Learning objectives
How do I:
ensure a plan for self-management that helps my integration into the workforce and facilitates lifelong learning?
motivate myself to strive for continual improvement through self-management?
set personal and professional goals for self-management?
plan to improve areas of intelligence that I have identified as not being as strong as needed?
find and work with a mentor?
Introduction
Nurses and allied health personnel are held in high esteem by the general public, a fact confirmed consistently by rankings of trust and reliability in both the United States (Swift, 2013) and Australia (Roy Morgan Research, 2014). People may approach student health workers for advice because of this inherent trust and recognition of their status. Throughout their careers health professionals help people manage their own health, and they can be more effective if they understand how to manage themselves. People have varying abilities, talents, life experiences, upbringings and opportunities that shape their lives. While self-management is a foundational philosophy of lifelong learning, it comes more naturally to some than to others.
Some of the literature discusses self-management from a management perspective (Markham & Markham, 1995 ); and theorists come from a variety of backgrounds, including organisational development, psychology and sociology. An added complexity is the interchangeability of some of the terms found in the literature (self-management, self-leadership, self-control, self-effi cacy, self-regulation and so on), so for the sake of clarity for this chapter, the terminology is restricted to facilitate understanding, acknowledging that others may have contradictory perspectives.