WHO AM I?



While watching the Ad promoting Pepsi Cola, in which a team of people charting their plan of action  resolves not to drink, only to realise that one of the members, who had a bottle of the drink, unsuspectingly takes a swig of it and innocently confirms his action to the annoyance of the leader and members of the team. The reaction of the leader and the team made me think:
When we use the word ‘Boss’ we mean the person is at a higher level, therefore, one cannot communicate freely with the person. In fact, at our workplace, we often find it difficult to be in tandem with our superior, supervisor or the reporting head, our colleagues or both. To be in harmony with both becomes a stressful activity. The same holds good at home between spouse, parents, and children but, do we try to find out the reason why it is so?
Let us try to find out by asking ourselves the following questions:
  1. What is the purpose (objective) of my life; what I want to achieve in life?
  2. How I and others will benefit from it?
  3. What I need to achieve it?
  4. How can I achieve it?
  5. Am I aware of my strengths and areas of improvement?
  6. How will I organize to achieve my purpose (objective)?
  7. Who is participating / contributing and can participate/contribute in achieving my objective?
  8. What is empathy? Do I practice it?
  9. Do I believe in myself? Am I true to myself? Can I extend my trust to others?
  10. Do I love to enjoy while placing the responsibilities on the back burner?
  11. Do I worry a lot? Have I ever figured out the cause of worry and take care of it?
  12. Are my health issues related to stress? How do I take care of the cause of stress?
  13. Do I say and accept ‘No’ easily without giving a reason?
  14. Do I think out of the box?
  15. Do I appreciate and encourage innovation?
  16. Am I a conformist?
  17. Am I a solitary person?
  18. Am I imaginative?
  19. Am I impulsive?
  20. Am I shy/fearful/give in to anger easily?
  21. What are my inherent values? (viz. integrity)
  22. I have positive thoughts and attitude towards life?
  23. Do I indulge in or get affected by gossip, slander, negative criticism?
  24. Do I consider success an indicator to take the next step towards achieving my objective?
  25. Do I accept a failure as a lesson to learn and enhance my capabilities to achieve my objectives?
  26. Do I consider ‘EGO’ to mean ‘Ever Grateful Only’ or ‘Ever Great Only’?
  27. Do I concentrate on my breathing to control the troubling thoughts and worries? What is its effect?
  28. Am I a good listener? Encourage others to speak and enter into dialogue or discussion with me?
  29. Do I do anything for my inherent happiness or to gain reward, recognition, and acknowledgment of the authority?
  30. Do I encourage others to identify their strengths and talent and utilize them for their enhancement and advancement?
  31. Do I share others joy and sorrow?
  32. Do I compel myself to do a work that I do not want to do? Do I try to comprehend the reason why and how to get over it?
  33. Am I superstitious? Or a rationalist?
  34. Do I allow social and cultural memes to influence my decisions? What is its influence/effect in realizing my life’s objective? How does it influence/effect in my harmonizing with the immediate environment viz. workplace, home, etc.
  35. Is the vision of the organization I am working for, similar to my life’s objective?
  36. Do I have the relevant skills, knowledge, and expertise that I need to perform my work?
  37. Am I making an effort to develop and hone my skills that help me to advance on my career path in harmony with my personal life? (Viz. am I beneficially utilizing my talents?
  38. Do I encourage others to identify and utilize their talents to talent/their potential to their advantage?
  39. Do I indulge in gossip or negative criticism of a person when I am unable to directly communicate to discuss and resolve any problem with her/him?
  40. Do I encourage people like my colleagues and friends to use the grapevine more than the proper channels of communication to communicate, considering, that it can affect any decision making process?
  41. Am I open to make any positive changes that can help in improving an existing process or system?
  42. Do I believe in team work and concerted effort to achieve an objective?
  43. Do I believe that every member’s complete contribution and participation is valued in team work?
  44. Am I open to seek help or assistance and acknowledge it on receiving it?
  45. Am I open to sharing my thoughts and views with others?
  46. Do I seek revenge from anyone who I consider has hurt me? (If the response is no, then what is my response and what do I do)?
  47. Do I react or respond a situation/stimulus? What is its effect on me?
  48. Do I plan and organize my daily activities with the unanimous support of the contributors (colleagues/family members/friends)?
  49. Am I averse to risk and hazards? If yes, then what do I do to avoid them and do I have and get adequate support to avoid them?
  50.  Am I a passive God-fearing person who avoids being a rationalist/ an aggressive person/ an assertive person?
  51. Do I have a sense of humour and participate in indoor/outdoor sports activities that help in having a positive attitude towards life? Do I believe in positive competition, if yes, then what is my experience?
  52. I believe in the adage: ‘Rolling Stones Gather No Moss’? What is the reason?
  53. Are you an adventurous person who also indulges in adventure sports?
  54. Do you find it difficult to work with people and prefer to work alone? (If yes, then what are the reasons?)
  55. Do I consider learning to be formal and necessary only for developing and enhancing an individual’s professional life?
  56. If I chance upon an accident site, would I be a silent spectator or would volunteer in organizing concerted help?
  57. Am I critical of other people’s inabilities or help them to understand and overcome them?
  58. What are my hobbies? Do I give time to them?
  59. Do I consider the use of social media only for socializing with friends and relations/ gaining commercial benefits/ participating in social development/ utilize it for self-development and benefit? I do not use it; if yes then, what are the reasons?
