Sources of my motivation, self-reflection

At this point in life I can say that my motivation mainly comes from my drive to always want to succeed and be the best at whatever I do. My grandparents ,while I was growing up influenced my personality and values; they taught me the importance of discipline and self-motivation .Their support and resilience has helped me even when confronted with doubt or insurmountable obstacles to persevere and know that hard work and determination is always if not often rewarded. They taught me that the values that we have as individuals are mostly emancipations of the Devine, thus making them more of spiritual skills that our minds and hearts can relate to for more practical applications in daily life. In addition through the combination of positive personality and values each individual can release unlimited potential for happiness and accomplishment. I can say that these teachings that border in recognizing the existence of a supreme being has helped instill in me a more active sense of morality and self- awareness that has helped me navigate and shape my life towards a more positive direction both professionally and socially. Therefore my motivation in life originate from the teachings my grandparents instilled in me that till today I still use as my greatest source of motivation to check my values and beliefs (Eland, 2001).

Over the period of the 21st century the culture of the people in the United States has drastically changed. The Americans can be described as embracing a culture that is powerful, strong and influential due to this dynamism it has allowed the people to freely embrace selflessness, positive values that allow more room for expression in all forms, and hospitality as exhibited by the way they embrace their daily way of life. The impact the American culture on me as an international student from China was one that could be described as intellectually stimulating, personally rewarding and exhilarating and sometimes exhausting. Living in this new fast paced culture helped shape my attitude toward my initial goals and values that I had as I left my country. It was quite hard to function and live here, with the unfamiliar imposed set of norms. Example As an international student the new language that everyone was using mainly English presented a challenge, and in this aspect it made it hard to integrate in the new life both socially and academically.

Just like with all the other international students striking a balance between the new culture and the initially held beliefs and value systems initially practiced becomes a challenge and in this manner necessitated that a balance has to be struck so as not to be fully absorbed into the new culture. This new way of looking at things, both in terms of value, goals and culture helped broaden my way of interpretation behavior and interactions to be able to cope with the new situation. It required paying immense attention to my surroundings and my communication methods refining and expanding my interpersonal cultural communication skills to be able to effectively coincide with that of the locals. In this way the culture in which an individual lives or is introduced to is directly influenced by their personal reality and this determines whether they get stunned by the culture shock and influence on their belief and value systems they initially held.

Reference

Eland, A. J. (2001). Intersection of Academics and Culture: The Academic Experience of International Graduate Students. Unpublished dissertation, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, M