Learning Experiences and Learning Points

Before attending LMS module, I am someone who has low self esteem, lack of confidence. My mind would be filled with negative thinking all the time. I am too sensitive about what others think about me, and would try to change myself to blend in with others, became someone others want me to be, not the true me. I tend to compare myself with others and think very lowly of myself.

After I went through the first unit, on self-awareness and self-esteem, I realised that there was no need for me to have all those negative thoughts. God made us who we are; all different and having different strengths and weakness. Rather to be affected by my weak points, I work on my strengths and make the best out of it!
Only when I start setting my goals and to believe in myself, then I can help me achieve the goals that I’ve set. Having to become more confidence and high self esteem, I can be my true self and achieve the goals I want to be.

As a student, I think time management is very important. With lots of projects to complete, exams to study, CCAs and so much more to attend to, without time management, I don’t think it will be possible to do all that.
Here is something one of my friends sent it to me through email.

With poor time managing skills, I often would have to do things at the last minute and usually resulted in poor results. Now that I have learnt how to manage my time better, I will give myself a deadline a few days before the actual submission deadline so that there can be some time to check over the work. If there isn’t any much time left to complete the assignment or project before the given deadline, I would have to sacrifice my playing time and to spend more time on completing before the deadline. When exam draws nearer, I will have to further control my playing time to have more time for revision.

Through LMS, I have learnt a lot of interpersonal skills that no other modules can teach. In NCC during my secondary school life, all the presentation skills and interpersonal skills are not taught. Then, I have to develop all those skills just by observing how the seniors do. At that time, it did helped me much in presentation skills and not to be too nervous in front of an audience, but to me, I still needs to improve on my interpersonal skills. After the 2 presentations for LMS and taking note of the advices by my tutor, Ms Anne Marie, I not only improved on my presentation skills, my interpersonal skills also gotten better.

Through this LMS module, I also learnt how to manage anger, fear and conflict. In order to manage all those negative emotions, I have to overcome myself mentally. In my view, fear can be caused by past experiences one have had, or just because one’s mind have created an image that is not true.
For me, I fear of heights. Each time I look down from a high point, such as from the 12 floor, to the ground floor, I would imagine myself falling down from 12 floor and dead on the ground floor. Now that I know what causes me to fear heights, I began to overcome the fear by changing my mindset and stop my mind from having that imagination. Now, I have overcome my fear of heights and since then tried things that I wouldn’t have tried in the past, such as flying fox, rock climbing and repelling.

This assignment 2 made me realise the importance of teamwork and communication skills, and has made the 5 of us closer not only as a good team, but also as good friends. Though we had less time for preparation for this assignment 2, as compared to the previous one, but because of teamwork we managed to complete it as we wanted.
The 5 of us won’t be together as a group if it weren’t for LMS, I truthfully hope that ADs will be for everyone and all the best everyone, for the soon-to-come semester exam!!

My Personal Reflection

Self motivation to me is the ability to motivate myself, to find a reason and the necessary strength to do something, without the need of being influenced to do so by another person. When I am, feeling motivated, I can easily achieve what I want, and equally when I feel de-motivated, everything seems to be much harder to attain.

Basically I think that self-motivation is imperative to have for everyone, if you all want anything to be done. Self-motivation plays a very important role in my life. Self-motivation is the act of giving one’s own person incentive or encouragement to do something. In other words, it’s the way to get me moving, as well as to keep going when the going gets tough. Different people motivate themselves in different ways. I have learnt that before you can motivate yourself, you have to know what drives you.

As a student, self-motivation begins in school as I learn how to complete assigned tasks on time, especially those that require time outside of the classroom. You cannot expect the teacher to be the motivator all the time, so therefore, you must learn how to motivate yourself. Without that ability, your life will be much more time-challenging since you will not have a clue how to complete projects without a predominant reason to do so. Managing school work and CCAs can be very tiring, stressful and challenging, especially when it comes to have lots of projects in my hands to settle and to manage stress from family and other prevailing factors on a daily basis. But through this project on self-motivation, it really does help me a lot as to cope with all that.

I think that having a positive self-talk is one way to keep myself to be self-motivated at all times, on the other hand having negative self-talk will make me un-motivated and most probably result in failure. Every time when I encounter difficulties in this LMS project, I would have this negative self-talk telling me to just give up. This is when I use positive self-talk to tell myself to stay strong and to carry on.

