⚡🔎 Activity: Uncover Your Personal Assets
| Site: | RRU Open Educational Resources |
| Course: | Strategic Volunteerism: Inspiring Changemakers |
| Book: | ⚡🔎 Activity: Uncover Your Personal Assets |
| Printed by: | Guest user |
| Date: | Monday, 16 September 2024, 1:15 PM |
Introduction
Uncovering your personal assets typically refers to the process of identifying, acknowledging, and utilizing your skills, values, and strengths.
This process is broken down into three components:
- Compose three short stories.
- Identify skills, values, and strengths from each story.
- Discover recurring themes from your stories.
Use your Workbook to record your the details and outcomes of your process. You may have already have accessed the Career Management Resources for Professionals resource, and completed the Uncovering Personal Assets Worksheet. You can reuse your reflections or broaden your ideas to explore new stories and identify additional skills, values and strengths..
Move on to Step 1: Compose three short stories.
Useful Tip: Two Navigation options for this multi-page module:
- Access the various pages by opening the Table of Contents on the right of your screen (you may need to scroll down to the bottom if you are on a mobile device.
- Advance through the pages using the 'next' and 'previous' buttons at the top and bottom of each page.
1. Compose Three Short Stories
Reflect on memorable professional experiences:
- Recall moments that have made a significant impact on your life.
- Consider instances where you:
- Tackled challenges head-on.
- Felt inspired to act on an idea.
- Experienced a sense of pride in your accomplishments.
- Choose three work and/or volunteer experiences.
- Craft short stories to describe these memorable experiences in more detail.
There are several reasons for developing these short stories:
- Discovering insights: Your stories might reveal important things about what is important to you.
- Making connections: Sharing stories with emotions can help you connect with others
- Improving communication: Your stories can help you talk about your experiences authentically, whether you're chatting casually or in a formal situation
Use your Workbook to capture your three short stories. Add a title and/or keyword that helps you remember each story.
Useful Tip:
Effective stories include a beginning, middle, and end, and can be composed in about 3-4 lines. Use the prompting questions in the table below to assist the story development process.
Once you've written your three stories, continue on to the Step 2: Identify skills, Values, and Strengths.
| Beginning | Middle | End |
|---|---|---|
|
What motivated you to become involved? Were others involved? Describe the situation. |
What did you do to succeed with the task? What skills did you apply and enjoy executing? As an example, writing, leading, facilitating, researching, event planning. Note: Skills are verbs. |
What strengths did you use? Why do you remember this experience? What was the outcome? What values emerge from your stories? Some examples are: a chance to learn something new, monetary rewards, being part of a productive team, and being considered an expert in that area. |
2. Identify Skills, Values, and Strengths
Skills, values, and strengths are distinct aspects of an individual's abilities and qualities. Here's a breakdown of each along with examples to illustrate the differences:
| Category | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Skills | Specific abilities or aptitudes that can be acquired through training, education, or experience | Project Management, Public Speaking, Writing |
| Values | Principles, beliefs, or ideals that guide an individual's behavior, decisions, and interactions with others | Integrity, Respect, Teamwork |
| Strengths | Inherent qualities that individuals are good at and enjoy doing | Leadership, Problem-Solving, Creativity |
Once you have drafted a few short stories:
You are ready to identify the skills, values and, strengths that you demonstrated in that story into the allotted space in your Workbook.
Skills: Drag and Drop
Reflecting on your stories, drag and drop the skills that you demonstrated into the allotted space. Once you are satisfied, copy them to your Workbook.
Note: This is not a comprehensive list, explore additional skill listings in the reference websites listed below.
Useful Links for this Activity:
- The Employability Skills Toolkit Conference Board of Canada toolkit is a step-by-step guide to the skills needed to adapt and succeed in today's world of work.
- Employability Skills Conference Board of Canada overview of the skills needed to adapt and succeed in the workplace, particularly intra- and interpersonal skills.
- Skills and Competencies Taxonomy Government of Canada's National Occupational Classification resource details career competencies across sectors.
Values: Drag and Drop
Now it's time to explore the values that you demonstrated in your stories by following the same drag and drop process, then reflecting these and other values in your Workbook.
Strengths: Drag and Drop
Now it's time to explore the strengths that you demonstrated in your stories by following the same drag and drop process, then reflecting these and other strengths in your Workbook.
Note: Strengths can seem similar to skills but are more about your innate abilities rather than learned behaviors. Consider that skills are the practical tools you have at your disposal, while your strengths are the unique qualities that make you effective at using those tools.
3. Discover Recurring Themes
Looking through your Workbook, what are your recurring skills, values, and strengths? Make note of these common themes in the space provided.
These common themes are highly significant! They are represent what is important to you, what you enjoy doing, and what you are good at.
Tie it together! Review volunteer positions you have been interested in or look at the Example Volunteerism Roles in the Welcome unit. How do your skills, values, and strengths align? Where are your gaps? What are the threads?