Gibbs Reflective Cycle: Key Skills for Professional Career Development

This essay presents a self-reflection on key skills essential for professional career development, employing Gibbs' Reflective Cycle for structured analysis. It delves into the importance of self-awareness, personal growth, and understanding one's values and actions. The author utilizes SWOT analysis to identify strengths (communication, organizational skills, problem-solving), weaknesses (stress, impatience, shyness), opportunities (customer recommendations, networking), and threats (rejection, technological advancements). The essay also explores VARK learning styles, with the author identifying as a reader and writer. The reflection concludes with an action plan to address weaknesses and leverage strengths for future career advancement. This resource is available on Desklib, a platform offering a variety of study tools and solved assignments for students.

Written Reflection

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
The motive behind this assignment is to perform a self reflection on my key skills which
will help me in developing my professional career. The way I self present myself will convey the
message of being professional in the work space which is important in the daily basis. This self
reflection is performed by using Gibbs reflective cycle which will help me in displaying my
learning journey.
MAIN BODY
Self reflection is the process which is used to grow and have understanding of the values
and action done by me. This is a type of personal analysis which helps in Aligning the life
matters and explore own self. Self reflection is the skill and capability which is used to aware
myself and developing the inner witness. It is the ability look at my own self, my emotions and
thoughts from a slight distance. Self reflection enables us to look deep in ourself while having a
curiosity and inquiry when exploring in the thoughts and emotions. This is very important for the
personal growth and become more active around our own self.
Self reflection is an important tool as it allows me to look neurally on my actions. It leads
to growth, positivity and happiness. This growth is the main reason behind the importance of
personal reflection. Understanding the way of what to become will help in guiding to the steps
which are important in the journey (Sarfo-Frimpong, and et.al., 2017.). Reflection of thoughts
will help in giving responses to the events which are happening around me and in the different
parts of the globe. Along with this, self reflection also helps me in addressing my bad behaviours
and apologising for behaving in such way. This will help in improved working relations and be
more enjoyable in my work place. The time utilised in the process of personal reflection is an
opportunity to measure the progress in a more positive manner.
SWOT analysis is a useful technique which is helpful in identifying the strengths which
can stop the threats and the weakness coming in the way of opportunities. My strengths include
being a good communicator and having a well set of organisational skills. I have the capability of
working under pressure with a proper time management. I am very confident in the services I
offer and am a good at problem solving. Some of the weakness I posses is that I can easily get
stressed and become impatient in certain situations. i can appear a shy person in front of the large
groups. In addition to this, I am a perfectionist which can make me a controlling individual (He,

Parkinson and Doyle, 2018). The opportunities coming in the way are recommendations by the
customers, broadening the area of experience and portfolio. I have the opportunity to network to
large groups of people. While the threats include facing the risk of rejection and being a new
comer in the era of updated technology.
VARK is a learning style which is helps in building strategies for engaging with the
different types of learners. There are visual learners who can internalise and synthesise the
information when it is presented in the form of a graphic depiction with the meaningful symbols
comes under the category of visual learners. Such individuals respond to charts diagrams and
other visualisation informational hierarchy and not pictures and videos. The auditory learners are
the ones which understand just by hearing the information which was presented in a vocal form.
Such learning style eliminates the use of making notes and maintaining the unbroken attention.
They believe that note taking is type of distraction (Markkanen, and et.al., 2020). The reading
learners show a strong learning preference for the written word and grab the opportunity of
synthesizing the content by completing the written assignment. These are reading and writing
learners. Last are the kinesthetic learners which will take a physical role in the process of
learning and giving best outcomes. They are very active in nature and have the most difficult
time in traditional setting. I learn better with reading as well as writing style which enables me to
understand and take notes which can used to process the information and recall it for later.
Gibbs reflective cycle is an easy way to understand and use as a self reflection tool.
Reflection on some experiences can be structured into different phases and being aware of
actions. It starts with describing the experience, like in my case this regular patient died on ward.
Next is about the feelings, I felt shocked and was not ready to see her die so soon in life.
Evaluation was that she lived her life to the fullest and I am sure she had no regrets and her last
few hours were peaceful. I analyse that any patient with this disease is vulnerable and this was
not as unexpected as it felt to me. The conclusion drawn can be that I did not know I can be
affected that much and the action plan is to be more kinder to myself and that its fine to grieve.
CONCLUSION
Self reflection is very important step to be self aware and when one can identify the
strengths and weakness it is very beneficial. I can be concluded that I am a reader and writing
learner among all the different styles and Gibbs is a better way to reflect the real life experiences.

With the help of these tools and models, I was able to identify the gaps and focusing more on my
future career development.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
He, K.N., Parkinson, L. and Doyle, A.K., 2018. Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle.
Markkanen, and et.al., 2020. A reflective cycle: Understanding challenging situations in a school
setting. Educational Research. 62(1). pp.46-62.
Sarfo-Frimpong, and et.al., 2017. Emerging Mobile Health (mHealth) in KATH ED: Assessing
it’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT ANALYSIS) among
Healthcare Workers. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine. 32(S1). pp.S38-S38.