The only way that someone can fully succeed in life is if they know themselves and their personal actions. Being that I am on the track to become an occupational therapist, it is very important that I know about myself in order for me to interact with my clients. Assessing how I act as a person is important because that is how my future clients are going to view me. It is important that I make sure that I am confident I know about myself before I try to help someone else regain control in their life.
I know that if I were a client I would want an occupational therapist who is confident and knows about themselves before they intervene to help me. When I do become an occupational therapist, it is also important for me to continue learning about myself. Just because I received a degree and have a job does not mean that I am not still growing and changing as a person. Just like occupational therapists have to keep being educated through their career, they also have to keep assessing themselves as people. To being, the Kolb Learning Style was able to physically show me the way that I interact with others.
After taking the mini assessment, it showed that I am a person who works best. I learned that I work best when using an accommodating style. An accommodating style is putting the ideas that have been practiced into action (Kolb, 2007). I also tend to adapt to changing situations and information (Kolb, 2007). This does best describe my learning style because I have always been someone who needs to be doing something to get the full effect of it. This learning style is going to come in handy very much when I become an occupational therapist because most of the activities in which we participate involve doing and adapting to an activity.
As an occupational therapy student, there is a lot of stress and work that is involved. My first behavior goal for myself is to be able to cope and control the large workload. I have unfortunately found myself getting to the point where I was almost crying over stress. I know that being an occupational therapist it is going to be very stressful, but I need to be strong for my clients and make sure that they are the priority. I have been doing very good lately with my stress. I am taking more time to relax and not constantly be worrying about what the next assignment I have to do will be.
This can relate to occupational therapy because there are going to be days where everything is planned out and for some reason those plans need to change. This goes to show that planning your life out very strictly can only cause more stress. I know that it will take some time, but I know that I am headed in the right direction by reducing my stress. The next behavior goal I have to work on is time management. As a occupational therapy student, there is a lot of work involved that needs to be spread out over a reasonable amount of time. I also believe that I am taking the right steps in eliminating my lack of time management.
In high school, I often waited till the last minute to complete a paper or to study for a test. While I was able to get by with a 3. 9 GPA in high school, I knew college would never be that easy. I am proud to say that I have not waited till the night before to complete anything this semester! Since I commute, I stay at the college later and complete all my work so in increases my time management and reduces my stress. When I completed my occupation configuration, I found that my time management was actually right around where I hoped it would be.
I spent about 20% of my time on education, which proved that I don’t just sit at home and do homework all day like I expected. When I do become an occupational therapist, time management is going to be a major part of my life. When I am at work, I have the potential to see a large number of patients during a single work day. I need to make sure that every patient has the appropriate amount of time to contribute to their success in occupational therapy. Not only do I need to worry about balancing my time at work, but I also hope to have a family someday, so that will also need to be incorporated into my life.
I know that all of this is going to be difficult to manage, but I am ready to accept the challenge when I begin my career. While I do have many goals, I also have several strengths. One of my strengths include being able to communicate with just about anyone. I have been around a wide variety of people since I was younger and I was able to interact in different ways with different age groups. Since I coached several sports teams, I have had a lot of experience in how to deal with children. I have seen the ups and the downs of many children. I have seen children go through everything from being adopted into a family, to losing a loved one.
Some things were very difficult to see, but it helped me to communicate with the children on a very personal level. I loved the feeling of walking into a practice and seeing the smiles on their faces and receiving the hugs constantly from them. I also have had a lot of communication with adults. I have had to communicate with my parents, teachers, professors, my boss and many more. I am fortunate to be around so many people, because when I go to visit people who may be on a low in life, I am able to communicate with them better than I ever thought I could.
When I visited the Clark Summit State Hospital, I was put in a room with an OT and 3 skitsophrenic patients. At first I was absolutely terrified, but being that my mom is a psych nurse, I was able to communicate with the patients the way my mom would have. She was able to teach me how to approach someone who may have a mental disability. It turns out, hanging out with those patients was one of the best times I had in a long time. I found them to be so funny and they were so thrilled that I was there just so they could communicate with someone.
Since I hope to become an Occupational therapist in psych, it is important that I keep working on this strength to make it even better. Even though I may be able to talk to a wide range of people, there is always room for improvement! Another strength I have is that I have a very good work ethic. I have always been a hard and diligent worker when it comes to my school work. I like to try my best to get the job done in the fastest and most efficient way. I also have a good work ethic in the aspect that I able to juggle everything that I have to get done in a certain day. In a given day I would go from school to cheerlead to work.
I am able to spread myself out evenly between everything that needs to get done. Having good work ethic is a very large part of being a successful occupational therapy student. The next five years are going to consist of me being able you juggle my time and complete my fieldwork in the most efficient ways. This will help lead me to become a motivated and work efficient occupational therapist in the future. When I become an occupational therapist, it is going to be very important that I have good work ethic. Being an occupational therapist, I am going to have to work in the fastest, most efficient way that I can.
I need to be able to see a large number of clients, also while giving them the best quality care. I have many current roles that I play that will help me become a well rounded occupational therapist. First I am a daughter and a sister. Being a daughter, I am able to assist my mom and dad in what ever they need around the house. This has given me experiences in many areas of the practice framework, which include ADL’s, IADL’s, sleep/rest, education, play, work, leisure, and social participation (American Occupational Therapy Association [AOTA], 2014).
I help with many things, including cooking, cleaning, and riving. When I do become an occupational therapist, I will need to work to improve these skills in my clients. So, I am very fortunate that I was able to learn how to complete them very early in my life. Being a sister, I am there to be a role model and to help guide my younger sister through life. When I become an occupational therapist I may have to be that role model that some clients look to when they have very little hope. I have always been there to encourage my little sister an I hope that it will help me to become the best occupational therapist that I can be.
In conclusion, this assignment was very important in relation to my future career as an occupational therapist. Completing this assignment allowed me to learn and understand more about myself as a person. Occupations occur in a wide variety of contexts which may include social, physical, cultural, personal, temporal, and virtual (American Occupational Therapy Association [AOTA], 2014). When learning about myself, I found that I have had successful interactions with just about every one of these contexts. I now have a better understand on what I should improve and what will be most beneficial for my future career as an occupational therapist.
I will work my hardest to make sure that I exhibit all of these skills through out the rest of my time as an occupational therapy student also. It is very important that promoting individual, community, and population health is the core of all the work, education, and research that occupational therapists partake in (American Occupational Therapy Association [AOTA], 2014). I am a firm believe that no one should ever stop learning new things. I am very thankful that I was able to find a future career that also has the same belief.