I can build on my motivation for this LMS project by getting results. The more the hard work I put in, the more results you will get and the more results you get, the more you will be motivated to get more. These things all build on one another. Making small progresses throughout the project would make me motivated to go further to complete the given task.

Once I have set my goals, I will make sure that I try my very best and make sure that I visualise the end result, before working toward my goal so that I can see and the benefits that will be a my source of motivation. There is nothing to stop anyone motivating themselves to achieve goals that will make their lives better and you can do it to if you adopt the right mindset.

Goals that i want to achieve in 5years time.
-I want to be able to do 10 pull-ups at one go in 15 May 2009, one year from now.
-I want to be able to go for attachment any of the MNCs in singapore(Terminal 3 also included) in 2 years from now.
-I want to go posted to the division that i wanted in NS(Infrantry or commandos) and get the rank that i wanted,
3years from now.
-I want to make a lot of friends in army, 4years from now.
-I want to get into NTU/NUS business school to pursue my degree, 5years from now.

IDENTIFYING YOUR GOALS
Goal setting is a powerful process that enables you to identify what is important to you and helps you to organize your time better. In goal-setting, you set direction for yourself and focus your efforts toward achieving the goal. Knowing what you want to achieve and what is important to you, you can sift out what is irrelevant and quickly spot the obstacles that would distract you from your goal.

Personal Development
-What are the interests that you wish to pursue or develop?
-What parts of your mindset or behaviour do you wish to change for the better?
-Are there any health or athletic goals that you want to achieve?
-What are the things you want to do to make you feel that you have experienced life fully?

-Being influenced by my CCA, NCC, i am always interested in managing people and to motivate them to attaining our goals.When i see my NCC juniors lost interest in NCC trainings, i would try my best to motivate them and remind them about their goals
When seeing them so enthusiastically involving in NCC, and attaining the goal we wanted to achieve, i would have this un-describable feeling of satisfaction as my reward.
I personally think that i still have a lot to learn about managing people and the motivation techniques, and wish to pursue and to develop in this area.
-I tend not to be outspoken and would agree for the sake of unanimity.
I wish that i could change that to so that i can be a part of the something and not just keeping quiet and not contributing.
-I wish to be better on my basketball skills still be able to play basketball, my favorite sport, at least until reaching my 50s..To improve on my dribbling skills is one of the athletic goals that i wanted to achieve, to be able to move freely all about the basketball court.
-Spend time with my loved ones, with my dear friends who cares about me, and to be able to help those less fortunate than i am are the things i wish to do to make me feel that i have experienced life fully.

Career
What level do you want to reach in your career?
How would you want your colleagues to describe you?
What does success in career mean to you?

I wanted to be working in a MNC or for the government bodies.
I want my colleagues to see me as their good friend, a person with charisma and able to demonstrates good motivational skills.
Success in career to me means that i am excelling in the job and that i am in my ideal job.

Education
What do you hope to achieve in NP?
What are your academic goals?
What information and skills will you need to achieve other goals?

After attaining my diploma in BS at the age of 19, i wanted to continue my education and to pursue a degree by the age of 27. To excel in my studies throughout my years of studying in NP and in university in the future.

Love & Family
How important is your family to you?
How do you want to be seen by a partner or by members of your extended family?
What are the important things you want to do to enhance your relationship with your loved ones?
My family is a vital part of my life.Without my family, i already lack of the motivation to carry on my goals in life.
I wanted to be seen as a responsible person that i am trustworthy.

Society
Do you want to make a difference to society?
What can you do to make that difference?

Yes.
Be more involved in community services to help those less fortunate, to contribute back to the society.

Understanding Self-awareness

i. What are 6 adjectives which best describe you? These can be from outside the list. Think about the evidence or your past experiences that support their accuracy.


Adventurous- I always like to participate in outdoor activities.Through NCC, I got the chance to participate in activities such as Outward Bound Singapore, Mount Ophir climbing and Outward Bound Brunei. If i can have the chance to participate in such fun activities, i will go for it.



Happy- I am happy and like(happy) to see other people around me happy as well.



Optimistic-When i encounter any problems, i never gives up and try my best in finding solutions to the problems,always having a positive mindset towards everything.



Responsible-I would try my best to complete the task given to me and would not push the blame to other people if i am the one responsible of committing something wrong.



Sensitive-I am sensitive towards feelings of others and will take note on the words i use to prevent me from unknowingly hurt others' feelings.



