Reflective Essay: Personal and Professional Development UGB260

This reflective essay, written for the UGB260 Personal & Professional Development module, explores the author's core value of creativity. The essay delves into how creativity was expressed throughout the author's life, from childhood experiences to current professional endeavors. It analyzes personality test results, including the Big Five, MBTI, and locus of control, to understand the author's strengths and areas for development. The essay also examines the impact of external factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, on the author's self-perception and behavior. The author reflects on the importance of creativity in various professions and highlights personal values that contribute to their creative expression. The essay concludes with an assessment of the author's strengths and weaknesses, and the ways in which they can improve their creative skills and personal qualities.

UGB260 Personal and Professional Development
Reflective essay
‘Creativity is intelligence having fun’
Albert Einstein
Word count: 3584

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Reflecting Back...............................................................................................................................2
Workshop Experience......................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
Reference list.................................................................................................................................12
Appendices....................................................................................................................................14
Appendix 1: The Big Five Personality test................................................................................14
Appendix 2: Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) result........................................................15
Appendix 3: Results of locus of control....................................................................................16
Appendix 4: Self-esteem............................................................................................................17
Appendix 5: Life Values Inventory...........................................................................................18
Appendix 6: Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire Result.......................................................19
Appendix 7: Johari Window......................................................................................................20

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Introduction
I have recently completed a unit on the Personal & Professional Development Module.
The objective of the course was to make us to understand better what we want from our
career in the future and to reflect upon the experiences we had in our life to understand
better our personal qualities. The below text is a self-reflection essay in which I will
illustrate my key personal quality which I discovered through a range of activities and
experiences I had during the workshop at the university and my workplace. As
suggested by Ghanizadeh (2017), reflective thinking is the process that helps an
individual to be aware of one's experiences along with knowledge and assumptions.
With the aid of reflective thinking, it becomes possible to analyse the previously
experiences circumstances. This, in turn, provides the opportunity to segregate the
things that went well and the ones that did not work well. It is the process that helps to
understand the actions that are to be taken so that the existing skills could be further
amplified. Moreover, it provides the opportunity to understand what actions could be
taken in the future for a similar type of situation so that a better result could be yielded.
I would like to highlight the fact that most of the personality test I took have a
different score than I imagined. This is because I believe Corona Virus, the
isolation, online courses, approximately 3 months without a job and socializing
has impacted my wellbeing and the way I used to see life. I will plan to take all
this test back as soon everything will be back to normal and to compare the
results as I can see a big difference on my behaviour, compared with how I used
to behave before Covid19.
Reflecting Back
In this essay I will be reflecting on creativity as my core value and how I express and
used my creativity as a child, student and as a worker. Pablo Picasso once said ‘Every
child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.’ Starting from
this premise, I can say that adults involved in my education and learning (parents,
teachers, psychologists, educators), had an important role in on stimulating creativity.
Creativity is not limited to painting, music, or similar artistic domains, but it also takes

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place in business, science and education, in fact, all human beings have great untapped
creative potential and creativity itself is unique to each individual.
When I recall the moments of my past, I retrieve traces of curiosity at any step. I was
capable to think outside of the box at a very young age and my curiosity was way
beyond the limit as I always wanted to learn more about unfamiliar topics. At the age of
5, my curiosity was the key to breakthrough my creativity when I started to learn by
myself how to read and write because I wanted to start writing my journal about my
feelings; and because I wanted to make sure no one will be able to read it I created my
alphabet, where numbers were used instead of letters. According to the statement of
Kenett (2018), creativity is defined as a process of using imagination or original ideas
for creating something new or doing some invention. My parents were most of the time
at work am my big brother at school in the city, so must of the time I spent my days by
myself learning how to draw, creating handmade toys and inventing games to play with.
Vygotsky (1968) believed that creative imagination starts in children's play.
20 years ago, the school did not teach me how to discover and to discover myself, it did
not stimulate me much to become creative, on the contrary, it offered me information
that I could memorize, without finding my own solutions. I was finding difficult to
memorize the definitions, theories or new formulas in physics and I was finding easier to
sketch them on a paper to understand them better and to be able to explain them in my
way. Unfortunately, my family could not afford to pay for any extracurricular activities or
courses so my only chance to let my creativity to run wild was at the annual talent
shows at school, where I had the change to act, recite poems or dance on a scene.
Psychologists stated that creativity is a state human mind, where they start using their
knowledge and understanding for making something good and useful for societies and
communities. I believe that different factors are associated with the quality of creativity,
such as expertise in abstract thinking, imaginative skill, venturesome personality,
creative environment, and intrinsic motivation. Among the five major Theories of
Creativity, I believe that creativity is best described and defined by the Humanistic
Theory, which states that human can express their level of absurd and creative thinking
after reaching the state of self-actualisation.

