A641.8.3.RB

 Module 8 Reflection Blog

My Personal Balance Sheet

Melissa D. Burns

            In this blog I will be taking stock of my personal strengths and weakness.  In our Becoming a Resonant Leader workbook we put our strengths, potential strengths, enduring dispositions and weaknesses into a balance sheet.  It is an interesting way to look at our emotions, personality traits and other attributes.  This exercise gave me the opportunity for reflection and to consider what changes need to be made to achieve better overall balance in my life.

            When considering my ideal balance, I would have my family and work life well balanced, be making enough money to comfortably support our lifestyle and still have plenty of time to put towards my personal spiritual and physical health.  Of course, my marriage would be the best it could be, and I would have endless patience and love for my kids and husband.  Let’s take a look at my personal balance sheet and see how my journey towards this ideal image is going and what I can change to get closer to achieving my personal balance goals.  

Personal Balance Sheet

(Boyatzis & McKee, 2008)

My Assets

My Liabilities

My Distinctive Strengths:  

I have perseverance.  

I have a lot of love and empathy for those around me.

I have talent and am very good at what I do.

When I get knocked down, I always get back up again.  

I am able to let things go and do not define myself by what I do like I see in so many other athletes and pilots around me.  My ego has been crushed enough that it is not in the driver’s seat of my life and I am grateful for this.  

I naturally inspire and motivate those around me.  When my energy is positive it spreads and is contagious.  

I have an amazing support system of friends and family.  

I am able to let toxic relationships go, both personally and professionally.  

My Weaknesses:  

I have a short fuse

When I get overwhelmed, I procrastinate

I get easily distracted by opportunities and neglect or don’t put enough into what is right in front of me

I sometimes let the feeling of depression sneak in 

When my energy is negative it spreads and becomes toxic and I wear it on my sleeve.  I don’t have much of a protective barrier at all. I am an open book.  

I trust people too easily and this has led to people taking advantage of me professionally too many times.   

 

 

My Potential Strengths:  

If I would spend more time meditating it would help with my patience and reactions.  I need to put more time into my spiritual being.  

If I wake up earlier to get my workout in then I can have more productive time and energy in the day to have better time management and less stress.

When I feel like reacting, I could work on coming from a place of love and give the benefit of the doubt to the person or situation that I am reacting to.  

Focus on positive thoughts and remember that the quality of my thoughts matters at sets my perspective.

Weaknesses I Want to Change:  

One pattern I have seen when working for others as a person who has always worked for myself and from a family that works for themselves is I want to improve and make changes where I see wasted time money and inefficiencies and it gets to me.  I would like to be able to let these things go and focus my energy on what is in my control, and my paygrade.  I take things personally that are out of my control and this only hurts me.  

My Enduring Dispositions that Support Me:  

My workout habits and healthy eating supports me.

My dedication to my children and my family

I am always continuing my education and my training.

My friends and support network are a big part of my life and I value these connections and keep them alive.  

My Enduring Dispositions That Sometimes Get in My Way:  

I like to decompress at the end of the day and watch TV and have a drink, I could use this time to get more done but don’t want to give up that decompression moment right now.  During Covid and with kids that are so young I need this for me and accept that it may make me less efficient for a time, but it is just for now.

Another thing is that I like to take opportunities to have life experiences and sometimes that means sacrificing something else to be able to have that moment.  I would rather know that I took an opportunity (like taking my kids to the Keys for Thanksgiving) than not going to save a little money and get a few things done.  Sometimes small sacrifices to have big experiences that will leave lasting memories (especially with the kids) are worth it.  

My perseverance and desire for justice and equality is something that can sometimes get in my way, but I will not give it up.  

