Explore Yourself: The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living
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xplore Yourself
‘The unexamined life is not worth living’
Socrates
Thinking about what you might like to do with your life is a big head ache. The thing to remember is — it’s your life — and everything has to start from where you are now, but the thing you want to know is about your future.
Before you can visualise a future self, you need to look at yourself today — what interests you, what you are good at, what really matters to you — in order to evaluate possible future roles and careers which may be right for you. Employers interested in recruiting students from the Universities consistently say that they are looking for graduates who are self-aware, who know their own strengths and weaknesses, who have reflected upon their experience to understand themselves better. Such people are likely to be an asset to any employer, because they have already begun to take responsibility for their own development. They will be the sort of employee who assesses their own performance critically, who looks for ways to use their strengths and seeks out opportunities to develop new skills, who interacts productively with colleagues and clients and is ready to take the initiative. If you engage in self-analysis, you can demonstrate your potential in these areas on the CV you send out for your first job after graduation.
‘Experie nce is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him.’ Aldous Huxley Perhaps surprisingly, before looking ahead to imagine your future it can be helpful to spend a little time first looking at your past - the story so far. Why? Because aspects of your past will exert a strong influence upon the way you think about potential futures — and the influence may be positive or negative. Imagine yourself as the cent ral character in a novel or biography which tells the story of your life so far. You have been asked to analyse this character to deepen your understanding of their behaviour and situation. What aspects
xplore Yourself
‘The unexamined life is not worth living’
Socrates
Thinking about what you might like to do with your life is a big head ache. The thing to remember is — it’s your life — and everything has to start from where you are now, but the thing you want to know is about your future.
Before you can visualise a future self, you need to look at yourself today — what interests you, what you are good at, what really matters to you — in order to evaluate possible future roles and careers which may be right for you. Employers interested in recruiting students from the Universities consistently say that they are looking for graduates who are self-aware, who know their own strengths and weaknesses, who have reflected upon their experience to understand themselves better. Such people are likely to be an asset to any employer, because they have already begun to take responsibility for their own development. They will be the sort of employee who assesses their own performance critically, who looks for ways to use their strengths and seeks out opportunities to develop new skills, who interacts productively with colleagues and clients and is ready to take the initiative. If you engage in self-analysis, you can demonstrate your potential in these areas on the CV you send out for your first job after graduation.
‘Experie nce is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him.’ Aldous Huxley Perhaps surprisingly, before looking ahead to imagine your future it can be helpful to spend a little time first looking at your past - the story so far. Why? Because aspects of your past will exert a strong influence upon the way you think about potential futures — and the influence may be positive or negative. Imagine yourself as the cent ral character in a novel or biography which tells the story of your life so far. You have been asked to analyse this character to deepen your understanding of their behaviour and situation. What aspects