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Creativity is one of the qualities that have become the core of all the professions. It is
the quality that helps an individual to present things uniquely. As per the study
conducted by Valgeirsdóttir et al. (2016), to be creative, a person should possess
several traits like the ability to think out of the box, being curious, being able to take
risks. As a barista when I worked for 3 years in Italy, I was not only assigned to serve
coffee to others but creating diverse designs to allure the eyesight of the customers was
also an important job role. In this regard, I was able to understand that I could depict the
emotions via the coffee decors. However, further to analyse my personality and the
aspects that I possess concerning being creative, I had taken up the Big Five
Personality Test.
With the aid of this test, I was able to understand my personality based on 5
dimensions. Concerning openness, my score was 83% (see Appendix 1). This indicated
that I am not only creative but also adventurous and intellectual. As per the study
conducted by Gardner (2016), for being creative it is vital to move around. Nature is the
biggest inspiration for a person who wants to be creative. I have always loved
photography. Thus, I move around to click the artistic work of nature. This had helped
me to be creative. Moreover, it is the openness trait that had helped me to play with the
ideas so that I could discover the novel experiences. In addition to this, with the aid of
creative quality, I have been able to express my experiences artistically. As I said
before, I had always liked to click photographs and recently I bought a professional
digital camera and to take some online courses to be able to use it in the future as an
expert and maybe to do not be any more just a hobby.
Further, to understand my attributes, I had taken the help of the MBTI tool. As per the
study conducted by Stein and Swan (2019), it is an introspective self-report
questionnaire. With the aid of this tool, it becomes possible under psychological
preferences. These preferences are vital from the perspective of understanding the way
a person perceives the world and takes decisions. With the aid of this tool, I was able to
know that I had INTP attributes. The acronym of INTP is introverted, intuitive, thinking,
and perceiving. Introversion is the attribute that leads a person to stay in solidarity. It is
time when I tend to reflect on the experiences that I had gained by observing nature. In

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addition to this, it has always helped me to stay out of the crowd such that it becomes
on my part to think more creatively. Further, INTP indicates that I am not only pensive
and analytical folk but can understand and explore things. This is also vital from the
perspective of being creative (See Appendix 2). My hunger of exploring new things has
been proven in the moment where I chose to leave Italy and to come in London, without
knowing anyone here, without having a job or a place to stay, just some money to be
able to survive until I was able to find a job.
In addition to the MBTI tool, I had taken the initiative to use another psychological
concept that is the locus of control. As per the study charred out by Mulki and Lassk,
(2019), it is one of the psychological concepts that provides information on how strongly
a person believes that they have control over the situation as well as the experiences
that had been affecting their lives. I am a part of the external locus (see Appendix 3).
This indicates that I believe that external forces have control over the actions of others.
therefore, I tend to credit the external forces for my achievements as well as failures.
The study conducted by Heywood et al. (2017), had indicated that internal locus has a
link with creativity, therefore, it is necessary to change my behavioural perception. This
is further important because due to external locus of control, in the present, I do not
understand my worth. In one such instance, in the first year, when I was unable to
design a pamphlet for one of my projects, I had considered it as my ill fate. However,
now when I reflect, I can understand that it was due to my lack of concentration I could
prepare the pamphlet as I wished it to be. Hence, it is essential that I need to change
my behavioural perception. This is because, with the aid of the internal locus, it would
be possible on my part to understand my mistakes. This, in turn, would help me to
rectify the problems and be more creative. As now I am associated with the hospitality
industry, I need to use my creative skills so that I could attract more customers for my
organization
Further, I believe that the values and the principles that I possess have helped me to be
creative. As suggested by Little et al. (2018), values are the beliefs that play a vital role
in motivating an individual. The crucial values that I possess include spirituality,