 

 

How can I grow my weaknesses into strengths?  My first thoughts when contemplating this question were about all of my negative traits and weaknesses and this is an instant reflection of one of my weaknesses, my own thoughts.  Rather than focusing on my weaknesses, I need to focus on the strengths that I desire and change the perspective of my thoughts from negative to positive.  If I can meditate and put time and energy into my own mental health and strength, then it will help to lead me to having better control over my thoughts and reactions with an overall shift towards positivity.  This is part of my path towards emotional maturity that is a lifelong journey.  When I look at my balance sheet, I can see that most of my negative traits and weaknesses can be solved by improving my own thoughts and patience.  Rather than dwelling on areas where I have lost or been wronged; or reacting to negative feelings and thoughts; I am working on coming from a place of gratitude and optimism.  I have always been more of a glass half full person, but I also let myself get disappointed and frustrated when things do not seem fair or right with the world.  My own thoughts and feelings are my biggest weakness and improving these to instead, become my biggest assets and strengths, would be life changing.  

            Hope and compassion were the focus of this week’s readings for our leadership class.  How can I cultivate hope and compassion into my life and business?  Compassion starts with listening, for me this means listening empathetically and without judgment and then responding with compassion (Boyatzis et al., 2008).  If I can work on having more compassion in my reactions, then I can build on this as a strength.  Building on my active listening will help to build my compassion.  

Dreaming and having hope have always been strengths of mine.  One thing that I never really considered is how this impacts my optimism on life and in my quality of thoughts.  When my work life went on hold for my family, I don’t think I connected the constant search in my mind to the need for a dream to hold onto that optimism that I am used to coming so naturally.  My dreams shifted to my children and our lives and Covid has forced us to focus on the moment.   We are all living from day to day and just the act of thinking into the future, when the world is so uncertain, is stressful.  I can see the impact that this has had on my optimism and on that of the entire world around me right now.  I feel that a lesson learned from Covid is that we need to be adaptable and able to shift our hopes and dreams and mold them to be realistic and specific in the reality of today in order to cultivate continued optimism and forward movement.  The current times are molding the focus of this discussion to building stronger mental and spiritual health and intelligence as a strength, because lack of gratitude and compassion and empathy seem to be the constant themes of negativity driving the toxins into our daily lives today.

Gratitude can be cultivated through practice, just like compassion, and is another strength that I would like to build upon (Healthbeat, n.d.).  Cultivating gratitude can lead to new hopes, feeling satisfied and feeling happier and is even associated with gaining emotional maturity (Healthbeat, n.d.).  Ways that I can work on building my gratitude and compassion include writing down things that I am thankful for, mindful meditation focusing on the present moment without judgment and thanking someone who has had a positive impact on my life (Healthbeat, n.d.).  Implementing new habits and practicing the strengths that I hope to improve upon with help me to close the gap of my weaknesses while building resonance and gaining my ideal balance (Boyatzis et al., 2005).   

As a person who has made a living off of motivating others and encouraging people to chase their dreams while living my own dream, I find it difficult to understand how I can feel so down at times and negative and lacking luster and motivation.  Research shows that as people get older then become less optimistic and that means that we need to foster optimism and work on keeping it as we age (Dholakia, 2016).  Several traits that come from optimism include knowing more about how to be healthy, engaging in healthier behaviors overall and facing setbacks with more effective methods (Dholakia, 2016).  Moving forward I choose optimism and gratitude as traits to build upon and add to my list of strengths.    

References

Boyatzis, R.; Johnston, F.; & McKee, A. (2008).  Becoming a Resonant Leader Develop Your Emotional Intelligence, Renew Your Relationships, Sustain Your Effectiveness.  Boston:  Harvard Business Review Press.  

Boyatzis, R. E., & McKee, A. (2005). Resonant leadership: Renewing yourself and connecting with others through mindfulness, hope, and compassion. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Dholakia, U. (2016).  4 Reasons Why an Optimistic Outlook Is Good for Your Health.  Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201607/4-reasons-why-optimistic-outlook-is-good-your-health

Healthbeat (n.d.).  Giving Thanks Can Make You Happier.  Retrieved from https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happier

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