Personal Management skills are defined as your ability to control and regulate your thoughts feelings and actions.  If you can control and regulate your thoughts feelings and actions dependent on your environment, you will be able to follow through with the work that you are asked to do.

Key Lessons

Seeing things from another point of view

• is an important skill to enhance 

• will bring more clarity to a situation and help you in the workplace

• increases empathy and opens your mind

Perspective can be defined as:  To see a situation from the viewpoint of another, understanding their feelings, thoughts, and intentions.  How we manage our perspective is important in all aspects of life.  

Unconscious bias (or implicit bias) is often defined as prejudice or unsupported judgements in favour of or against one thing, person, or group as compared to another, in a way that is usually considered unfair.

We unblock our assumptions about people and improve communication by

• staying open minded

• looking and listening closer - and from a different perspective

• saying “I don’t know” or “I would like to learn more about you”

• avoiding gossip, rumours or social media posts about a group of people

• getting the facts about individuals and not putting them in boxes

• remembering, we all have days or moments when we aren’t at our best

• knowing that it’s what’s inside that counts

Key Lessons

• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are necessities to build a fair and equal society that allows all individuals to have equal opportunities

• bring people together

• allow people to show up without fear of being their true selves

• creates a healthy and prosperous community

Equity is the fair and respectful treatment of all people.
Equity is the process; equality is the result. 
University of Toronto Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

Key lessons

• Habits help you achieve your goals and require consistency

• Managing your time effectively will reduce stress and increase productivity

• Goal setting is important to keep you on track, gives you direction and motivated for success

Work habits contribute to building skills.  They also help you build the lifestyle you want.  Good work habits can have natural positive consequences such as being promoted or getting a raise

Poor work habits have natural consequences; if you are late every day for no reason, the natural consequence is you may be fired.

TIP

Employers are making an investment in you and need you to have consistent reliable work habits.   Employers often keep and promote employees who have good consistent work habits.

Employers have stated that good work habits are important to develop and maintain.  Good work habits can result in the increase of job satisfaction, contributing more to the team and helps create successful relationships between peers, colleagues, and managers. 

TIP:  Habits for success

Keep a to do list each day/week to keep you on track – you get to check off when you get things done.  You can add things that you completed during the day that were not on your list.  This will help you stay motivated, and you will see your productivity.

Key Lesson

Setting goals helps to motivates us, gives direction, focuses, and steers us and it can improve mental health as well as our level of personal and professional success

You can have big goals (a vision for your life) –  that is great, a big goal will need to be broken up into smaller pieces. 

Make a goal for this course   

On a piece of paper answer the following:

Today’s date ____________________ Deadline to achieve goal ____________________

Specific: In one sentence, state exactly what your goal is: I will…

Measurable: How and what can you measure to know if you are making progress?

Attainable: What makes it possible? How is it manageable?

Realistic: What makes this a sensible goal? Are there very many big obstacles in your way?

Time-bound: List the date you will achieve this goal. List any smaller steps - with dates attached.

Key lessons

• We all have unique abilities, talents, and skills

• We are not always aware of them

• We must identify them and know how to communicate them to others

Skills, abilities and talent sheet checklist

You have a “Skills, abilities and talent sheet and checklist”.  Through the course you will be checking off your skills and abilities and you will find out you have so many!

Skills may not be readily apparent. For example: you might say: “I was a newspaper carrier, all I did was hand out papers.” Actually, you have cash handling experience, customer service experience, reliability, organization, ability to follow instructions/ directions, entrepreneur skills, compile items, and willingness to work in all types of weather conditions. 

Key Lessons

• Having confidence and a good attitude doesn’t mean you have to be smiling all the time and be outgoing.

• In a work setting it means presenting yourself in a professional manner with a positive attitude towards work and your co-workers

10 ways to build your confidence

1. Review your skills and abilities, (see the skills and abilities list in the Unit) if you are having difficulty identifying your skills and abilities, ask someone close to you what they think.

2. Prepare yourself, the more prepared you are for a class, a meeting, an interview, an event, the more you will decrease your stress and increase your confidence. 

