I’m hoping to understand myself better and where I want to take my career in the short and medium term. I’ve always had a fascination with development and I’d like to know if this is the right role for me or if I want to stay in my current role as a product owner. I also want the experience to wake me up. It’s been a rough few years with Covid, and I know I needed to do something that gave me a positive experience, made me work hard, and allowed me to learn something new. I want this new experience to get me excited about things again.
Strengths: My humor and curiosity will help me stay engaged and happy. My social nature and interest in people will help me get to know my peers and work with them during the course.
Limitations: My inclination to get overwhelmed and daydream. I osciliate between boredom and overwhelm and this can be dangerous for learning. I also think I am not great at taking care of myself or sticking to a schedule of habits. This will make it tough to ensure my mental health is taken care of and I'm doing the standard stuff like eating, drinking enough water, getting enough sleep, and getting time away from the computer.
Finding a way to stick to a schedule, get enough exercise, eat regular, healthy meals. Basically, avoiding living in chaos-zone. I can tend to throw myself in intense situations and just plan to come up for air at the end. I'd love to do the bootcamp so it doesn't feel like I'm just waiting until the end to have some parts of normal life return.
Self-awareness always. I'm always hoping to learn more about myself so I can understand myself better. I also would like to cultivate more self-compassion and confidence.
Cultivate a positive, healthy environment where everyone feels safe to learn. Help me when I'm overwhelmed. Tell me to take a walk when I am near breaking point (hopefully, this doesn't happen!).
Stay positive, enjoy the ride, take stock of how far you've come, get perspective by looking out, be patient with yourself. It's not going to go perfect. It's going to get messy and I hope I just know to be patient with myself and to provide patience, encouragement, and perspective to other students who might need it too.
I honestly don't know exactly. I've come from roughly 10 years in the tech industry working as a project manager and product manager/owner. I have been getting fatigued with the work especially working from home with covid-19 lockdowns. I think the word people were using was "languishing." You could say I was languishing for the past year or two. I have always been frustruated that I couldn't code and have wanted to learn for roughly a decade. But my job was always pretty fun and enjoyable and secure. You can say that the languishing caused me to finally take the plunge. I don't know what this means for my career when this is over. Will I continue to be a product owner and go back to my job for a long time? Or will I pursue a more technical career? Right now, I'm taking it one day at a time and following my curiosity. I know that I want work that is fulfilling and keeps me engaged. I don't know if that will be a product or development career.
In terms of my strengths, I have dogged determination and I will do whatever it takes to get something done. I also know that I'm super curious and love learning new things so I think I'll remain interested and engaged. In terms of my limitations, I know I can get personally overwhelmed and beat myself up when I feel I'm not meeting my expectations. I also struggle with focussing and getting distracted which can make it tough to complete long days of learning.
I'd love to get more confidence and coping mechanisms for dealing with stressful situations. I'd also like to develop more of my leadership skills.
I am determined to complete this programme and get as much out of it as I can. I will make sure to be respectful, kind, and empathetic to my fellow students and facilitators. I generally hold my belief in equality and respect for others extremely high so I think this will not change with the programme. When things are building up, I will make sure to take a break and listen to what I need. Sometimes you need a snack, walk, or nap. We're all at the core basically kids and dogs. I will make sure to remind myself to do those things if I find myself having a hard time. I also will communicate to my peers and facilitators (where appropriate) how I'm doing so that others can understand and respect any boundaries that might need to be laid out.
I will make sure that I don't stew on a problem for more than an hour. If it's been longer than an hour, I commit to reaching out to other students or a facilitator for help. I will not suffere in silence! I also will make sure that if I am stewing that I will take a break and do something else.
I expect kindness and compassion from the facilitation team. A bonus would be clear communication and baller teaching skills. I think though, at a base level, I mostly just want facilitators that believe in me, trust me, and can have compassion for me when I might be struggling. And I will do the same in return.
I have zero commitments and I've rearranged everything to do this. So lesh goooooo.