Second Week Evaluation.

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I have now reached two weeks since I've begun my six week process of improving my Self Management skill that I learned from reading Daniel Goleman. I have to say, I have noticed myself improving slowly but surely in the area. For example, I have been doing well on not being so impulsive on responding immediately with my first thought in a situation. I tend to speak my mind instantly and sometimes that has been to my advantage and sometimes not, especially in my personal life. Well, this week something happened where I initially wanted to just yell out to the person because of a not-so-pretty past we have, but I collected myself and kept my calm, I looked at the overall picture. Which leads me to my next point, relating my Goleman goal to something I learned from reading Heifetz and Laurie's The Work of Leadership article that can be found in Harvard Business Review here. Going back to what I read from Heifetz and Laurie is the "get on the balcony" concept. Like I was saying about seeing the overall picture, this idea goes hand in hand with it. As they state, "leaders must be able to identify struggles over values and power, recognize patterns of work avoidance, and watch for the many other functional and dysfunctional reactions to change." Relating this to my goal, I have been stopping and looking over the entire context and looking for patterns and places to improve on. Instead of finding problems and acting on impulses, I am making an opportunity out of the problem to do better. I am taking the bigger picture into consideration, not just myself as part of the picture.