Optimism and self-skills

You may think that certain posts I’ve made appear simplistic and obvious and of course I know they are.  The point is, the simplest most obvious thing can sometimes be the hardest thing to understand and until we understand it, it is not obvious or simple to us at all!

Which comes first, is it optimism or self-skills, or are they collectively developed?

The strength of self-skills

Most of us have experienced challenging times.  At some point in our lives we’ve all found ourselves in a situation that appears to be insurmountable, fighting hard to keep afloat and wondering if things will ever get better.  It’s at these points when suddenly; unexpectedly we are thrown a lifeline that can change our perception in an instant from one of desperation to one of hope

It’s at these times that some unseen force pumps regenerating energy into every corner of our being filling us back up with hope, recharging our self-belief and self-confidence and giving us the self-motivation to once more face the challenges that lie ahead. 

Without hope we feel weak and de-motivated, our self-skills give us the strength and optimism we need to move forward toward the “light at the end of the tunnel.”      

Learning styles and self-skills

People matter-people differ.  While we are all different we can assemble people into groups with common behavioural characteristics in order to begin to understand them.  Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist popularised this approach through his theory of psychological type where he describes the traits of introversion, extraversion, thinking and feeling.  Virtually all comprehensive personality trait analysis models used today include Jung’s concepts.

Gordon Willard Allport an American psychologist was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personality psychology. He contributed to the formation of Values Scales and rejected a behavioural approach, which he thought often did not go deep enough.

People share similar traits; the traits indicate behavioural and motivational tendencies, the tendencies point towards inherent skills and interests and suggest motivation toward or away from certain situations or activities.  Understanding a young persons traits can provide valuable insights into the persons preferred style of learning giving parents and teachers the opportunity to tailor their coaching/teaching to the needs of the learner.