I value my career, and the opportunities I have been afforded, and have a great desire to continue down this path. "You will experience a much stronger drive to achieve if you build goals around what is most important to you." (Carter et al., 1998, p. 326). Since I do not currently have any type of business degree, I often feel inadequate - even though I have earned the respect of my peers. In the environment I am in, most have Bachelor's degrees and a few have Master's degrees. The business knowledge I have attained has been self-taught and mostly what I have absorbed from coworkers and peers. I long to feel like a decision I made was based on sound business principle - something I learned in school! I understand the big picture, but am now anxious to go back and study the fundamentals and fine points.
The desire to complete my degree stems from a yearning to continually further educate myself. .
I have always had a fear of becoming complacent. If I am not striving to continually learn, this could easily happen. As we live in a world of constant change, there will always be something to learn.
"Brains can continue to grow throughout life. Your brain can continue to learn and grow for the rest of your life, barring trauma or grave illness. Aging per se does not undermine learning capacity; attitudes and life-style do that. "Use it or lose it" applies to your brain as much as to other parts of your body." (Gross, 1999, p. 28) .
I also hope to expand on my leadership skills. Leadership is another area where the skills I have learned have been self-taught. I know this will help me in my current as well as my future job experiences. When I first accepted a management position, I was unsure if I would take pleasure in the leadership aspect of it. Admittedly it took a little getting used to, but I soon found I enjoyed the satisfaction that came from mentoring and helping others succeed. I have taken a few leadership and management seminars in the past couple of years, and have left at the end of the day invigorated and excited to apply what I had learned.
