Conscientiousness sample essay

While using the Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Personality Inventory Revised I learned that I had found some weaknesses in me. The weakness that I found was conscientiousness, more precisely self-discipline and order which both are a part of conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is considered a trait, which means painstaking or being careful. Where an individual is in accord with its conscience.

The Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Personality Inventory-Revised which is developed by Paul, Costa, and Robert. It has gone through a great metamorphosis since it was originally created some forty years ago. Today, the Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Personality Inventory-Revised has a series of categories, known as “The Big Five,” represented by the acronym, ‘OCEAN’.

As I worked with a friend of mine to develop a strategy to which will help with my problem of procrastination. We created a chart that would keep an account of my actions and inactions. We made out such a plan that would increase my responsibility and a method that would help me determine that when I have achieved my successful conclusion or objective. A plan was also developed to help me with my problem of order, after I reach success with my self-discipline problem.

I am very eager to develop my career and myself. When I joined Kingston MBA I thought that was my last chance to succeed in my goals but as you know that getting an education can be very hard. It needs a lot of hard work and attention. But when you get the right kind of education it would be a major asset when climbing the corporate ladder, which was my main objective.

Introduction

As we know that coming back to the academic field is not an easy task that can be achieved if you have been absent from it for a long period of time. It precisely took me eight years to make up my mind to come back and study. I am very eager to develop myself and my career. When I joined Kingston MBA I thought that was my last chance to succeed in my goals.

But as you know that getting an education can be very hard. It needs a lot of hard work and attention. The journey while completing MBA is full of obstacles. It is very time consuming; it doesn’t leave me with any time for other kind of activities or any time for myself other than studies. As I had returned to the academic life after a long period of time, I went through a lot of struggle to stay focus on my studies. There was a time when I felt that everything and everyone was trying to stop me from my reaching my goals. I was in a situation whether to go over these things or these things going over me and all my dreams.

Other than my personal problems the other thing that was bigger obstacle in that was stopping I to reach my goal was time management and self-discipline. I always had difficulty in meeting deadlines, but now it has changed completely. I always thought the school life is easier than practical life but in actual it is the other way round. When I started this semester I though it would be very easy but as time went on I realized the fact that it was not. The amount of work listed on my syllabus overwhelmed me and I had to find some way to handle all of my work that was assigned to me. After a couple of months in this course I realized that I wasn’t able to handle myself and I was depressed and anxious most of the time. I reached a point where I was simply out of control and I called a friend to help me out it, she tried very hard to discourage me from continuing with the course but I was very persistent, so I decided to take a break and after a few days in my break I realized that I had made a mistake. I reached a conclusion that I would not waste anymore of my time and put my goals in front of everything. My main goal was to go over my problems and get back on track and appoint MBA as the centre of my attention for remaining of the course.

Application of theory

After taking the Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Personality Inventory Revised or N EO PI-R, a psychological personality inventory, which showed my weakness in the category of “conscientiousness,” and the subcategory known as “self-discipline”. The decision that I reached was that I would do something about my time management so that in the future I would be able to handle and meet the deadlines on time. I had to develop time management skills and change myself so that I could reach my goals. The Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Personality Inventory-Revised is also known as “The Big Five,” and which is represented by the acronym, “OCEAN,” which includes the following: –

1) Openness to experience: which includes fantasy, action, feelings, ideas and values (Costa & McCrae 1992).

2) Conscientiousness: which includes competence, order, self-discipline, dutifulness, achievement striving and deliberation (Costa & McCrae 1992).

3) Extraversion: which includes warmth, graciousness, assertiveness, activity, positive emotion and excitement seeking (Costa & McCrae 1992)

4) Agreeableness: which includes trust, straight forwardness, altruism, compliance, modesty and tender mindedness (Costa & McCrae 1992)

5) Neuroticism: which includes anxiety, hostility, depression, self-consciousness, impulsiveness and vulnerability to stress (Costa & McCrae 1992)

The examination, which consists of two-hundred-forty questions, is geared toward each of the five categories. Each has its own series of six subcategories, or ‘facets.” I did poorly in the subcategory of order, but the area in which I poorly performed than order was in self-discipline, which is the part of Conscientiousnesss.

Changes in Thinking and Behaviour

Since I have been working on my self-discipline with a friend of mine, I have started to notice that I now have a positive attitude towards things in life. I do not feel depressed or de-motivated all the time.

I carry a planner with me and prepare my schedules before time about things, which need to be done the next day. I have also realized something that if I do the assignments on the date which they were given to me I would be able to complete them on time and I would not feel work stress would also have some spare time to other stuff which requires my attention at that time.

As now I am able to time manage myself, I find more time to go to the library and do some research or just sit there and do some extra study, or study for a quiz or have time to work on my reports or research papers that are due at the end of each semester. Time management has helped me to get my thing in proper order and due to that I have been able to get high grades in the assignments that I have submitted to my professors on time and I am also receiving good grades in my examinations too, which makes me one step closer to my goals.

And currently, I have all of my reading assignments up-to-date, papers all written, and time to go back through them to poof read and edit them or reference them.

Action Plan

Now that I am able to handle time management, I can start to work on my other weaknesses such as order and self-discipline. Out of these two it is important that I learn some self-discipline. As you know that self-discipline plays an important part in an individual’s life and with out self-discipline you will not be able to achieve anything.

Self-discipline can be defined as an action that you take or do regardless of your emotional state of your mind, if your self-discipline is strong you will be able to achieve your goals without any struggle.

As I said earlier a friend of mine from school decided to help me with my self-discipline techniques. My friend and I reached a conclusion that she would continue with her surprise checks on my progress, but they would occur less frequently. My friend will conduct her checks 3 times in a week and if I was making progress then even those checks will decrease. And if I am able to maintain my self-discipline then those check will happen only once a month. If I am able to get through the semester without any mishaps then I will consider that my “self-discipline” issues have been resolved. My friend and I have agreed to define a successful completion in this area by the following that there would be grade less than a ‘B’, I would have to turn my assignments on time and actively participate in classroom discussions and have to keep up with my readings etc.

After been successful in achieving self-discipline I will be able to move towards the other areas of my weakness and that is the subcategory of “order.” I will be using the same chart that my friend and I have developed and she is again going to help me achieve order in my life. That is to organize my stuff and my working schedule etc.

I will try my level best to be successful in achieving my goals by the time I graduate in 2010. I will be in a good position to apply for jobs of my interest and I will feel more confident in my ability and knowledge. Because I know that self-discipline and order play an important part in doing a job or any sort of work. If I have self-discipline I will be able to handle all kinds of work pressure or work load and having order in my life will be able to help me organize things for easy use in the future.