POYMS: Lead from where you sit! A Self-Leadership Seminar

            “I am Good!, I am Awesome!, I can do Great things!” was the reflective quote presented to the officers of the PHILEX and OUTLYING YOUTH MOVERS SOCIETY (POYMS) during the Self-Leadership Seminar conducted by Ms. Grace C. Canave of the Inkblots on October 26, 2013 at Mt. Tepeyac Residences, Leonardwood, Baguio City.

POYMS officers at the function hall

            The seminar started with an opening prayer followed by Pambansang Awit and a Getting to Know activity the first to introduce herself was of our guest speaker Ms. Grace “Gratchy” C. Canave the so called “feel-good facilitator” followed by the self-introduction of the POYMS officers. After getting to know each other, Ma’am Gratchy presented the Objectives of the seminar which are the following: (1) Understand at a deeper level ones’ responsibility to oneself. (2) Identify Clues and Myths about Leadership. (3) Understand the elements of Self-Leadership. (4) Asses individual self-leadership tendencies and create a personal transformation plan.

            To attain the Objectives of the day seminar she prepared a power point presentation and handouts as her visual aid to explain and define Leadership in many ways, beside this she also prepared different kinds of activities for us which are the following. All of this is very helpful for our development as youth leaders.

·         KINDERGARDEN ACTIVITY- In this activity we were able to reflect and return to our childhood memories, we were able to go back to the simple things that made us happy during childhood days and we were able to realize that it is where everything starts from where we are today.

·         PAINT ME ACTIVITY- In this activity we were able to learn how to adopt changes in a small span of time, we were also able to value more the Spirit of helping each other to create a masterpiece, and we were able to reflect that everybody in the group is important and that each one can contribute something even each person has its’ own vision, mission, principle and perspective.

·         MY IDOL- In this activity we were able to know and appreciate each ones’ life idol sharing the best qualities and why this idol have been a motivator in their lives. This activity has been knowledgeable and very helpful to us.

Finally, the last activity was Self-Assessment the purpose of this was to help us understand self-leadership concepts and to assess our self-leadership tendencies. There are self-leadership questionnaires that helped us to assess ourselves and calculated it by adding it up through the Self-leadership dimensions (Personal Goal Setting, Mental Practice, Designing Natural Rewards, Self-Monitoring, Self-Reinforcement, and Cueing Strategies). Through this activity we were able to see our strength and make it stronger and our weakness to help us change it for the better. This activity has been shared to our co-leaders making a promise to us “I am with you through the journey of LEADERSHIP”.

The seminar ended with a song “I can” reminding us that if we believe we can, we can! And As long as we believe that we are doing something meaningful, we can go forward and that we can already confidently say that “I am Good!, I am Awesome!, I can do Great things!”