Understanding Self and Others: A Reflective Personal Development Plan

This report presents a reflective personal development plan focusing on four core skills: focus and attention, time-management, public speaking, and team-working. Using tools like the Johari Window, peer feedback, and past academic reports, the author identifies strengths and weaknesses in each area. The report concludes with an action plan designed to address identified weaknesses and promote personal growth.

UNDERSTANDING SELF AND OTHERS
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Executive Summary
The personal development plan presented has been prepared to examine my
strengths and weaknesses with respect to four core skills namely “focus and
attention”, “time-management”, “public speaking” and “team-working”. For
offering a reflection on these four skills, I have used the tools of “Johari window”,
“feedback from peers/team members” and “past academic reports”. The
outcome of this analysis was that I have strong time management skills and public
speaking skills, but I lack concentration power and team working skills. I do not lack
extreme level of focus or team working skills, but I am not highly competent with
respect to these skills. Hence, to improve myself and for effective career growth, I
have prepared an action plan for developing these weaknesses.
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Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................4
Reflective Personal Development Plan Journal...........................................................5
Summary and Action Plan..........................................................................................13
Conclusion..................................................................................................................15
References.................................................................................................................16
Appendix.....................................................................................................................18
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Introduction
The term “personal development plan” refers to the procedure of developing an
action plan on the basis of values, awareness, reflection, planning and goal-setting
for personal development with respect to career, relationship, education and self-
improvement (Tasker, 2015). In this report, I would be presenting reflective journals
to identify my strengths and weaknesses to help me in preparation of my personal
development plan. The four skills selected for reflection are “focus and attention”,
“time-management”, “public speaking” and “team-working”.
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Reflective Personal Development Plan Journal
The reflection of the four chosen skills namely, “focus and attention”, “time-
management”, “public speaking” and “team-working” have examined based on
the results derived from the tools of “Johari window”, “feedback from peers/team
members” and “past academic reports” that have been incorporated in the
appendix.
1. Focus and Attention
What is the core skill?
“Focus and attention” is the skill that allows individuals to perform tasks by
maintaining their concentration levels and efforts and averting the practise of
procrastination until and unless the undertaken task or activity is completed
(Csikszentmihalyi, 2014).
Why is this core skill important? Why did I select this skill to reflect on? (use
relevant theories and concepts to support your answer)
The development and possession of this skill is essential and important for an
individual as it helps them to keep a control on their though process, gives them
inner peace of mind, increases their power of retention, improves quality of
work, helps in strengthening their intuition, improves their ability to examine
and others (Carnegie, 2017). In case of absence of this skill, one needs to develop it
as every activity requires focus and attention for its successful execution (Brownell,
2015).
As mentioned by (Carnegie, 2017),successful individuals are able to concentrate and
stay focused when they are calm minded, less restless and do not continuously shift
from one subject area to another. Hence, in order to understand whether this skill is
inhibited in me or whether I need to develop this skill, I selected it for my reflection.
Higher are my focusing and attention skills, higher are my chances of success and
nearer I am towards goal accomplishments.
Reflect on your current competent regarding this skill. How did you assess
your competence? (use your self-assessment findings, feedback from peers
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and your tutor, plus your own reflections on your thoughts, feelings and
behaviours to answer this question)
In order to reflect my competency level regarding the skill of focus and attention, I
gathered feedback from my peer groups and team members and Johari
Window. These tools helped me realise that I have weak concentration skills.
According to my team members, my aggressive nature is a hindrance to my attention
level. As a result, I often ignore the important messages communicated or miss out
vital points. To this, they added that due to my weak concentration skills, I often
diverge away from the research topic of the project. Hence, I should take efforts to
develop this skill.
Can you identify any contradictions from your analysis above? For example, is
there a match between how you see yourself and how others see you, or not?
In order to self-assess my focus and attention skills, I used the Johari Window and
for evidence-based assessment, I collected reviews from my team members and
peer group. According to me, my assertive, confidence and intelligence, which each
of us agreed was inhibited by me; I thought I had strong level of focus and attention.
