Self Motivation Skills

 

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Didactic Unit 2	Theme	Time
Self motivation skills	self analysis: problems, challenges, aspirations and goals;	5 hours
	individual asset mapping (recognise strengths and weaknesses in relation to achieving personal goals);
	planning for action;

 

If you think about becoming self-employed, you are putting on the shoes of a business owner, an entrepreneur in its real sense. This is a responsible decision and to succeed as an entrepreneur you should objectively assess your entrepreneurship skills, personal strengths and weaknesses. The best way to do this is to perform self-analysis.

Self-analysis is analysis of one's own personality without the help of another

The ability to perform objective self-analysis is a powerful tool useful in many life situations.

Self-analysis can provide information that is accessible only to you. It also provides an occasion for you to examine your perception of your strengths and weaknesses using a lot of different personal information, thus, making analysis more full and grounded. Quality self-analysis may well provide the opportunity to turn weaknesses into strengths.

There is a universal technique for analysis called SWOT.  SWOT is an abbreviation for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

A SWOT analysis focuses on examining strengths and weaknesses in the internal environment and opportunities and threats in the external environment. The SWOT analysis to be structured like the table below:
SWOT analysis
 

I N T E R N A L	Your Strengths	Your Weaknesses
E X T E R N A L	Opportunities for entrepreneurship	Threats of being an  entrepreneur

 

Strengths and weaknesses are Internal factors. For example, your strength could be clear vision of what kind of business you would like to start. A weakness could be insufficient entrepreneurship skills.

Opportunities and threats are external factors. For example, an opportunity could be your access to the Internet at a low cost that allows you to advertise your product or services cheap. A threat could be a new competitor in local market.

It is worth pointing out that personal SWOT analysis can be very subjective - two people rarely come-up with the same version of a SWOT analysis even when given the same information.  Accordingly, SWOT analysis is best used as a guide and not a prescription.

Adding and weighting criteria to each factor increases the validity of the analysis.

Here is an example how SWOT analysis can look like.

I N T E R N A L	Strengths Internal positive aspects that are under control and upon which you can take into account in planning to become and entrepreneur. 1. work experience 2. Education, competitive vocation 3. Specific transferable skills (communication, teamwork, time management...) 4. Personal characteristics (strong work ethic, self-discipline, creativity, optimism, or a high level of energy 5. Creative thinking, ability to innovate and manage risk	Weaknesses Internal negative aspects that are under your control and that you may plan to improve 1. lack of work experience 2. Low education, no or non marketable vocation 3. Lack of social skills (poor communication skills, lack of self-knowledge) 4. Negative personal characteristics (lack of discipline, lack of motivation and poor responsibility skills) 5. Weak creativity skills, fear on innovation and poor risk management. · ·
E X T E R N A L	Opportunities Positive external conditions that you do not control but of which you can plan to take advantage 1. High demand for products or services you plan to produce in the local market. 2. Opportunities you could have if you improve your education and social skills. 3. Good location for your business 4. Availability of local government support for small business development in your field. 5. Favourable taxation for small business starters	Threats Negative external conditions that you do not control but the effect of which you may be able to lessen 1. Sharp fall in demand for your potential goods and services in the local market. 2. Competition from entrepreneurs with better education. 3. Bad location for your business. 4. Lack of support from local government to small business you plan to start.   5. Tough taxation ·

 

 

 

Here are some practical advices on how to perform your own SWOT

Explore your strengths. Avoid false modesty, but also be honest and realistic with yourself. Start out by simply making a list of words that describe you; chances are many of these characteristics comprising your strengths.
One of your greatest strengths can be love the work you do. Some people know from an early age what kind of work will make them happy.

In assessing your weaknesses, think about what and when you could improve upon.
Assessment of areas where we are weak helps to identify areas where we may need to improve.
Here is the list of critical questions answering which will help you with developing your entrepreneur SWOT analysis.

Strengths

• What do you do well?
• Why did you decide to start own business in the selected area?
• What were the motivating factors?
• Do these factors still represent some of your inherent strengths?
• What have been your most notable life achievements?
• To what do you attribute your success?
• How do you measure your success?
• What is your greatest asset?

Weaknesses

• What do you do badly?
• What should you avoid?
• Do your education and skills affect your job performance?
• Think about your most unpleasant experiences in school or in past jobs and consider whether some aspect of your personal or professional life could be a root cause.
• What could be improved?

Opportunities

• Where are the promising prospects facing you (access to free learning, for example....) ?
• Are you doing everything to benefit from available opportunities?
• What formal training and education can you add to your credentials that might position you appropriately for more opportunities?

Threats

• What obstacles beyond your control you may face starting own small business?
• How might the economy negatively affect your business?

After you have analyzed your strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities, you should use that information to formulate plan of action: what to and in what order to achieve the main goal – become an entrepreneur and start own business.
Your possible action plan consists of the following key steps:

Formulate SMART goals:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time bound

More about approaches to setting goals you can learn from Module 5 Learning to learn (didactic unit 2).

These goals should include two dimensions: business and your personal development (according to SWOT eliminating weaknesses and threats and utilising strengths and opportunities).

 

 

 

When you have prepared your SWOT analysis, the further work is to assess how the internal and external barriers can be coped with in a shorter or longer time perspective?

If you want that the list of goals will not remain on paper turn it into action plan.

Each goal should be turned into specific action programme that answer a number of questions, including: What will be done? How it will be done? When will it be done? Your key task here is setting specific timetables and deadlines for achieving goals by implementing mini action programmes.

 

 

Action plan is not the same as simply writing out a "to do" list.

Your Action Plan

Whatever your goals, whatever stage you are at in the decision making process, you are most likely to make progress if you break down the tasks you have to do into small steps and then identify the actions you need to take for each step. Many action plans fail because the tasks appear too difficult. You may have several goals – but you need to break each down into a list of tasks. Set a timescale for each action – but be realistic – do not expect the impossible.
For each goal determine:

• What actions you will take
• How you will take action
• Who or what will help you
• Why you might not take action
• When you will take action

Example of a simple Action Plan

My Long Term Goal	Short/Medium Term Goals to Achieving Long Term Goal	Actions Required	Constraints	Who or What Can Help Me	Deadline
Improve transferable skills	Improve time, management; communication skills and team working	Attend informal training courses	Not sure how to do this.	Talk to duty Careers Adviser.	one mont

An action plan is more squarely focused on the outcome of each task and how it contributes toward the achievement of the major goal.

 

 

 

 

 

Answers to the questions and exercises of Didactic Unit 2

 

Exercise 1

1.

Exercise 2

2.

Exercise 3

3.

Exercise 4

1.