Marilyn vos Savant, American columnist, author, lecturer, and playwright, once said, “Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses.” I could not agree more with this statement. In my life, I always seek to focus on my strengths, while also recognizing that I, like everyone else, does have weaknesses. Of course, we always must work on minimizing these as well, which is best done after we recognize and understand them.
I always put my best effort into further developing my strengths. I pride myself on being personable and also professional. I am highly motivated, detail-oriented, focused, reliable, dependable, and considerate of others. I am also a team player, and always praise and recognize the good work of others, which motivates them to continue their hard work. I am analytical, and look at every problem from multiple angles, which is very important in accounting. I always look to motivate not only myself, but all others around me. This motivation is a very key part of my academic strengths, and it gives me the drive needed to pursue my goals and long-term careers, one of which is to become a Chief Financial Officer for a large company one day. These skills, particularly the last one, help me greatly in academic achievement and performance, especially in my chosen field.
At the same time, Ms. Savant’s quote still holds true; I do have weaknesses, as does everyone. I sometimes lack confidence in some situations, and do not always give myself enough credit for my achievements, continually thinking of ways that they could have been made even better. This plays into another one of my weaknesses, perfectionism. Sometimes I am simply unable to see when something is done, and want to continue to work to make it even better. While this on the one hand is a good thing, it can lead to overwork on some projects. Still, I continually work to improve on ways to minimize these weaknesses, and recognize and deal with them when they come to the surface.
I also pride myself on my character. I take care to be kind, caring, trustworthy, resilient, reliable, and conscientious. I always work to help others when they are in need, in a way that could really help. For example, I volunteer at a church once per month doing food distribution. It gives me a rewarding feeling to assist those who are in need, and it makes me feel very good about doing it. It is always good to help people in a constructive manner. I think this is a key outlook of mine that will make a contribution to this particular program.
I am also resilient, which is important when you are a hard worker; when you put everything into a project, it is sometimes hard to take criticism on it when it is finished, no matter how constructive. I have worked hard on this, and now, due to my resilience, am now good at being positive about critique of my work. Understanding that positive criticism is meant for improvement has helped me gain confidence as well. It was also important to be resilient during the last two semesters of my undergraduate program, when I had symptoms of multiple sclerosis, including the terrible leg pain and having to undergo to operations on my eyes. Despite this, I completed my undergraduate degree on schedule and with good grades.
Recognizing our strengths and weaknesses and capitalizing on our strengths while working on our weaknesses is an important part of being a successful person and a positive force in society, and in succeeding academically as well. I hold myself to a high standard, and am glad that I have the strengths that I do, and that they aid me so well in achieving my academic and personal goals. They allow me to create work which has a positive impact on others. I am eager to bring these strengths to this Master’s program and continue to grow them while continuing on the course to my future career as a Chief Financial Officer someday. I hope that your institution will consider my application and consider the positive impact that I could have on this program and this community.