However, feedback derived made me realise that my focus and attention skills are
not strong. As mentioned by me team members, I get easily distracted and my
demanding nature hinders me form identifying the core issue and focusing on trifle
matters. Hence, contradictory views were acquired.
How will this skill help me in the future? (use references to support your
argument)
By developing this skill, I will be able to decrease my aggressiveness level, enhance
my concentration power, learn to identify and focus on major issues, utilise my
energy and use it appropriately, increase my ability to execute certain goal oriented
tasks and gain the trust and reliability of my seniors in future. As mentioned by
(Brownell, 2015), being focused increases the positivity, enhances problem solving
skills, offers better clarity and develops decision-making skills.
2. Time-Management
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What is the core skill?
“Time management” is the skill of scheduling, employing conscious control of time
to be invested on particular number of activities for enhancing the efficiency,
effectiveness and productivity of the individual (Forster, 2014). This skill ensures that
right amount of time is apportioned to the right activity (Mathews et al., 2011).
Why is this core skill important? Why did I select this skill to reflect on? (use
relevant theories and concepts to support your answer)
Time management has an integral role to play in the personal and professional life of
an individual. As it involves effective planning, helps in formulation of goals and
objectives, defining deadlines, allocation of duties and responsibilities,
prioritising of tasks and ensures that relevant time is invested on the right
task, developing time management skill is highly essential (Jackler, 2013). The
development of this skill helps an individual to complete their tasks within the given
deadlines without compromising on their productivity and quality of work (Forster,
2014).
Looking at the importance of time management in the current business world and
every activity encouraged me to make a reflection of this core skill. Further, time
management is demanded by employers and recruiters as companies want to hire
individuals who have the competency to distribute their time efficiently so that
business goals can be achieved without wastage of resources (Jackler, 2013).
Possession of this soft skill also reflects that the individual is well organised, highly
focused and reliable (Mathews et al., 2011).
Reflect on your current competent regarding this skill. How did you assess
your competence? (use your self-assessment findings, feedback from peers
and your tutor, plus your own reflections on your thoughts, feelings and
behaviours to answer this question)
Three tools namely “Johari window”, “feedback from peers/team members” and
“past academic reports” were used to assess my competence with regard to time
management skill. According to self-assessment, I a well organized and disciplined
person, which helps me manage my time and tasks in the proportion. Even my peers
and team members appreciated my time management skills. The team members
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said that I completed the individual tasks and responsibilities handed to me within
the desired time span, which helped the team meet their goals. Further, the
assessment of past academic reports showed that I submitted my assignments
before the deadline and completed each sub-activity as per the schedule, which
reflects my ability to manage time efficiently.
Can you identify any contradictions from your analysis above? For example, is
there a match between how you see yourself and how others see you, or not?
The tools used helped me analyse my time management skills from my perspective
and from the perspective of my peer group, team members, lecturers and
academicians. With regard to time management, all of us had same perceptions and
did not contradict each other’s views. In addition, being highly organised, following
discipline, being rational has been credited as the reason behind excellent time
management skills. Since I have presented my academic reports in a proper
structure and within the desired time, both my lecturers and team members agreed
with me on this point.
How will this skill help me in the future? (use references to support your
argument)
Acquisition of this skill will help me become easily selected in job interviews and
create a positive impression on them. As mentioned by (Forster, 2014), an individual
with time management is able to create effective work schedules, prioritise tasks,
prepare to-do-lists as well as delegate duties and responsibilities effectively. These
qualities are highly essentially to succeed as working professionals and highlight the
leadership skills of the individuals in the future.
3. Public speaking
What is the core skill?
The skill of “public speaking” refers to the procedure of interacting and conveying
information to a mass number of people (German et al., 2016). This activity is carried
out to in workplace, schools, colleges, seminars and at personal places as well,
where large audience is present. The main purpose of a public speaking activity is to
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inform, to convince and to amuse the guests (Chollet et al., 2015).
