Identity, Values and Strengths

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.” ― Gandhi

What are your personal values?

Happiness: This is what I would consider to be my main value, Happiness. For me however, this closely relates to personal growth. I feel the happiest when I feel like I have accomplished something, whether that is getting a pat on the back for a job well done, winning in a video game, or even learning something new. I am always looking to try and improve myself and be the best person I can be.

Integrity: This has always been one of my core values which I mainly developed during my education to become a commercial pilot. When learning to fly you spend a lot of time in the air without any direct supervision, this means it is quite easy to get into ‘ah no one will find out’ mindset. It is in these moments you need to make the correct decision to compose yourself with integrity.

Learning: This value relates back to the personal growth in relation to my happiness. I strive to learn new things whenever I can, whether this is learning a new skill, learning some new trivia, or learning from a mistake.

How has my culture influenced my values and identity?

I have always been very lucky when it came to my upbringing and my family culture. My parents have always been extremely supportive in whatever adventure I tried to take on, as long as I put in the effort to succeed.

When I was younger, I moved to New Zealand from a little old place called Belgium, immediately I fell in love with New Zealand and considered this my home. I am very proud of my parents to have had the courage to pack up our lives and move to the other side of the world.

My parents have always been extremely hard working and I hope that I have taken on board some of that bravery and the hard-working mentality from them.

When have you had to make an ethical decision?

While completing my Bachelor's Degree in Aviation I had to do 4 papers as a part of the university component of the degree. One of my friends had completed these exact 4 papers one semester before me and offered to give me their work as a baseline for my own. At first, I contemplated taking my friends work as it would greatly reduce my workload and make passing the papers a breeze.

When I started thinking of all the blood, sweat, and tears I had put in to get where I got in my degree, I started feeling uncomfortable with taking my friend's work. It felt like I got so far and it would squander the feeling of achievement when I was so close.

I decided to turn down my friend's suggestion regarding his work, maintain my integrity, and put in the effort myself. I felt that if I was able to maintain my personal values and put in the work needed to complete my degree, it would be a much bigger and better achievement.

In the end, I passed all my papers on my own and I now have an overwhelming sense of achievement when I think back on my time as a student.

Share an example of where you were trying to work productively with others, but there was resistance or tension.

At my previous work I would often manage a couple of people during the closing shift of a demanding retail environment. Naturally this meant that we had to work productively and we had to work together to get the work done on time. As it was the closing shift the faster we finished, the faster we would be able to go home. At times I would not be able to actively manage the staff due to other responsibilities.

One example of when I was met with resistance was when I was in charge of closing the shop during a late-night sales day (store closed at 9pm). I was busy dealing with a customer complaint and was not able to actively manage the staff on the floor. When the store closed at 9pm I found that none of the cleaning had been done. So, this meant that we would now have to do all the cleaning and stay later than expected.

One of my colleagues suggested we only did the bare minimum and left the rest for the opening staff the next day, however I felt uncomfortable with this as it didn’t line up with my integrity value. I disagreed with this and suggested we all work together on the cleaning to get it done faster. Naturally we had to stay a bit later than expected however we got all of the cleaning done like what was expected from us.

Strengths and Limitations

My strengths are that I am very eager and fast learner, I love learning new things. This in turn will keep me motivated through the course as I will be excited to learn something new every day. And I believe that in an industry that is constantly changing and you are constantly required to keep upskilling I'll stay motivated not just through the course but throughout my career as well. I am also very easy-going and easy to get along with so I'll have no problem in working as part of a team.

My weakness is that I can sometimes get distracted, my brain will suddenly veer off on a tangent and I need to make a conscious decision to bring it back on task. This can mean that I sometimes needlessly waste some time and need to work harder to make up for this lost time.

The strength that will help me most in my learning journey is my willingness to learn and my ability to retain information.