How have you demonstrated your strengths and weaknesses and how have they affected you?

1. Consider how you exemplify the strengths / areas for development. Provide concrete examples of how you demonstrate these strengths / weaknesses in your daily life (at work or at school).

2. Explain how each of the strengths/weaknesses impacts your performance at work and/or how it currently affects your performance at school. If you find that you cannot identify how the strength/weakness helps/hinders your performance, then re-consider why it is a strength or why you would want to improve the skill, or go back to step 1 and check another area for development.

Integrating Academic Research

1. Select one strength and one area for improvement.

2. Drawing on theory, explain why the strength/developmental need might affect your current performance and/or how it might positively or negatively impact your future career. When considering theory, you will want to find research articles (academic ones) in support of your hypothesis that the strength will be of benefit to your career and that the area for development will negatively affect your performance (or alternatively, why improvement in this area will be necessary for your career).

Developmental Plan

1. Prepare a plan of action for capitalizing on one of your strengths.

a. Prepare a plan for how you believe you will capitalize on your area of strength. Use specific behavioural example(s) to show how your plan will give you an opportunity to use the competency to advance your career. The plan could be realistic and you should apply what you know about goal setting to ensure that the plan is likely to be motivating (e.g., consider whether your plan has SMART goals).

b. You will need to show what would constitute career success and how your plan will bring you closer to achieving it. Further, you need to use research to convince the reader that your plan will be effective.

2. Prepare a plan for how you believe you can improve one of your areas of weakness.

1. Use specific behavioural example(s) to show how your plan will be implemented. The plan should be realistic and you should apply what you know about goal setting to ensure that the plan is likely to be motivating (e.g., consider whether your plan has SMART goals).

2. You will need to describe what would constitute improvement. You should describe the criteria for achieving proficiency on the competency. In addition, you should provide a specific behavioural example of how you would demonstrate improvement in your own life/career.

3. Research the plan. Look for evidence to support the idea that you will improve the identified skill and that your method is likely to be successful. If your idea has not been tested, then you should provide a theoretical explanation for why it will work.