Why is this core skill important? Why did I select this skill to reflect on? (use
relevant theories and concepts to support your answer)
This core skill has significant role to play in the career of an individual. It
demonstrates the knowledge of the individual, their confidence level and helps
them in becoming better leaders (German et al., 2016). With public speaking
skills, an individual is able to express their thoughts and perceptions clearly,
increases their confidence level and builds in them leadership qualities (Chollet et
al., 2015).
With an aim to become an effective and successful leader in the future, I decided to
reflect upon this core skill. By assessing my competency level in this skill, I was able
to examine my speaking as well as leadership qualities. In agreement to the words of
(German et al., 2016), analysis of this skill helps in comprehending the individual’s
power to influence others, motivate them and measure their skill of communication.
Reflect on your current competent regarding this skill. How did you assess
your competence? (use your self-assessment findings, feedback from peers
and your tutor, plus your own reflections on your thoughts, feelings and
behaviours to answer this question)
In order to reflect my competency with this skill, I used the tools of “Johari window”
and “feedback from peers/team members”. According to my self-assessment, I
have strong public-speaking skills. My extrovert nature and high confidence gives me
an extra edge over others and helps me deliver messages in front of large audience
without any difficulty. In addition, being cheerful and lively helps me interact with
others very quickly and create a bond them. Due to this amiable nature, I am able to
have a positive impact on others, command over them as well make them
understand the meaning of the message conveyed. Further, my peer group and
team members said that the skill of persuasiveness and authoritative is another
quality that reflects my public speaking skills. The presentations given for
representing the group assignment conducted helped my team members identify this
skill in me.
Can you identify any contradictions from your analysis above? For example, is
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there a match between how you see yourself and how others see you, or not?
No, my peer group and team members did not contradict with my analysis, instead
they gave me other reasons to believe that I have strong public speaking skills. As
per my analysis, my character and personality were the reason behind strong public
speaking skills but according to my peer and team members, my authoritative nature
and the power to persuade individuals also contributed in my building my public
speaking skills.
How will this skill help me in the future? (use references to support your
argument)
As my career goal is to become a motivational leader in the future, this core skill will
help me convey message to a mass number, motivate individuals, gain the
trust of other individuals and engage with my audience (Bloch and Richmond,
2015.). Moreover, public speaking skills helps individuals in driving change, dealing
with competition level, acquire clarity of information, connect with individuals and
gain an insight of oneself (Patton and McMahon, 2014).
4. Team-Working
What is the core skill?
“Teamwork” refers to the skill to agree to work with a group of individuals for
working collaboration with them for accomplishing a common and mutual goal
(Salmon et al., 2017). Having this skill means being able to coordinate, use individual
skills, offer productive feedback even if any form of personal dispute is existing
among the members (West, 2012).
Why is this core skill important? Why did I select this skill to reflect on? (use
relevant theories and concepts to support your answer)
The development of team working skills helps in successful exaction of tasks and
activities (Kozlowski et al., 2015). In addition, teamwork helps in becoming
acquainted with the staff members, colleagues and peers. An individual with team
working skills is able to delegate responsibility, support their team members,
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contribute ideas, increase the efficiency of the team, help in achievement of
team goals, promote unity, generate feedback and offer learning opportunities
to the individuals.
Due to the significance of the skill mentioned above, I have selected this skill to
identify my competency level as a team member. Accordingly, to analyse the
contribution made by me in accomplishment of team goals so that I could project the
areas where I was going wrong and make necessary improvements, I selected this
core skill. Teamwork skills are highly essential and help individuals in being selected
for the desired job profiles (Grissom et al., 2015).
Reflect on your current competent regarding this skill. How did you assess
your competence? (use your self-assessment findings, feedback from peers
and your tutor, plus your own reflections on your thoughts, feelings and
behaviours to answer this question)
To evaluate my team-working skills, I used the tools of “Johari window” and
“feedback from peers/team members”. Both of these tools helped me judge
myself as a team member from my perspective and from the perspective of my team
members. According to my evaluation, I am a highly efficient team member as I am
cheerful, observant, confident, rational, disciplined, assertive, reasonable, organized
and witty. On the other hand, my team members felt that I was not an effective team
member due to my aggressive and bitter nature. In addition, lack of focus and
demanding nature has negatively affected my team working skills.
