Personal Development Essay: Analyzing Greta Thunberg as an Inspiration

This essay delves into the author's personal development, using Greta Thunberg as a primary source of inspiration. It explores Thunberg's characteristics, including her courage, passion, and leadership qualities, highlighting her impact on the author's perspective. The essay discusses Thunberg's role as a climate activist, her speeches, and her ability to engage others, emphasizing her honesty, genuineness, and her role as a modern inspirational leader. The author reflects on Thunberg's influence, her directness, and her approach to activism, concluding that Thunberg embodies qualities that the author aspires to emulate in their own life. The essay draws upon the provided references to support its claims, providing a comprehensive analysis of Thunberg's impact on the author's personal and professional development.

Running head: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Personal Development
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
For this paper, I chose Greta Thunberg, a school girl who went to miles for saving her
planet. I shall elaborate on things that I like about her and explain the reason behind them. I
shall discuss in details regarding his characteristics and personality and what have compelled
me to make her my inspiration.
I admire Greta Thunberg, a Swedish girl who suddenly rose to world fame for her
strong environmental concern. I consider being my idol. She is a 16 years old climate activist
and is also a star of the United Nation climate summit. I have never seen anyone like her. It is
always a little unfortunate to see a young individual become an icon as it actually robs them
their privacy of growing up (Lancaster, 2019). But, to my opinion, Greta is a special
flummoxing figure. She has showed the world what it actually means to “lead”. She is
actually an icon who has reminded many what courage, sacrifice and leadership look like.
Being a 16 year old girl, she looks quite younger than her age, still the speeches that she gives
take an authoritative and shaming time and I thing that is unusual for a child like her.
I simply admire her for her braveness and courage. The decision of Donald Trump of
not participating in the UN climate summit have signified the way in which the climate
denying policies of Donald Trump have undermined the role of America in the world as a
force for good and the way in which his actions can aid to the destruction of the futures of
countless. It was Greta who dared to open her up in front of the world leaders like him
saying: “How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood” (Camerini, 2019).
She called him and the other present world leaders in the summit, out for their negligence
towards environment and their failure of addressing the single most threat that humanity
faces. Her emotional speech blaming everyone for the climate crisis and species extinction
have made a significant impact in my heart. Despite her emotional outrage, the message
behind her speech was clear. She is the one to reveal the energy with which the modern
generation leaders are determined for acting.

2PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
I believe that she has inspired both the malign theorising and public adoration. I think
it is her extreme teenager-ness that is responsible for her influence. I have seen her face to
face- in jeans, pink top and a sneaker. She seemed to be a quite girl and is also somewhat
overwhelmed. According to her, it is her “Asperger’s” that allows her to become more
straightforward and direct regarding climate change. She calls it as her “superpower”. I often
see her interviews on YouTube and other social sites. I follow her a lot. All her answers are
direct but they all are earnest. She sometimes seems to be searching for English word.
However, unlike the book authors and the other politicians whose brains are poisoned by the
media trainings, Greta seems to answer the questions posed. To my opinion, she is strikingly
non-radical in her tactics. I have never seen any young climate activist to reject the specific
policy proposals like Greta. She rejected the policy proposal of “Green New Deal” and have
instructed the politicians to listen to the science instead.
Furthermore, another special thing about her is that though she is very moderate in her
speech, she could be radical in action too. She chose school strike as her form of protest,
which is uncommon in country like United States (Bergmann, 2019). Americans perceive
school as a place that is beneficial for the students and not the society, as they compare
schools to a job, where the labour stoppage is considered as a form of their protest and this is
outside our ken.
For me, Greta is a rising star who is making her enthusiasm and passion to engage
other individuals and creating awareness regarding the field and subject she is passionate
about and that is- the climate change. It is to mention that potential of a person to be
charismatic is a sign of being an exceptional leader (Miller & Charlesworth, 2019). Charisma
gives a person influence, power, credibility and it helps him or her to persuade the others in
believing their message. There is no doubt that Great is courageous as she is able of speaking
up and raising tension and bringing the attention to her cases. I believe that it require

3PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
genuineness, reliability, honesty and transparency to make people believe us (Ojala, 2018).
Greta is an honest person and she is honest with us and to her values. She always does what
she believes in.
Greta is a very passionate and emotional girl and she is immune to all the attacks as
they have weakened up the position of her opponents (Nethi & De, 2019). After her speech,
there were many reacted negatively towards her. Her speech raised a wave of anger and rage
among many individuals who do not had any interest in the climate debates ever before. But,
Greta never settled down. Though Greta has no emotional intelligence in terms of interacting
with others, still, she speaks for herself and easily managed to engage other people. During
any of her interviews, I never find any sign of self-doubt and lack of confidence in her. This
further attracts me towards her personality.
Hence, to conclude, Greta Thunberg is my idol. I want to become a human being like
her. Her look is always aligned with her message. She is very brave and speaks her heart. She
might not be able of creating a pleasant and supporting atmosphere about her in the society
and in the hearts of many, but that is not her purpose. She clearly disposes all the qualities of
being an inspirational leader for the modern generation and despite of her methods and
means, she is indeed a great inspiration to the young people who wants to make a strong
impact and to strive for a good case- to save our environment and finally living in a better
world.

4PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
References:
Bergmann, Z. V. (2019). Ageist Language in German Newspapers: Media Images of the
Youth Climate Movement and Greta Thunberg (Bachelor's thesis, University of
Twente).
Camerini, V., 2019. Greta's Story: The Schoolgirl Who Went on Strike to Save the Planet.
Aladdin.
Lancaster, L. (2019). Climate change is sexist: why I'm striking to support girls around the
globe. Chain Reaction, (135), 13.
Miller, T., & Charlesworth, M. (2019). Fiery Spirits: Educational Opportunities for
Accelerating Action on Climate Change for Sustainable Development. In Climate
Change and the Role of Education (pp. 19-32). Springer, Cham.
Nethi, V. and De, S., 2019. The Potential of Socio-biologically Relevant Mobile Applications
to Attract Girls to STEM. FDLA Journal, 4(1), p.4.
Ojala, M., 2018. Eco-anxiety. RSA Journal, 164(4 (5576), pp.10-15.