Trying to understand my identity, values, strengths and limitations has been a challenge while writing this post as I have not explored these questions in quite a while. I hope these insights help identify parts of my identity that I can use to create an effective learning plan while studying at Dev Academy. Beyond learning to code, I hope these explorations help me understand the role my identity plays within wider aspects of my life.
My previous job was working as an Architectural Graduate in a firm that specialised in residential buildings. In the past I've had to advise clients to take the route that benefits them the most, rather than taking the route that will benefit the profitability of the company I work for. This was an ethical descision that I had to make as a professional. Do I advise a client in their best interest or try make my company more money by turning a blind eye to a potentially bad financial decsion that the client is looking to make? To maintain my individual integrity I would always advise client's correctly and I am happy with my decision to do so.
A large part of my identity stems from the influence of my friends and how their diverse values have lead them to creating successful careers along the way. Their diversity has encouraged me to recognise my own values and creativity as a valid path to achieving what I want in life without having to compromise. This revelation has only happened recently and I am excited to see where my identity takes me!
I've found that I have a strong sense of inclusion in everything I do and I value the opinion of everyone involved while exploring my strengths. I think having a good experience is more important than the result we deliver as a team. I think experience and result go hand in hand and good experiences lead to great results. I also have a love for learning and tend to approach problems from different perspectives to help reinforce my understanding.
My strengths can support me to become a team player who makes everyone feel included and valued during pair and group assignments. As an individual, my love for learning will be an important strength that supports my motivation and persistence to learn within the high pressure environment of the bootcamp.
The expectations I have for myself (the criteria that I assess my own work towards) and my perfectionism are limitations that lead me to judge my own work very harshly. This self imposed limitation is almost the complete opposite of the strengths I had described earlier and can cause a lot of self doubt and frustration if things don’t go the way I want (within my own work).
This limitation will hinder my learning and growth if I do not learn to differentiate between explorative learning and skill demonstration. The former should be used to maximise learning from new concepts/ideas and the latter should only be used to demonstrate mastery of skill.
I have to admit that I try to avoid resistance or tension as much as possible. I try to approach all sides of an argument objectively to figure out what will benefit the team in the long run during tense situations. I try my best to emphasis the value of doing something over another to try get everyone on the same page and happy about the decision moving forward. I believe compromise must go both ways and the winning idea may have to change slightly to address everyone's concerns. I find this strategy quite effective and it has helped me solve quite a few tense situations in the past.
I am not very familiar with how to approach tense situations and hope to learn more tools to help deal with conflict. I tend to not be very vocal when coming up with new ideas as a team which is not a great approach in hindsight. A strategy I would like to try is being more vocal during team discussions and encouraging everyone to participate openly so that small instances of tension can be solved without having it build over time.