Can you identify any contradictions from your analysis above? For example, is
there a match between how you see yourself and how others see you, or not?
Yes, contradictory views were acquired while analysing this competency skill.
According to me, I was an efficient team member, whereas my team members feel
that I need to develop team-working skills. They agreed to the team working qualities
inhibited by me but pointed out that my authoritative, demanding, stubborn and bitter
nature as well as impatience level degrades my team working skills.
How will this skill help me in the future? (use references to support your
argument)
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As highlighted by (Galegher et al., 2014), team-working skill will helps the individual
in working in cooperation with each other, make constructive contribution in
the team with fresh ideas and suggestions, improve communication skills,
develop a sense of responsibility and help individuals take active participation
in decision-making process. Further, as an individual, developing these skills will
foster in my career growth and development.
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Summary and Action Plan
Analysis of my skills
With the help of the three tools namely “Johari window”, “feedback from
peers/team members” and “past academic reports”, I have been able to reflect
my competency level with respect to four skills. These skills were “focus and
attention”, “time-management”, “public speaking” and “team-working”. The
self-analysis reflection helped me identify my strengths and weaknesses with respect
to these skills as well as other areas, where the skills have a direct role to play, like
potential to be a leader in future, efficiency as a team member and others. As per my
reflection report, I have strong public speaking skills and time management skills. In
addition, I have the quality to persuade individuals, convince them and perform tasks
within in a structured manner. However, I lack focus and attention and team-working
skills. These skills are lacking due to my aggressive, authoritative, stubborn, bitter
and commanding nature. In addition, another area where I need development is to
increase my patience level.
Action Plan
An “action plan” refers to a series of steps or activities that need to be undertaken
and executed appropriately for the succession of a strategy. It comprises of three
parts, the list of specific tasks to be performed and the individual responsible for
performing it, the time within which it will be performed and the resources available
for the tasks. Based on the identified weaknesses, an action plan has been
prepared:
Objectives Tasks Success
Criteria
Time Frame Resources
To improve
my focus and
attention
skills
Attend
seminars
Undertake
individual
assignments
Attend
Feedback from
team
members, peer
group and
lecturers
3 months Individual
assignments
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seminars of
focusing and
attention
Go through the
assignments in
detail
To improve
my team
working skills
Take part in
group
assignments in
colleges
Allow others to
give
suggestions
Attend
seminars on
team work
Feedback from
team members
3 months Group
assignments
To increase
my patience
level
Take part in
group
assignments in
colleges
Allow others to
give
suggestions
Feedback from
team members
and peer group
3 months Group
assignments
Table 1- Action plan
(Source: Created by the learner)
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Conclusion
The given reflection has highlighted my strengths and weaknesses and evaluated
my competency with respect to four skills, namely “focus and attention”, “time-
management”, “public speaking” and “team-working”. For examination of these
skills, I used three tools namely “Johari window”, “feedback from peers/team
members” and “past academic reports”. An action plan has been prepared for
developing the skills lacking and to the dodge the weaknesses identified.
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References
Bloch, D.P. and Richmond, L., 2015. Connections between spirit and work in career
development: New approaches and practical perspectives. Routledge.
Brownell, J., 2015. Listening: Attitudes, principles, and skills. Routledge.
Carnegie, D., 2017. How to develop self-confidence and influence people by public
speaking. Simon and Schuster.
Chollet, M., Wörtwein, T., Morency, L.P., Shapiro, A. and Scherer, S., 2015,
September. Exploring feedback strategies to improve public speaking: an interactive
virtual audience framework. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint
Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 1143-1154). ACM.
