Reflection on Personal Life and Career: Self-Assessment Essay

This essay is a reflection on the author's personal life and career aspirations, drawing upon self-assessment exercises, course materials, and personal experiences. The author explores the impact of career research, textbook exercises, and discussions on their understanding of their abilities and readiness for the business world. They identify their personality type as "Feeling" and their top five strengths as Futuristic, Competition, Consistency, Significance, and Deliberative, explaining how these traits will influence their career as an entrepreneur. The essay also discusses positive and negative messages received from family and friends, the influence of cultural identity, and significant life events that have shaped their career goals. The author identifies financial barriers and lack of trained personnel as potential obstacles and emphasizes the importance of balancing family and work life. The essay concludes by highlighting the positive impact of the course and its assessments on realizing their life goals.

Running head: REFLECTION ON PERSONAL LIFE AND CAREER
Reflection on Personal Life and Career
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1REFLECTION ON PERSONAL LIFE AND CAREER
Self-assessment helps us in analyzing and understanding the development process of
the self and the milestones that I have crossed (Liang et al.). Throughout the coursework, I
engaged in several self-analysis and self-developmental exercises intending to find out about
my inner compatibilities and characteristics that will help me realize my dreams. This essay
will focus on the impacts of the different exercises and how I can use them for my future
development.
The course provided me with many opportunities through career research exercises,
textbook exercises, discussions and assessments. These exercises helped me learn about my
abilities and readiness for the industry. My current course on business administration helps
me in setting up my new business. The career research presentation helped me to understand
my life goals and the path that I should follow to achieve it. Textbook exercises helped me to
understand the key concepts related to it. Discussion boards exposed in front of different
views of my peers through I could learn new ideas. This also taught me to test my limits and
challenge my previous learnings. Assessment results tell me that I need to improve more and
work harder to realize my ultimate goal of becoming an entrepreneur (Piperopoulos and
Dimov).
The personality type that I relate to most is the Feeling. This tells me that I am fairly
emotional and passionate person. Thus, while choosing my career, I must ensure that they
truly are what they want. Even in my future career decisions I should always consider what
my heart wants rather than my head. I believe in harmony and thus my decisions should
reflect that (Hamilton, Papageorge and Pande). The career path that I have chosen, being an
entrepreneur, is decided after I have given diligence to my inner want.
My top five strengths are Futuristic, Competition, Consistency, Significance and
Deliberative. These qualities empower me to be a dreamer and create visions that will lead to

2REFLECTION ON PERSONAL LIFE AND CAREER
my success. I am competitive by nature and thus I will be able to fight for the positions that I
have achieved. My Consistency and a hunger for creating significance will force me to
perform better (Viinikainen et al). I am cautious by nature and I take other people’s opinion
which will contribute to future learning. I will use all of these strengths to realize my goals.
From my friends, family and teachers I have received many positive as well as
negative messages. When I shared my goals with my family everyone was encouraging. My
friends promised me to help in every way possible. Many of them were interested in working
with me. They said that they felt comfortable and positive about this and I should pursue.
There were some negatives as well. One of relatives was not so supportive and felt that that
these career goals were unrealistic and were not long term. Listening to these opinions, I
decided to research more thoroughly and found that the career that I chose had good
potential. I plan to use the lesson that I learned from here and research any situation more
before jumping into it.
Cultural identity affects my development and career goals. I am a believer of
Christianity and it gives utmost importance to work and family. My family culture is also
quite open and supportive. My family is work oriented and thus I also wanted to become self-
dependent and autonomous, knowing that I would get my family’s support. In my culture,
family is also important. After 5 years, when I get married and have a family, I will need to
consider them into my decision. This indicates to me that this is perfect time to get
established and start a new business, as by that time I will be well established (Eser and
ÖZDEMİRCİ).
My parents have had the greatest influence in my life. They have been very balanced
in life. They have taken care of both the family and work life equally. They always said to me
that this balancing is important as this brings a contentment in life. This perception of them

3REFLECTION ON PERSONAL LIFE AND CAREER
has influenced me because I believe in the same things. I have thus chosen a career that
would allow me to work hard during the first few years of my career and then when I settle
down I will be able to balance my family and work by hiring more people as the business
grows.
One significant event that changed my life was during my high school years. I was
somewhat weak in my studies and answering in class. I world prepare my lessons but would
not be able to answer. My teacher seeing this, asked me to sit beside one of the responsive
girls in the class. Slowly, she started to give me encouragement and I overcame my fear. This
has helped me become the person I am today, where I am able to express my views and ideas
without fear.
According to me success is achieving the ultimate goal one sets in life without
compromising with the real identity of the person. Many people in their pursuit of their
career, forgets about their family, friends and their own mental happiness (Hoyte). They
achieve what they want but lose everything else in life. I believe that the true taste of success
can only be achieved with friends and family.
The first career obstacle that I believe I will see is the financial barrier. I will need a
lot of money to set up my own business. I intend to work for other companies for some years
so that I am able to save the money for my business. Another barrier that might come is the
lack of trained personnel. As I plan to start my business in my home location, there will be a
dearth of professionals. I intend to train people and employ them in my company.
From the above discussion it is obvious that my friends, family, teachers and other
acquaintances are positive aspects in my life. This course will also help me ion realize my
goals in life. The assessments and learning modules not only gives me theoretical knowledge
but helps me relate them to practical life.

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Works Cited
Eser, Gül, and Ata ÖZDEMİRCİ. "Personality characteristics and business philosophy: an
entrepreneurship experiment." European Journal of Business and Social
Sciences 4.11 (2016): 70-87.
Hamilton, Barton H., Nicholas W. Papageorge, and Nidhi Pande. "The right stuff?
Personality and entrepreneurship." Quantitative Economics 10.2 (2019): 643-691.
Hoyte, Cherisse. "Artisan entrepreneurship: a question of personality
structure?." International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research 25.4
(2019): 615-632.
Liang, Kathleen, et al. "STUDENTS'ASSESSMENT OF EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING IN
AN ENTREPRENEURSHIP CURRICULUM: EXPECTATIONS VERSUS
OUTCOMES." Journal of Business and Entrepreneurship 28.1 (2016): 125.
Piperopoulos, Panagiotis, and Dimo Dimov. "Burst bubbles or build steam? Entrepreneurship
education, entrepreneurial self‐efficacy, and entrepreneurial intentions." Journal of
Small Business Management 53.4 (2015): 970-985.
Viinikainen, Jutta, et al. "Born entrepreneurs? Adolescents’ personality characteristics and
entrepreneurship in adulthood." Journal of Business Venturing Insights 8 (2017): 9-
12.