  60. I allow problems to challenge me and blame others for them rather than take a pragmatic approach in addressing them?
  61. Am I aware of my rights, privileges, and responsibilities as a citizen of a nation?
  62. Am I aware of my rights, privileges, and responsibilities as a member of a household?
  63. Am I aware of my rights, privileges, and responsibilities as an employee or proprietor of an organization?
  64. Do I appreciate others achievements and success?
  65. Am I a hard task master even to myself? What makes me do so?
  66. Do I thrive on others follies?
  67. Do I believe in achieving my objective in any way possible?
  68. Do I point out others mistakes and take them to task in an effort to cover my own?
  69. Do I encourage myself and others to learn from mistakes made to consolidate the progress in life?
  70. Do I utilize others to achieve my objective and not acknowledge their contribution?
  71. Do I believe in control and punishment as the basis of coordination and management rather than participative or concerted effort with learning, reward and recognition as the basis of management?
  72. Am I process oriented/people oriented or believe in a proper blend of both for an effective way to function?
  73. Do I learn from my mistakes and use it for self-improvement and enhancement
  74. Do I take ownership of the mistake of a team?
  75. Do I ensure no one is taken to task for the mistake and learning derived is employed for the benefit and development of the team?
  76. Do I encourage team/family members to think and contribute freely in decision-making activities?
  77. Do I allow free-for-all form of teamwork or concerted effort in the form of teamwork? What is the experience?
  78. Do I believe in giving strong feedback to members to encourage functional/performance improvement?
  79. Do I encourage members to realize the areas of improvement to encourage functional/performance improvement?
  80. Do I believe in synergy in teamwork and performance/function improvement?
  81. Do I believe that time is a constraint in achieving objectives? Is it based on my experience? What are the reasons?
  82. Do I believe in assigning a task or delegating responsibilities? What are the reasons?
  83. Do I believe in empowerment or I believe in centralized coordination? Give reasons in terms of its relevance in achieving your objective?
  84. Do I believe I am unique and find it difficult to identify with others?
  85. Do I work for and improve to impress others or myself?
  86. Do others opinions matter a lot to me and influence my decisions?
  87. Do I heed to negative criticism? What is its effect on me?
  88. Do I feel motivated and look forward to living a worthwhile day? If no, then why do I feel so?
  89. Do I allow others to influence my thoughts and form an opinion based on hearsay?
  90. Do I try to influence others’ thought and opinion? The reason and the effect?
  91. I believe work and family are equally important?
  92. Do I find it stressful to strike a balance between work and family? Have I found out the reasons?
  93. Do I know what creative problem solving is?
  94. What is the influence of music on me? Do I use it to my benefit?
  95. What do I do when I am overpowered by negative feelings and anger?
  96. What do I do when I am exhausted yet sleepless? Do I know why it is so?
  97. Do I like to keep myself updated with relevant information? How do I do it?
  98. What is my idea of relaxation? How frequently I use it? What are the results?
  99. What is the difference between kindness and compassion?
  100. Do I take stock of my day’s experience and learning at the end of the day?
  101. Am I aware of Maslow's Needs Hierarchy and have used it for self-awareness?
  102. Am I aware of Plutichik's Flower of Emotions and have used it for self-awareness? 
  103. What is the result of my SWOT Analysis?
  104. Now, am I aware of my Attitude, Skills and Knowledge (A.S.K.)?
  105. Am I aware of my areas of improvement?
  106. Do I need to devise a strategy on self-improvement/development?
  107. Do I need any help to devise the strategy or road-map? If yes, then do I know whom to approach?
  108. Do I need any help in implementing the strategy? If yes, then do I know whom to approach?
  109. Am I aware of  the traits of a task master and a delegator (leader)?
  110. Am I a task master or a delegator?
  111. Am I capable enough to improve the work-culture and functions and organisation's performance improvement through self-improvement?
  112. Am I empowered enough to harmonise with the environment at work and at home to strike a work-life balance?
 While answering the questions, how many positive and negative responses do you have? How would one redress them for self-enhancement?



Suggested:
  • Categorise the questions listehe d above into: personal, professional: in terms of academic life of a student AND personal, professional post formal academic life of a student.
  • Categorise the questions that help the responder to be aware of his/her personality traits/behaviour
  • Categorise your response to the queries into your strengths and areas of improvement
  • Map the questions and their response using mind maps. For ease of comprehension, can map the questions according to the categories
  • This activity can be done by an individual with relevant inputs from a mentor or can be done in a workshop mode by a team with a facilitator to guide and facilitate the activity
  • This activity can also be developed into an E-learning module of self-awareness activity with MCQs and guided feedback to the learner/user to facilitate the self-paced learning activity. It can  be a blended learning comprising of WBT/CBT with reinforcement of learning through a facilitator  in a real classroom or a virtual classroom. 

Image Source:

https://www.tes.com/lessons/nryLAdQwZCo8IA/edited-identity-who-am-i
http://www.mguhlin.org/2013/05/master-delegator-boss-or-leader.html
https://website-designs.com/business/how-to-become-a-master-delegator/
https://write.100nakedwords.com/who-am-i-a621d4617f74
http://strategicsellinggroup.com/2016/11/talking-sales-151-a-sales-manager-is-a-delegator/


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