Csikszentmihalyi, M., 2014. Attention and the holistic approach to behavior. In Flow
and the Foundations of Positive Psychology (pp. 1-20). Springer Netherlands.
Forster, M., 2014. Do it tomorrow and other secrets of time management. Hachette
UK.
Galegher, J., Kraut, R.E. and Egido, C., 2014. Intellectual teamwork: Social and
technological foundations of cooperative work. Psychology Press.
German, K.M., Gronbeck, B.E., Ehninger, D. and Monroe, A.H., 2016. Principles of
public speaking. Routledge.
Grissom, J.A., Loeb, S. and Mitani, H., 2015. Principal time management skills:
Explaining patterns in principals’ time use, job stress, and perceived
effectiveness. Journal of Educational Administration, 53(6), pp.773-793.
Jackler, R.K., 2013. How to be organized and manage time. In The Academic
Medicine Handbook (pp. 17-25). Springer, New York, NY.
Kozlowski, S.W., Grand, J.A., Baard, S.K. and Pearce, M., 2015. Teams, teamwork,
and team effectiveness: Implications for human systems integration. The handbook
of human systems integration, pp.535-552.
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Mathews, J., Debolt, D. and Percival, D., 2011. How to manage time with 10 tips that
work. Entrepreneur, www. entrepreneur. com/article, 219553.
Patton, W. and McMahon, M., 2014. Career development and systems theory:
Connecting theory and practice (Vol. 2). Springer.
Salmon, P.M., Stanton, N.A. and Jenkins, D.P., 2017. Distributed situation
awareness: Theory, measurement and application to teamwork. CRC Press
Tasker, F., 2015. How to prepare a personal development plan. BMJ, 351, p.h4603.
West, M.A., 2012. Effective teamwork: Practical lessons from organizational
research. John Wiley & Sons.
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Appendix
Johari Window
Things I know Things I don’t know
Things they know about
me
Organized
Intelligent
Responsible
Warm
Assertive
Rational
Confident
Extroverted
Reasonable
Lively
Disciplined
Temperamental
Cheerful
Aggressive
Progressive
Realistic
Wise
Persuasive
Stubborn
Caring
Tenacious
Sarcastic
Authoritative
Bitter
Demanding
Perfectionist
Powerful
Sociable
Satisfied
Trustworthy
Things they don’t know
about me
Perceptive
Questioning
Rebellious
Observant
Witty
Protective
Skilful
Imaginative
Strained
Dogged
Feedback from peers/team members
With the aim to understand my qualities and my deficiencies, I consulted my peer
group and my team members with whom I have worked on numerous assignments.
This was done to collect information regarding their perspective towards my
contribution in teamwork, my individual behavior and attitude, my ideologies, the
skills missing in me and evaluation of my performance according to them. The
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feedback received not only helped me perceive myself from the view of different
personalities but also introduced me to different characteristic shades. According to
my peer group, I am an extremely friendly individual with high intellect and excellent
communication skills. As a result, I can easily socialize with different personalities
with ease and high confidence level. Another quality mentioned by them was my
organizing skills and rational approach towards things. However, my temperament
and highly reactive nature was a cause of concern, due to which I end up taking rash
decisions. The team members termed me as a highly organized, respectful, reliable
individual who lacks the skill of patience and coordination. Due to this, I often ignore
the team member’s message and misinterpret it. Hence, for effective teamwork, I
need to develop these skills.
Past academic reports
Apart from feedback from peer group and team members, I also referred to my past
academic reports to recognize the mistakes mentioned by my lecturers and
academicians. Going through the grades and marks received in these reports and
feedback offered at the end of every assignment shows that I complete my
assignments within the given deadline, execute them in a structured and organized
way and present them appropriately. However, the results of the report highlighted
that I need to improve my public speaking skills. Though I speak with full confidence,
but I lack in quantity and information, which results in effective transformation of
message delivered. In addition, I need to improve my focus to ensure that I do not
get diverged away from the core topic. Many a times, I have lost track in the reports
presented by me, resulting in negative marking.
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