Engaging in Self-Exploration Self-Discovery

¶ … Self-Exploration/Self-Discovery

Industrial psychology: Two issues

One workplace-related issue I have consistent problems with is getting to work on time. In the morning, no matter how early I set my alarm clock, I find myself constantly rushing to get to my desk at the last minute. To better understand why this has become a habit, for two days I will write down the time I set my alarm to go off; what time I actually got up; how long it took me to get ready; and how long it took to drive to work. This will help me identify what aspects of my morning I need to work on to better plan out my daily routine. Also, to motivate me to change those behaviors, I will write down the concrete consequences of my lateness, such as not being adequately prepared for an early, unplanned meeting or not being able to eat breakfast.

A personal issue I would like to work on is weight loss. To increase my awareness of what I am eating, I will keep a food and exercise diary for two days. This will help me understand how many calories I am eating and how much food I am consuming relative to the amount I am actively moving. It is very easy to fall into the trap of mindless eating, or simply munching on something because it is near you, not because you are necessarily hungry. At the end of the two days I will calculate my nutritional profile. As well of keeping track of my food intake, I will also write down how hungry I was whenever I ate, to see if I am eating out of genuine hunger or boredom. This will help me understand if I am eating food that does not satisfy my appetite or I am eating for psychological rather than physiological reasons. I am also hoping that the act of writing down my food intake will itself act as a motivator for me to eat less, just as having to write down the time I get to work and how many times I hit the snooze button will act as a motivator not to be late to work.

LEAP vs. The Mission Statement Builder vs. The Discovery Behavioral Monitoring Strategy

The LEAP questionnaire helps define the candidate's core competencies, including 'people'-related skills; to what extent they show initiative and drive; their problem-solving skills; managerial capacity; resilience and ability to adapt to different circumstances; and organizational and executive skills (LEAP, 2014, Official Website). All of these are critical components of success in the modern workplace. LEAP encourages self-reflection about such skills and also is designed to encourage test-takers to improve upon them. The intention of the LEAP program is to question traditional barriers between specific and general learning and instead fuse the acquisition of essential skills to the practical needs of the workplace. This type of educational orientation can be very beneficial for students or employees within a specific work context although adults removed from the classroom may want a more integrated approach to refining their skill set, particularly if their needs for professional improvement were not confined to a specific workplace.

The Mission Statement Builder, in contrast, focuses on helping an employee target his or her passions and to turn them into appreciable results in the workplace. The philosophy of its creator FranklinCovey is that every person needs to be motivated by a sense of higher purpose: by putting the right words down in a clear fashion, people can understand how their different actions have meaning and intention and they will be more purposeful, goal-oriented, and effective in how they act (Mission Statement Builder, 2014, FranklinCovey). There is less of an emphasis on acquiring knowledge, in contrast to LEAP, and greater emphasis upon morals, values, and principles. For some people this might be inspiring, for others, infuriatingly vague, especially when approaching hands-on problems.