Personal Learning Journal Example

Introduction

During my ten weeks of learning in through the semesters, I have acquired a lot of captivating things from Barabara and also the Professional unit development - self and relationships. In my journal, I wish to demonstrate my comprehension and real experiences associated with two of my favorite topics: stress management. The implementation plan of achieving the good personalities that are related to the topics has also been included at the bottom section of the journal.

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Personal Learning Events

One of the interesting topics that persuaded me at first is stress and the ways to recover from stress. Today, due to the evolvement of technology and development of living standards, millennia's should more expectation for what they have contributed to the society and their ways of living. Lefebvre(2017) purports that; it is one of the ways of stress and depression in the young generation nowadays.

For me, the mere expectation of what will come shortly and its achievement was a burden, which led to me getting stressed up and even depressed. My parents were raised in a tough childhood, but after trials and tribulations they are now successful, and now can cater to their children's financial needs. I cannot ignore the mere fact but make a comparison of myself with them: I am still a student at a tender age, but they started catering for their children at a much more tender age than I am. In my earlier years, the tribulations were a motivation that pushed me a step higher to achieving my goals; however, it came a day that the mere thought was a nightmare: it influenced me to think negatively of myself, and even made me think that I do not deserve what I have now. The situation grew sour; my depressed attracted a sleep disorder. It was week five that changed things, that I even decided to fix it (Greenberg, 2017).

Stress Management

According to Kung and Chun (2014), stress is categorized as both distress and eustress: distress is a negative stress that brings about anxiety and unpleasantness that reduces mindfulness and effectiveness in the long run; categorically, eustress is a term referring to the short-term stress motivation that assists in improving excitement and an ability to focus. The category can assist individuals in improving positive stress and a reduction of the negative stress. Moreover, the individuals will discover that it is short-term; distress might last longer until the person recovers from it; describing the two categories of stress establishes techniques to cope with them is the better method of maintaining good energy from eustress and manage harm from distress. The technique had also been established by Hartanto, Krafft, Iosif & Schweitzer (2016)with the context of an optimal amount of stress would benefit individual performance through their intellectual activities.

However, a stressful situation is a combination of the complexities of distress and eustress (Tarafdar, Cooper & Stich, 2017). The three scholars suggest that effective way to separate sorts of stress is to analyze situations in stressors (the situations or influences driving stress, as indicated by Lindsay, Buss, Wadhwa & Entringer, (2017)and the emotions that come in handy with them. Specifically, Niki (2016) shows that distress closely correlates with negative emotions and other feasible desires; eustress takes into account rational desires that are in context. For instance, distress may be attracted by the cause or fear of failure and fear of disappointing the people in my life by the failures. It also causes a feasible desire - becoming what my parents have achieved today; I consider them to be the standard figures for the success of adults. In contrast, eustress is triggered with gratitude from my parents, the joy they see in me working in a field of my choice, a desire of me contributing positively to the lives of others and a desire to be gratified (Galvin & Smith, 2016).

Besides, I came to know that my fear was being brought about by a catastrophe and polarized thought - a cognitive distortion (thoughtful traps) they convince me things that seem rational, they are not always true (Thibaut, 2017); they are negative since they are engraving our thoughts to think in a negative direction (Helmond, Overbeek, Brugman and Gibbs, 2014). For example, I imagined my parents disregarding me as their child if I fail; sometimes I considered myself as a loser if I did not comprehend something in class.

Recovery Strategy

According to Thibaut (2017), a wise and stable thought is the strongest path of getting out of fear. For me to erase the negative pilot of thoughts, I must initially clear out my illusions and portray my real value.

At first, I held an adult conversation with my parents, talked of their expectation from me, and not through my fears; I was surprised that their only expectation from me was to have a happy life and to be able to be successful in whatever I intend to achieve in life. The conversation change my perspective, I stopped struggling a lot, and initiated a positive attitude towards what I am doing; I hold finding peace within myself as the new "duty" to the people I care and myself.

Additionally, I came up with a list that lists down my difficulties and opportunities living in my life to ponder what and how well I have been utilizing my opportunities to overdue my difficulties. For instance, from the evaluation, I have been managing well with my distractions of the internet; I have come out of the pointless trends and found comfort in more productive and sophisticated things instead, these are reading books, visiting places and taking my time well in what I am doing. I also did well in my studies during the semesters. At this time, this makes me feel good of myself.

