Personal Characteristics: The Catalysts of Professional Success

I believe that my professional success, like that of others, can be attributed to characteristics I can call my own. While there is no denying that professional success is achieved with a variety of external factors, such as access to good education, the same can be said about personal characteristics unique to a person that similarly affect his achievement of professional success.

            In my personal life, I believe that my professional success is due largely to my family background and life history.

While my family’s standard of living was considered average when I was young, we lived in a village that had no electricity, running water or modern amenities. Moreover, our village did not prioritize education. Indeed, the typical life for boys in our village was primary schooling, followed by high school if they were diligent. Those who did not attend high school were married in their late teens, had a family, and continued their lives as village farmers. No opportunities had been available for the villagers beyond this basic education.

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            Fortunately, despite the absence of amenities that could have provided comfort in our daily lives, my family placed emphasis on the importance of education. My father worked as a primary school teacher and he valued his integrity; thus, I was able to imbibe his work ethics. I also adopted his belief that higher education was necessary to ensure my professional success. Hence, I began to want a life different from what was considered common and acceptable in my village.

I knew that in order to be successful, I had to take initiative and leave the confines of my village.

            Knowing that college education was my best chance at becoming successful kept me focused in school. At age fourteen, this belief was reinforced when I received my high school board examination results. I was accepted into the best college in the State. The atmosphere of Presidency College that was conducive to study allowed me to remain diligent and motivated in my studies.

            My experience in college taught me to develop valuable and lifelong friendships as a way of coping with my feelings of longing for my family. Because of this, I developed good interpersonal, negotiation and communication skills. These personal characteristics have become apparent to my fellow students, which led them to choose me as their Geological field trip manager.

            My experiences lent me more self-confidence and strengthened resolve in pursuing my studies in the United States. I am immensely proud of my accomplishments of graduating from an Ivy League University and receiving the highest award of a presidential fellowship while attending Columbia University. All of these professional successes I attribute to my personal history and my family, which factors all contributed to the development of my personal character.

            However, I would not go so far as saying that my life’s story did not in any way hinder my journey on the road to professional success. In reality, the road to success had been rough, and my personal experiences sometimes caused me to be shy. Since my village had been content at seeing its people achieve only basic education, it had not been the best training ground for the development of key traits to success, such as self-confidence.

I realize now that such timidity had, at times, cost me some losses of opportunity, just because I had been reluctant to grab the chance that was presented before me. Fortunately, my experiences while reaching my dream of getting higher education helped me develop personal characteristics that helped ensure my professional success.