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innovativeness, family-oriented, nature lover. However, one key skill, I need to develop
in due course of time. This is related to self-esteem (see Appendix 4).
As per the result, I got from the 16-personality characteristic or MBTI test, I have
understood that as being an INTP, I required some proper medium for expressing
myself. As influenced by the viewpoint of Islam (2019), I believe that I have the capacity
of being resourceful, brilliant, and ingenious, in all the required aspects of life. However,
unleashing my nature of creativity is dependent on the problems and its common
solution pathways.
Although the negative characteristics, such as introversion, low self-esteem, external
locus of control made situations difficult sometimes for me, I think being an INTP might
be blissful for my future. It helps me in observing everything with a quiet mindset, which
is potential for all the creatives (Zack, 2019). My inspiration level does not have any
association with stagnant and never-changed thinking patterns, as I always believe that
every idea or circumstance occurring in our surroundings could be challenged in some
way. My honest logic-creating nature might hurt someone's feeling, due to the presence
of intuition and thinking, and therefore, during the workshop, I often tried to be more
careful about other member's personalities.
Workshop experience
During the workshops in these two years of university, various opportunities I had
obtained, where I practically got chances of applying my level of creativity. However,
due to my introvert nature and unexpected event of Covid19 that affected us at the end
of the second year, I could not properly utilise all the opportunities. For example, during
the workshop sessions, as part of the module, we were tasked to engage in a group
where all of us needed to agree to a business idea. This should help us and to complete
a ‘Value Added’ taught element. Although I retained some idea about the prototype, I
did not have the chance to express my thought. Being an introvert always made me
nervous, and I could not properly stand up while in the crowd. Apart from this, due to the

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recently lower self-esteem score (see Appendix 4), I ended up with some feelings of
sadness, anxiety, depression, anger, or any other persistent feelings, due to which my
introversion nature maximised and I tried to be separate from the crowd (see Appendix
4).
As being an introvert, I always felt some crippling fear of failure, as according to
psychologist Spark et al. (2018), introverts thought that if they fail, people might bully,
insult, or harass them. Due to this fear, I often tried to run out of difficult situations, as I
also have a lower confidence level on my skills. One of my worst habits was I often tried
to delay the project for making it more 'perfect', and ultimately, I made up the easy-
going situation more critical. However, I had trusted my problem-solving ability, which
has helped me in enhancing my level of self-efficacy and self-esteem. I strongly
believed our group members were very helpful, as they always gave chances to
everyone to present their opinion or perspectives about the ways we can agree to a
business idea. My surprise was when my other 6 group members had chosen me as a
leader. According to the result of Johari Window (see Appendix 7), I did not know about
different sides of my characteristics, such as adaptability, modesty, intelligence,
spontaneous-nature, trustworthiness, maturity, observant nature, responsiveness, and
friendliness and on the other hand, I understood that there were no such characteristics,
which I can state common and put in the quadrant of ‘known to self-known to others.
There was some ‘façade’, as I was independent, ingenious, introverted, logical, but
nervous and shy
At this point, I tried to think about some creative or innovative solutions. According to my
Life Value Inventory results, making creative solutions is one of my key strengths, and
during this session, I tried to minimise the fear of failure. (see Appendix 5). In addition to
this, planned Happenstance theory had played a crucial role in creating as well as
exploiting the opportunity provided by the module. This was possible due to the ability to
take risks along with curiosity that I had possessed to improve my skills by gathering an
ample amount of knowledge from the unplanned events (Covid19). Thus, the workshop
was a great success and helped me to augment my values and skills. Apart from

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creativity, I had also focused on other points, such as concern for others, concern for
the environment, responsibility, and so on.
As per my nature, being a doer was most easy and purposive for me instead of being a
talker. However, as influenced by Jialing (2019), I practically experienced that while
working in a group, talking, interacting, communicating, and consulting things with
others is essential. For the extrovert members of my group, it was easy to consult
everything with each other, and they always tried to make me comfortable by
maintaining a friendly tone. Therefore, I tried to make myself prepare for every task and
every possible situation, through getting intuition from my observational power. As per
the Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire Result, my self-awareness level often saved
me from being distracted from my goals. However, the result shows my prioritised
attention area of Motivating Oneself and Managing Emotions. (see Appendix 6).
With the aid of the Gibbs reflective cycle, I was able to understand that the challenges
that I had faced during the workshop. The diverse stages of the theory are as follows:
Figure 1: Gibbs Cycle
(Source Ardian et al., 2019)

