My Vision

Have you ever considered writing a vision statement for your professional life? As an assignment I had to, but since the reactions and comments on my statement were interesting, I figured I share it with the world. It's harder than I thought to write such a statement, but it also helped immensely to focus myself on what I need to do to become the best SA professional I can become. And I do suggest that SA pros consider what their individual vision is, cause it can help. Anyway, here's my Vision Statement, hope you find it interesting:

Having a vision statement helps to guide people, organizations, and businesses towards growth and prosperity. It has the ability to define the mission of a life mantra or purpose of a Fortune 500 company. It can also help a Student Affairs Professional move along their career path to ensure they are moving in the direction they wish to go all the while learning and growing.

For Student Affairs Professionals a personal vision statement can be a key component for success in a constantly growing and ever changing field.

My personal vision statement would be the following:

            I want to be a purposeful, effective and always growing Student Affairs    Professional through creativity, balance, well-managed areas of life as well as being firmly based in values and Student Affairs theory and practice.

As a mid-level professional, being in my sixth year in Student Affairs, within my intrapersonal vision statement, there are 3 areas I value, that I can focus on for improvement, at this point in time; balance, stress management and personal values.

Achieving balance is a fluid concept. It can mean a variety of things to individuals. For myself, in this stage of life, it means achieving a balance, or at the very least understanding my limitations within the parameters of my Myers-Briggs Type Indicators (MBTI). Susan Robinson Summers put it best in her final paragraph in an article published in The Catalyst writing “the MBTI is about becoming the best you can possibly be, by identifying your own talents, while gently shedding light on your blind spots” (Summers, 1995, pg. 12).

While Summers was placing this statement in the context of group dynamics and growth, it is quite applicable on the individual level as well. As a professional, it is necessary for me to understand and be aware of my strengths and weakness.

My Type Indicators are: Extrovert, Intuition, Feeling and Perception. After I took the test, both Extrovert/Introvert and Intuition/Sensing came back tied. In each type I was able to answer one additional question to break the tie. Taking this into consideration, I feel that these two types are well balanced. The areas where there should be a more balanced level are Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perception. By having Feeling and Perception as my strengths, there is little separation from my processes and the situation at hand. It is often emotionally charged. While this may be beneficial at times, there is always a need for the ability to separate and look at situations from a ‘third-party’ point of view or a more logical, firm and consistent viewpoint. This can be applicable to the personal life, but definitively for the Student Affairs Professional. For example, Student Conduct, while empathy is needed to connect with the student, a separation and reasoning point of view is needed to issue consequences and judicial hearings.

Upon reflecting during class, I discovered that portions of my high amount of stress are the effects of being emotionally driven by being the Sensing, Feeling and Perception Types while other times it is due to my type A personality. While a Type A personality is more often productive, fast and timely, as with the MBTIs there should be a balance.  There needs to be an understanding of limitations of the amount of pressure an individual can put upon his or her self. According to the worksheet discussed in class, Type A Personalities can have high, and many times, lofty goals. They can be extremely competitive, multitasking and rushed individuals. All the while attempting to undertake additional work and responsibilities in their professional and personal lives. By understanding personality traits a Type A individual is able to understand and learn where they may be able to take more time for themselves or where they should not take on additional responsibilities. I am a Type A and adhere to all of these traits. Upon some self-reflection, taking more time for myself and less responsibilities are the first steps to maintaining a more health balance of stress. Also learning breathing techniques, such as the podcast by Dr. Wiels, and managing my time more effectively to allow time to relax and exercise are a few ways that I will be able to lower my stress to a more balanced level.

The final area that I value and can improve upon is my personal values. Edgar H. Schein, Mark Goulston and Judith R. Brown all make reference to or allude to having a solid foundation of personal values in their texts “Helping: How to Offer, Give and Receive Help”, “Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone”, and “The I in Science: Training to Utilize Subjectivity in Research”, respectively. Both Schein and Goulston refer to a solid base of personal values in order to help others, while Brown emphasizes that a firm values base is needed to ensure proper research practice.  While I had a firm base of values while I was younger, since graduating from college several major life events have occurred and have required me to re-examine my personal values. One key event is coming out at the age of 25. While many of my values and life understandings seemed firm, after the coming out process I was forced to take a look at life through a whole new perspective. Three years later, I am continuing to define my values as a gay male, and now taking a look at how it fits into my professional life as a Student Affairs professional. While having a desire to help students, I can completely agree and understand how it is difficult to help others understand and find their personal values when you, yourself are struggling with the same process.  Goulston seems to summarize the importance of a firm base of values and self-reflection by quoting Abraham Maslow, writing “self actualizing people have a deep feeling of identification, sympathy and affection for human beings in general. They feel kinship and connections, as if all people were members of a single family” (Goulston 2010 pg. 45).

A personal vision statement for Student Affairs professionals is key to success and growth. As a mid-level Student Affairs professional, at this point in time, I find that within my personal statement, I can identify balance, stress management and personal values as key skills I have and value but still need to work on.

Brown, Judith R. (1996). The I in Science: Training to Utilize Subjectivity in Research. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press.

Goulston, Mark. (2010). Just listen: Discover the secret to getting through to absolutely anyone. New York: American Management Association.

Schein, Edgar H. (2011). Helping: How to offer, give and receive help. San Fransisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Summers, Suzanne Robinson. (1995). Team Building: Using the Myers-BriggsType Indicator: Appreciating the Talents Within Your Team. The Catalyst, 25(1), 10-13.