3. Who do you know that is confident?  How can you tell they are confident?  Can you imitate them?  Ask them how they stay confident.

4. Watch and listen to the words you use. The words you say to yourself are extremely powerful. 
   Who do you hear all day long? 
   What can you say to yourself to increase your confidence?

5.  Find a mentor – Learning from a mentor is amazing. A mentor is someone who is doing or has done what you want to do and has done it well.  They will be able to guide you in your career, and maybe they can connect you with others who can assist as well.  (Ask your facilitator if there are any mentoring opportunities.)

6.  Develop a new skill – after identifying your skills and abilities you may see where the gaps are.  Throughout the soft skills program you are going to discover some strengths and some gaps in your abilities. List where the gaps are and look to develop those skills.

What is one skill you would like to develop?

7. Remember your successes. Go back into your past and find your successes:   When did you overcome a problem?  When did you receive a compliment?  Ask people who are close to you what they see as your successes.

Think of one success you have had. 

8.  Set yourself achievable and realistic goals and really celebrate when you reach those goals.  This will help keep you motivated. 

9.  What makes you feel confident?  Maybe it is a song, words you say to yourself, singing, something you imagine, something you feel, how you move, how you walk, how you talk, something you wear, or the way you look, try different things, and see how you feel.

    Write down one thing that makes you feel confident      ______________________________________________________

10. Change your perspective: many people who lack confidence are often concerned about how others impact them.  turn this around and see the impact that you have on others.

Key Lessons

A positive attitude can equip you with the outlook you need to deal with stress in a healthier way and be successful at work.

These are things you can do to contribute to a more balanced outlook

1. Surround yourself with positive people.

We are the reflection of the 5 people we are around the most.  If you are around negative people, you are more likely to be negative.  When we are around positive people our attitude changes.  Find some positive people to connect with.

2. Practice gratitude.

• Say “Every time I get up, I am grateful for___________”

• Instead of “I have to get up in the morning” you can say, “I get to get up in the morning.”   Say nice things to yourself – you listen to you all day long, you might as well be nice about it.

3. Be careful what you choose to listen and speak about – it is important.

Gossip is toxic.  Gossiping anywhere is negative; if you gossip at work, you contribute to an unsafe and unstable environment.  If you need to address something with one of your co-workers, you can do so directly, in a productive way.  Gossip can

• disrupt a team

• alienate people, including the gossiper

• destroy a person’s or the company’s reputation

• make people feel excluded or like they don’t belong

• make people feel unvalued or unsafe

If your gossip contributes to someone else’s mental distress and it is reported to Human Resources, you could face disciplinary measures or lose your job.

4. Take time to help other people

It is important to help others (as long as it does not interfere with your work and/or your boundaries.)

5. Be wary of social media.  It can affect your mood and your attitude.

Research shows that social media can have a negative effect on your mood and attitude, so be careful what you consume.

• Set goals and then divide into smaller goals so you can be motivated when you have completed a short-term goal

• Celebrate your completion of goals

• Give yourself an award for completing your goals

• Focus on what you do like at work

• Do something each day to take initiative; challenge yourself

• Do something without being asked

• Get others involved in what you are doing

• Let your supervisor know what you like doing and see if you can do that activity more

• Go the extra mile and help others; stay late occasionally if you can

• Be flexible with your job duties and your shifts (if this is possible)

• Embrace change and be willing to “pivot” when required.

Key lessons

• Gratitude can help positive emotions, improve health, and can build resilience

• Mindfulness is an important skill to acquire and is needed and wanted by employers

• If you practice mindfulness, it will reduce your stress

• Gratitude and Mindfulness can keep you grounded and can help you reduce anxiety

Gratitude

• You can practice gratitude in many ways.  One helpful way is to find 3 things you are grateful for when you wake up and find 3 things you were grateful for during the day before you go to sleep.

Sunshine, clean water, friends, family, warm meal, eyesight, mobility, technology, A hot shower, comfortable seat, community, ability to learn, language, feelings and so much more

Congratulations!
You have completed
Unit 1: Personal Management