Honest-There was one incident when someone wanted to frame me by money stolen from my friends' wallets and putting the money in my bag..I immediately return the money to the rightful owners even if there was a possibility that I might be accused of being the one stealing.

ii. From the list of adjectives that you scored 3, identify the ones which you best like about yourself. Why are they important to you?

Optimistic-I prefer looking things at the bright side, where the grass is greener..Looking problems and things in life pessimistically, resulting oneself feel hopeless and unmotivated, is definately not the option for me.

Happy- Being happy is important to me.Its is something special that when you share it with everyone around you, you end up having more of it.I like the happy feeling and bringing this happy feeling to everyone in my life.

Adventurous- The spirit, this adventurous spirit in me make me from a boy with little courage, to a man who are ready to face the unknown problems head on. With the adventurous spirit burning strong in me, nothing in life will stop me from being what i want to be.

iii. From the list of adjectives that you scored 0, write down the ones you would like to improve. How are you going to develop these characteristics?

Articulate- I wish to be more outspoken and one day be able to talk as well as professional motivational speakers.I will talk more and watch the news to see how the news broadcaster do the news.

Reflections:

PUBLIC SELF: Information about feelings and attitudes that I share with others.
I am funny and like to see people around me happy.

BLIND SPOT: Mannerism and other aspects of behavior of which I am unaware.
I am friendly.

PRIVATE SELF: Information I choose not to share.
I am not used to talk to people I am not close to.

Refer to your Personal Inventory and write down 5 affirming statements that you can make about yourself?

I am motivated.
I am a joker.
I am happy.
I am optimistic.
I will achieve something today.

What are some of the limiting beliefs that you hold? Take a few minutes to reflect on the impact it has on your self-esteem, your relationships, and actions.

I am not good at dribbling the basketball. So I shoot the ball most of the time.

I am not handsome. So I use my jokes and confidence to impress others.

Managing Fear, Self-Awareness & Self-Esteem

To enhance our self-awareness and self-esteem, and knowing how to manage our negative emotions such as fear, plays an important part to our personal development and confidence.I learnt in LMS lessons that it is important to better understand yourself. The better you understand yourself, knowing your strengths and weaknesses for example, the easier for you to change and to use your true potential to the fullest.
It is important for someone to not only high self-awareness but also have a certain level of self-esteem. A person having a high self-esteem is confident about his abilities and is unlikely to give up when facing difficult situations.He thinks positively and believes in himself and only believes that he can succeed. A person with a low self-esteem, he will have doubts with his abilities and thinks pessimistically, and might end up giving up.


During my years in NCC in my secondary school, I was a typical introvert and not used talking to others only when needed.I always portray a stern image , often getting on my peers' and juniors' nerves.My actions taken in NCC were always task-oriented and not care about what others think.I have no confident controlling my juniors well and so have fear instilled in them to make them listen to me.I just wanted to get things done as i feared of failure.
Then there was this time after one of the NCC training, i overheard a conversation among my juniors and peers.
"Who he thinks he is? Some big shot? I hate him!"
Upon hearing that, it really hurt my feelings.It was then i realised that I knew little of myself. After that I changed my ways of getting things done.I threw away the stern image and changed it to a more human-oriented way of doing things. I treated my peers and juniors as my friends and soon enough, I earned the acceptance as a friend.I no longer fear of failure due to the confidence my friends gave me.Through this experience, not only has it increases my self-esteem, it also enhances my self-awareness and helped me in managing my fear.

In 5 years time, i would like people to remember me as someone with healthy self-esteem and high self-awareness, and a good friend. 5years from now, I will maintain my healthy level of self-esteem and self-awareness and so as to not commit the same mistake as in NCC again.

Hmm..My anger experience...
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That day i was meeting my bunch of friends at a nearby basketball court for a few games of basketball.We left our valuables like wallet and hand phones in our bags, placing our bags together and started playing.
Shortly, a guy arrived at the basketball court, placed his bag together with our bags and approached us. He requested my friends and i to have a game of basketball with him.We agreed and had a game together.
After that game, the guy went to his bag to get his wallet and then made his way to the nearby shop to buy drink.To our surprise, he bought us drinks too, and after that he left the court pretty fast.This made my friends and i really suspicious towards him and went to our bags to check on out valuables.
This is when i realised that my hand phone was gone.

I at that moment was "#$%#$%^&", damn pissed off.
Shortly after that day, one of my friend found that guy and had him return me my hand phone.
.
So ya...this is my anger experience.