Nonetheless, I decided of making eustress a motivation: I demonstrated my-successful-self within the coming six months, one year and three years, and then made them a standard point of setting my success. The setting up of a goal and them evaluating it is really meaningful since I will be able to track down what has been going on, at the same time, rejuvenating the positive energy associated with the short-term eustress.

After the five weeks, the strategy indicates a positive effect on my mind: I am now focused better, and have a new feeling of confidence and allowing myself to feel happy which is more receptive. In any given day, I feel more joy and find more purpose in contributing, and at night time, I sleep more peacefully and deeply.

A Vision for the Future

In the next three years, I may find more joy in my career. After successful completion of my studies and acquiring a job, I will pursue my passion. I would find passion in becoming a business analyst, and could not be a relaxing job. At that time, I shall be working in a place of my choice and will be dealing with a lot of things leave alone academic works, establish bonds and relations, especially with my co-workers, clients, and employers. The stage will be the initial step of my life and development of my career in my nation (Powell & Enright, 2015); hence, I will work tirelessly to achieve my career objectives. That is, I will have to fully dedicate my precious time in the job that I will be held at the time. Maintaining a life balance may sound easy, though it will be a tough challenge. Accordingly, I will have my primary objective of initially maintain my balanced life in the next three year to come.

Additionally, I am still living with the fearful thought of dreaming big sometimes, and it may be a cause of the current state of my mind; my expectation for my life is to be more positive, confident and braver to dream big. I will convert myself from being a no-person and transform to that of being a yes-person (a wise decision, of course, I prefer to be a person that says yes rather than one who says no); I am now open to new upcoming tasks, that offer me new skills and experiences (Boss, Bryant, & Mancini, 2016).

Away from my career, the greed self-triggers many other calls from within. For instance, I am passionate about taking good care of my family and to contribute to the community. I would feel good taking my time of at least one day a week to take good care of my family and catch up with them. The objective will be hard since I plan to be an in-between cities person that will be a bit far from the residence of my family; however, with the support of technology, I see it becoming possible.

Moreover, I plan on visiting the less fortunate once in a while and know what it are being them. Indeed, this has been one of my desires since I was young. After evaluating the topic of stress management, I realized that the burden of balancing everything in life is not an easy task but must be met in the long run. The desire to achieve everything: maintaining happiness for myself and the people who believe in me.

Action Plan

I will focus on reducing the fear of failing, increase motivation and involve myself in more relaxing things in my daily life. Set up goals, this could prove to be difficult or simple relating it to the real-life situation. I will also briefly analyze my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats when I commence the goals. However, the Self SWOT analysis could prove to be cumbersome, since I will have to focus largely on improving on my weaknesses from time to time. I will also establish a time for my family through video calling my family in one or two hours, making a conversation with them in a bid to enhance engagement. I will also utilize my hobby, which is reading books at my free time, that is, at lunch breaks and tea breaks in my future job career.

References

Boss, P., Bryant, C. M., & Mancini, J. A. (2016). Family stress management: A contextual approach. Sage Publications.

Galvin, J., & Smith, A. P. (2016). Informing stress management. A research project focusing on health professionals in training.

Greenberg, J. S. (2017). Comprehensive stress management. McGraw-Hill Education.

Hartanto, T. A., Krafft, C. E., Iosif, A. M., & Schweitzer, J. B. (2016). A trial-by-trial analysis reveals more intense physical activity is associated with better cognitive control performance in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Child Neuropsychology, 22(5), 618-626.

Helmond, P., Overbeek, G., Brugman, D., & Gibbs, J. C. (2015). A meta-analysis on cognitive distortions and externalizing problem behavior: Associations, moderators, and treatment effectiveness. Criminal justice and behavior, 42(3), 245-262.

Kung, C. S., & Chan, C. K. (2014). Differential roles of positive and negative perfectionism in predicting occupational eustress and distress. Personality and Individual Differences, 58, 76-81.

Lefebvre, H. (2017). Everyday life in the modern world. Routledge.

Lindsay, K. L., Buss, C., Wadhwa, P. D., & Entringer, S. (2017). The interplay between maternal nutrition and stress during pregnancy: issues and considerations. Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism, 70(3), 191-200.

Niki, E. (2016). Oxidative stress and antioxidants: Distress or eustress?. Archives of biochemistry and biophysics, 595, 19-24.

Powell, T. J., & Enright, S. J. (2015). Anxiety and stress management. Routledge.

Tarafdar, M., Cooper, C. L., & Stich, J. F. (2017). The technostress trifecta-techno eustress, techno distress and design: an agenda for research. Information Systems Journal.

Thibaut, J. W. (2017). The social psychology of groups. Routledge.