express my decisiveness - create a blog of my opinions; join Toastmasters to practice delivering my message; writing my success stories; practicing conversation with strangers; and adding to my list of skills, likes and needs from a work perspective.
These homework assignments have pressed on my personal discomfort and caused me to question the process. Am I working to find the career areas that I naturally enjoy? Or am I forcing myself to become more comfortable with my weaker areas for personal growth? A bit of both, I suppose. What I feel I need is growth in my personal self confidence and in my self awareness that will lead me to a career choice with which I am happy.
Let's examine each exercise in relation to these objectives.
This opinion blog is a forum to be decisive. I will use it to state what I believe. At first, I thought of the opinions as a way to force myself to make a stand and state my opinion. Now I see it more like a way to increase my self awareness through the practice of formulating my opinions.
I will meet with the Toastmasters group on Tuesday. I have always admired this group and see the practice and skill of public speaking as valuable. I feel that I am ahead of most in this arena having addressed groups up to 150 in number. However, most of my practice is with work groups that I am very comfortable with. I feel Toastmasters will expand this skill and increase my personal self confidence.
Writing my success stories is a must. I need to be able to share these successes with a prospective employer. In addition, reviewing the details of my past successes should help to improve my self confidence. This exercise should help me to recall the work related activities in which I enjoy most and have skill.
I am practicing conversations with strangers. This is like an extension of Toastmasters to the individual level. This is great practice to gain comfort talking to new people of different personalities. I can practice interacting with all types, D, I, S and C and give thought to detecting their tendencies and to how I adapted my communicating style to improve our interaction. This is skill building for personal growth. I am sure it will help in the interview process, but do I need it?
I struggle to add to my list of skills, likes and needs. My mind goes blank when I focus on this task. As I noted above, the success stories should help in identifying these things. I feel this list building is the main activity that will help me discover what career is best for me. However the tool to do this is a non-starter for me. I need more help in this area.
I see value in all of these exercises. But my goal of finding the ideal career for me is best served by looking within for the skills, likes and needs that are most important to me. I want more emphasis in this area.
One of the exercises is the DISC tool. This tool identified my tendency to be Steady and Compliant with help from Interactivity butt almost no Dominance. The analysis of this shows that I am flexible to work with both the dominant visionaries and the crew that gets the work done. I am able to see merit in differing points of view. The benefit of this analysis is that I can better understand my tendencies and adapt to other styles to improve my communication.
Advice from my counselor is to practice those areas where I am less comfortable in order to be ready to use them when called for in certain communication situations. My homework includes exercises to express my decisiveness - create a blog of my opinions; join Toastmasters to practice delivering my message; writing my success stories; practicing conversation with strangers; and adding to my list of skills, likes and needs from a work perspective.
These homework assignments have pressed on my personal discomfort and caused me to question the process. Am I working to find the career areas that I naturally enjoy? Or am I forcing myself to become more comfortable with my weaker areas for personal growth? A bit of both, I suppose. What I feel I need is growth in my personal self confidence and in my self awareness that will lead me to a career choice with which I am happy.
Let's examine each exercise in relation to these objectives.
This opinion blog is a forum to be decisive. I will use it to state what I believe. At first, I thought of the opinions as a way to force myself to make a stand and state my opinion. Now I see it more like a way to increase my self awareness through the practice of formulating my opinions.
I will meet with the Toastmasters group on Tuesday. I have always admired this group and see the practice and skill of public speaking as valuable. I feel that I am ahead of most in this arena having addressed groups up to 150 in number. However, most of my practice is with work groups that I am very comfortable with. I feel Toastmasters will expand this skill and increase my personal self confidence.
Writing my success stories is a must. I need to be able to share these successes with a prospective employer. In addition, reviewing the details of my past successes should help to improve my self confidence. This exercise should help me to recall the work related activities in which I enjoy most and have skill.
I am practicing conversations with strangers. This is like an extension of Toastmasters to the individual level. This is great practice to gain comfort talking to new people of different personalities. I can practice interacting with all types, D, I, S and C and give thought to detecting their tendencies and to how I adapted my communicating style to improve our interaction. This is skill building for personal growth. I am sure it will help in the interview process, but do I need it?
I struggle to add to my list of skills, likes and needs. My mind goes blank when I focus on this task. As I noted above, the success stories should help in identifying these things. I feel this list building is the main activity that will help me discover what career is best for me. However the tool to do this is a non-starter for me. I need more help in this area.
I see value in all of these exercises. But my goal of finding the ideal career for me is best served by looking within for the skills, likes and needs that are most important to me. I want more emphasis in this area.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
This Blog Has A Purpose
Welcome to the "Rob's Opinions" blog. I have created this blog to use as a tool to practice expressing my opinion and thoughts about things and experiences.
I'll start with my thoughts about this blog. This is my second blog. My other blog was created to share my travel experiences with friends and family. It allowed people to keep up with my activities without me needing to send an email or make a call. The "Robs Travel Log" was a great success.
This blog is for me. I want to feel more confident in expressing my opinion in social situations. I will use this blog to express my opinions about all sorts of things, from politics and the world environment, to observations or reflections on my day experience. Some of the topics you may hear about are global warming, health care reform, Balboa Park museums and gardens, yoga and of course my dog Ripley.
Thanks in advance for joining me on this journey!
Rob
I'll start with my thoughts about this blog. This is my second blog. My other blog was created to share my travel experiences with friends and family. It allowed people to keep up with my activities without me needing to send an email or make a call. The "Robs Travel Log" was a great success.
This blog is for me. I want to feel more confident in expressing my opinion in social situations. I will use this blog to express my opinions about all sorts of things, from politics and the world environment, to observations or reflections on my day experience. Some of the topics you may hear about are global warming, health care reform, Balboa Park museums and gardens, yoga and of course my dog Ripley.
Thanks in advance for joining me on this journey!
Rob
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