There's never anything wrong with a bit of self-reflection.
Dear students,
Welcome back from your holiday. I hope you had many opportunities to rest, reconnect, and re-energize. With the arrival of 2014 comes much talk of new year's resolutions and goals for the year. But let’s take a moment to consider something more lasting — core values.
Core values are something that organizations sometimes talk about, but in many cases these seem like marketing lines ("Better ingredients. Better food."). I'm thinking about personal core values -- those values that form the foundation on which we work, play, relate to others, and conduct ourselves. They stay with us through changes in career, family status, location in which we live, changes in politics, or changes in technology. They help us select our friends, partnerships, and manage precious time. They sometimes put us at odds with another. Yet unless we know our own, we risk feeling ambiguous, listless, unmotivated, ungratified or purposeless. Ideally, our core values show themselves in our decisions, goals, or resolutions.
Ever wonder what yours are? An exercise I once heard suggests this:
-Reflect on what are your three greatest accomplishments and why did you consider them your greatest accomplishments?
-Reflect on what are your three greatest failures and why did you consider them failures?
-What common rules or themes can you identify? Write 3-4 brief sentences of advice you would give yourself based on these. If you like, you can try boiling this into short phrases or a list of single words.
Challenge yourself in this new year to revisit your core values and where decisions that flow from those values might take you. It will be time well spent. Mahatma Ghandi reportedly said, "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."
Best wishes for the new year,
-- Dr. Kopp
PS: A few science jokes to start off the new year:
-What does DNA stand for? National Dyslexia Association.
-A blowfly goes into a bar and asks: "Is that stool taken?"
-There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.
-A psychologist gave birth to twins, but only had one of them baptized. She kept the other as a control.
PPS: Each week I try to let you know of upcoming deadlines and opportunities. A list is found at this link. Note the add/drop periods ends this Thursday and the CNS Career Fair is Jan 30.
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