Personal Resources

Your personal resources are based on your identity, personality and personal environment - and differ from one person to another. Your job is to find out what really interests you, what fills you with excitement and motivation. Many qualities and characteristics that make you who you are are revealed in the moments in your life when you are excited about doing something,

even when it is not always easy. Get to know yourself. Only when you know what you like doing will you be able to actively steer the course of your career.

Using this overview of personal resources, think as carefully as possible about what it is that ‘makes you you’ and what shapes your world.

• Social capital:  Networks, role models, trust from other people, origin, mentors, ability to approach others
• Values: Values, goals, motives, motivation, tendencies, interests (e.g. courtesy, justice, community spirit, prosperity)
• Identity: Social identity, self-image, social role, social comparison, self-clarity, goal clarity, goal congruence, obligation to achieve, success and failure, (socio-) cultural identity
• Personality: Security, freedom, independence, trust, confidence, harmony, will and willingness to perform
• Physique: Performance level, capacities, awareness or resources, resilience
• Life situation: Current life phase and future life plan
• Skills: Ability to reflect, learn and innovate, personal effectiveness, emotional intelligence, moral intelligence
• And much more

Discover your personal qualities (also known as soft skills or key competencies) using this adjective list to help you. Go through the list and decide which apply to you. Then choose the adjectives that characterize you in the best and most comprehensive way and, taking one at a time, think about the situation or experience in which you earned or applied that attribute.

Draw up a list of your interests - cultural, political, social, and personal. If you find this difficult:

• Imagine you are with someone in a mountain hut. What topics would you like to talk about?
• Imagine a fictional bookshop. Which department would you visit first?
• Take ten pieces of notepaper. Write on each one a feature of you or your character (e.g. woman, scientist, enjoy cooking, like animals, enjoy meeting people). Then make a list of keywords describing which aspects of each feature interest you or make you happy (enjoy cooking: e.g. being creative or following exact recipe and method, using head and hands, interest in something new, carrying something out from A to Z, producing or creating something alone, having an immediate and visible result). Now look for overlaps to determine what really makes you happy.

Do you have an exact idea of all you want to achieve in life? If not, then the exercise devised by American expert and author Richard Nelson (Dick) Bolles may help you to establish your aims and values: Imagine witnessing your own burial. All your friends and loved ones have traveled far and wide to attend the funeral and to hold speeches about you, your deeds, and your achievements. What would you like to be said about you? What should people remember you for? Possible statements:

• Did something that no-one else had ever done before
• Discovered something
• Repaired, improved, perfected - fought against something
• Helped people
• Was able to listen, could empathize
• Influenced people
• Brought about change
• Made the world a fairer place
• Made the world more beautiful
• Made a vision come true
• Was a strong leader
• Was a good team player
• Etc.

Give thought to the following points, considering both the short and long-term perspective: