o n

Less
It Is Not Where I Start...
4 It Is How I Finish

Objectives
At the end of this lesson, the students are expected to
1. identify their interests in life;
2. enumerate the things that they like to do and the skills they
would like to hone;
3. choose the vocation/career that they hope to pursue after
high school; and
4. discuss the value of goal-setting in their development and
growth.

Let’s Start!
Achieve Any Goal
(An excerpt)
When I was seventeen, I left high school without graduating.
My first job was as a dishwasher in a restaurant. From there, I
moved on to washing cars and then washing floors as a janitor.
For the next few years, I drifted and worked at various laboring
jobs, earning my living by the sweat of my brow. I worked in rice
mills and factories. I worked in farms under the scorching heat of
the sun.
I worked as a construction laborer on tall buildings. I often slept
in cheap inns. When I was twenty-one, I worked as an itinerant
farm laborer during the harvest, sleeping in rice bodegas and
eating with the farmer’s family. I was uneducated and unskilled,
and at the end of the harvest, I was unemployed once more.

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 When I could no longer find a laboring job, I got a job in straight
commission sales, calling office-to-office and door-to-door. I would
often work all day long to make a single sale so that I could pay for
my house and have a place to sleep.
Then one day, I took out a piece of paper and wrote down a
goal for myself. The goal was to earn fifty thousand pesos a month
in door-to-door and office-to-office selling. I folded up the piece of
paper, put it away, and never found it again.
But thirty days later, my entire life had changed. During that
time, I discovered a technique for closing sales that tripled my
income from the very first day. Meanwhile, the owner of the
company sold out to an entrepreneur who had just moved into
town. Exactly thirty days after I had written down my goal, the
new owner took me aside and offered me fifty thousand pesos
per month to be the head of the sales force and teach other sales
people what I was doing that enabled me to sell so much more
than anyone else. I accepted his offer, and from that day forward,
my life was never the same.

Within eighteen months, I had moved from that job to another,

and then to another. I went from personal selling to becoming a
sales manager with people selling for me. In a new business, I
recruited and built a ninety-five-person sales force. I went literally
from worrying about my next meal to walking around with a
pocketful of one-thousand-peso bills.
I began teaching my sales people how to write out their goals
and how to sell more effectively. In almost no time at all, they
increased their incomes as much as tenfold. Today, many of them
are millionaires and multimillionaires.

—Excerpted from “Achieve Any Goal”

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 Let’s Think and Talk!

Pause for a while to reflect on the message of the story. On the

lines below, answer the following questions.
1. What is the message conveyed by the story?

2. Can you relate with the person in the story? Why or why
not?

3. You must have been asked time and again what you would
like to be 10 years from now. Express how you see yourself
after high school or after pursuing a college degree.

4. What are your interests? What do you like doing? List down
the things that you like doing and enjoy the most.

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 5. What is the moral in the excerpt? Do you think the value
portrayed by the main character is worth applying in your
life? How?

Let’s Discuss!
Interest is described as a feeling of wanting to learn more
about something or to be involved in something. It is a quality that
attracts one’s attention. It is anything that a person enjoys learning
about or doing such as a hobby.
Do you have a special interest? Do you experience a feeling of
special attraction to or interest in something?
Are there things you enjoy doing that no matter how difficult
these seem to be, you hardly notice spending long hours in
completing them? Such interests of yours may be able to tell what
you want to become in the future. Your talents, skills, and interests
play a huge role in the career that you will pursue in the future.
Career development theorist, John Henry Holland, Ph.D.,
developed a theory of career choice based on six personality
types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and
Conventional (RIASEC). Read the excerpt on the next page to
learn more about Holland’s theory. Which type do you think you
belong to?

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 John Holland’s theory of career choice (RIASEC)
maintains that in choosing a career, people prefer jobs where
they can be around others who are like them. They search for
environments that will let them use their skills and abilities, and
express their attitudes and values, while taking on enjoyable
problems and roles. Behavior is determined by an interaction
between personality and environment.
Realistic (Doers) individuals are described as inde-
pendent, stable, persistent, genuine, practical, and thrifty.
Realistic persons enjoy tasks that are tactile, physical,
athletic, or mechanical. They like being outdoors, using tools,
operating machines, interacting with animals, and working
with their hands.
Investigative (Thinkers) individuals are intellectual,
introspective, and inquisitive. They are curious, methodical,
rational, analytical, and logical. Generally, investigative
persons are described as scholarly, scientific, technical, or
medical. They are avid readers. They like to solve problems,
perform experiments, and conduct research.
Artistic (Creators) persons are creative, intuitive, sensitive,
articulate, and expressive. They are unstructured, original,
nonconforming, and innovative. They rely on feelings,
imagination, and inspiration. They like to work with ideas,
abstractions, and concepts. They are spontaneous and open-
minded.
Social (Helpers) persons are described as kind, generous,
cooperative, patient, caring, helpful, empathetic, tactful, and
friendly. They excel at socializing, helping others, and teaching.
They like tasks that involve teamwork, social interaction,
relationship building, and improvement of society.
Enterprising (Persuaders) persons are adventurous,
ambitious, assertive, extroverted, energetic, enthusiastic,
confident, and optimistic. They are dominant, persuasive,
and motivational. Enterprising persons like influencing others,
being in charge, taking risks, debating, and competing.

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 Conventional (Organizers) individuals are described
as conscientious and conservative. They are logical,
efficient, orderly, and organized. They are thorough and
detail-oriented. They value precision and accuracy. They
are reliable. They enjoy practical tasks, quantitative
measurements, and structured environments. They follow
the rules.
The Career Development Theory also takes into
consideration the preferences of an individual, as well as
likes and dislikes. There are certain activities and hobbies
that give us immense pleasure and can even make us forget
the tensions of everyday life. Hobbies are considered to be
a real stress buster by some, while others think of them as
a nice escape from the drudgery of routine life. Hobbies, in
fact, add color and substance to the otherwise monotonous
life.

Sources: www.career.org
www.hopkinsmedicine.org

Let’s Act
1. Individual Work
Think about your personality, interests, and skills, and then
determine which occupation or career would be most fitting for
you. Once you have determined these interests, you can start
exploring what career, education, and training may be required
to reach your goal.
a. Research on examples of jobs that fall under each of
Holland’s six personality types. Do this with a partner. Make
a summary of your findings.
b. After identifying your skills, talents, abilities, personality
type, interests, and hobbies, list down the jobs which you
hope to be doing in the future. Do an assesment of yourself.
Do you think you can excel in your chosen jobs?

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 c. Write down your career goals below.
• How can you further enhance your skills, talents,
abilities, interests, and hobbies?

• What educational preparations are required of this

chosen career or job?

According to the Career Development Theory of John

Holland, workers are not passive victims of the environments, but
are actively seeking potentially compatible work environments.
If your personality and the work environment “fit,” meaning, if
your personality is congruent with your work environment, you
will most likely enjoy your work, and develop and grow in your
career.
2. Group Work
a. Research on examples of jobs that fall under each of
Holland’s six personality types. Do this with a group
composed of 6 members. Make a summary of your findings.
b. Choose a leader who will facilitate your discussion and a
secretary who will summarize your group sharing for the
plenary.

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 c. After the sharing, answer the following:
• How can you further enhance your skills, talents,
abilities, interests, and hobbies?

• What values must you possess in order to achieve your

goal?

3. Plenary
a. Each group reports to the class a summary of what
transpired in their respective discussion.

b. Each group will answer this question: How will your

choice of career/vocation help you become a productive
and useful person in the society?

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 My Personal Pledge

Life goes up and down, marked by occasional successes

and failures. As a result of inexperience and sometimes sheer
stupidity, I have spent or lost everything I made and had to
start over again – several times. Whenever this happened, I
would begin by sitting down with a piece of paper and laying
out a new set of goals for myself.
After several years of hit-and-miss goal setting and goal
achieving, I finally decided to collect everything I had learned
into a single system. By assembling these ideas and strategies
in one place, I developed a goal-setting methodology and
process, with a beginning, middle, and end, and began to
follow it every day.
Then, I really got serious about success. I realized that
goal setting was incredibly powerful. I invested hundreds
and then thousands of hours reading and researching on
goal setting and goal achieving, synthesizing the best ideas I
could find into a complete process that worked with incredible
effectiveness.

Using the passage above, write a plan which will reflect how
you can be of service to others and the community in which you
live in, and eventually to the entire world.

My Plan

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