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Description- The workshop had provided me with the opportunity to learn many things.
In addition to this, it had also provided the scope to test my personality and assess the
skills that I possess. Thereafter, it was possible to understand that the most crucial skill
that I possessed was creativity skills. However, apart from this skill, I was also able to
understand that there are certain areas that I need to develop further so that the skill
could be further strengthened. In this context, the most crucial that I was able to
understand from the last weeks of the workshop was related to the lack of self-
confidence that I had possessed. Moreover, instead of relying on self, I considered that
external forces were responsible for my success as well as failure. This, in turn, had
hindered the process of rectifying the errors. The other vital challenge that I had faced in
the initial state of the workshop was related to the fact that it was quite difficult to be a
leader for the team we should create if the circumstances of learning should not
change. This was basically due to my introvert nature.
Feelings- Initially, I was very nervous. This was due to my introvert nature. In addition
to this, the other vital feeling that I felt in the workshop was that I lacked self-confidence.
This had let me think that due to the lack of self-esteem I was unable to display my
creativity skills properly. In addition to this, I was able to understand that I need to take
action such that I could also improve my communication skill. This is crucial because,
without communication skills, I will not be able to carry out the responsibility associated
as the assistant general manager in my place of work. This is because along with
creative skills, I will also require communication skills to engage the customers, team
members, supplier’s etc.
Evaluation- The best thing that I could understand during the workshop was that I
possessed creativity skills. In addition to this, I was able to get the opportunity to carry
out diverse personality tests such as MBTI and so on. With the aid of these tools, it was
possible to know me further. On the other hand, the negative experience that I had
gained during the Covid19 has affected my communication skills and my self-esteem.
Analysis- With the aid of this experience, I was able to understand that to utilise my
creativity skill properly, it is necessary to develop communication skills. this will help to
participate in all the activities of the future workshops properly. This, in turn, will also

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provide the opportunity to display my creativity skills effectively. Moreover, the activity of
selling home-made sweets in the first year had helped me to understand how to develop
my creative skills so that the marketing process was made more interesting and
creative.
Conclusion- With the aid of the workshop, I was able to understand that I need to take
some online classes and so on that, it becomes possible to enhance my creative skill.
This will help me have a prosperous future ahead.
Action plan- Next time when I would get the opportunity to display my creative skill, I
would deal with the situation more confidently. In addition to this, I would also
communicate my ideas so that all the activities of the workshop could be accomplished
not only confidently but also successfully. This, in turn, would help me use my creative
skills more effectively. Moreover, I would also take some online classes so that I can
improve my creative skill.
Conclusion
As mentioned by Ożańska-Ponikwia (2017), creativity is one of the key characteristic
aspects of all the INTPs, and therefore, the extreme creative nature often makes people
more skilful at the multidisciplinary level. Apart from this, promoting the creative and
abstract thinking pattern provided me with the opportunity of analysing a scenario from
multiple perspectives, and therefore, I often found a way of solving problems. The
creative nature helps reduce mental and personal stress, regarding the success of
personal and professional life. However, the introvert nature plays dual role concerning
creativity, as it often makes the creative nature more flourished, and often reduces the
capacity of imaginary thinking due to the lack of self-confidence. As mentioned in the
entire reflective essay, I can state that one significant concern of my character is the
absence of enough self-confidence and self-esteem level. As per the psychologists'
viewpoint, nobody could be perfect all the time, and I have to accept the truth. I required
to stop running out from difficult situations and expressed my opinion among the crowd.

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I also require doing things, which could make me happy and in this way, my inner
anxious person might change the attribute.
In many cases, introverts lose many opportunities due to the absence of proper
communicational ability; therefore, I also require learning of different communication
styles, especially for working with other extroverts. My emotional intelligence score was
lower as per the Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire Result; therefore, I can try to
involve myself with more challenging situations for experiencing failure, criticism, and
hardness. These negatives might act as the motivational factors for doing more hard
work and getting success in goal achievement. Continuous self-assessment through
different reflective practices would be advantageous for me to understand the ‘arena’ of
Johari window, along with emphasizing my already existent capabilities. Such analysis
and assessment would help me in improving my paths of problem-solving and decision-
making. Through receiving some internal and external viewpoints about my
characteristics, I can conclude that all these would surely help me in being a successful
person in my upcoming life.