Impact-Focused Life Blog

Living an Impact-Focused Life

What’s your Why?

I believe I was put on this earth to:

Live the most fulfilling life and gain experience through my human vehicle’s perspective (a Latina born to a family in poverty)

 

My purpose is to:

Gain as much understanding about the world around me

Live a fulfilling life through personal happiness and helping guide others through this human journey 

 

I believe (my core values):

  • Karma→ If you do wrong, you will receive wrong 
  • Be a person who genuinely cares about others 
  • Do not overly self indulge 

 

The one thing I must do before I die is:

Have an impact on a  person’s views 

 

My advocates and supporters all believe I:

Will be the first at something and will make something well of my name through my compassions and determination

 

The evil I want to eradicate in this world is:

THE RICH→ Greed, overindulgent, selfishness. 

 

I want to work in order to:

Advocate for the silenced and underprivileged

 

Walk the Talk – Your How

If you are truly committed to your Why, you show it in your everyday behavior. It is all air until you do it. Working from your Why, How do you prove that you are true to your Why in all you do?

 

I always:

  • Try to understand the emotions and behavior of others around me
  • Am interested in learning more about people and their views 
  • Want to satisfy my family and friends 

 

 

I never:

  • Focus on money 
  • Work hard for only personal interests 

 

My work style is:

  • More individual work but I do not mind teams. I just want creative and personal space. 

 

I try to treat people:

  • Always with respect no matter who they are unless they have given a compelling reason to why they do not deserve my respect. 

I approach problems by:

  • Talking them through your head before acting on any fast thoughts 

 

Victories are time to:

  • Celebrate and reflect on your journey to understand what now needs to be done. 

 

 If another attacks my point of view I:

  • Try to break down the reasoning why. If they are completely inconsiderate and naive, I will try to point this out to them. If they continue to aggressively attack, I will stop acknowledging them and their existence. 

 

 

If I fundamentally do not agree with what an organization or person is doing, I will:

Point this out to others around me and throw hints of annoyance to the higher ups until the perfect moment comes to bring it up. I also begin to prepare what I would say and how I will defend my thoughts and emotions.

 

Your Credibility – Your Whats

You have just spent some considerable time at Lehigh, and specifically in the Global Social Impact Fellowship, on many whats. Your whats include lab research, formal presentations, writing research papers, engaging with people in other cultural contexts, building prototypes, designing and building systems, raising funds, hiring employees, etc. The whats you have collected along the way are critical to your credibility when you are entering the workforce or applying to the best graduate and professional schools. They signify a credible currency to which organizations can assign value. Create a list of your Whats that are truly reflective of your Why & How.  You did these things because you believe (Why) and you acquired them in the following (How) manner. These are examples you can use in interviews.

What Have I Done List of Experiences, Accomplishments, and Lessons Learned
Degrees, Minors, Certificates, Fellowships  

 Global Social Impact Fellowship, Global Citizenship Certificate Program 
Research Experiences

 

 

 

 

  

 

 The One year long research I have been part of through the GSIF Program 

 

 

 
Inventions and Innovations

 

 

 

  

 The idea of an app to guide people through the struggles of poor air quality for Almaty residents. 
(Social) Entrepreneurial Ventures

 

 

 

 Development of the app and its algorithm to ensure individualization. 

 

 

 

 

 
Publications

(Formal and Informal)

 

  

 GSIF Presentations 

 

 

 
Formal Presentations

(at Lehigh and Beyond)

 

 

 

  

 GSIF Presentations 
Awards and

External Recognition

 

 

 

  

 Outside scholarships recognizing my abilities and passion for environmental leadership

 

Articulating and learning from GSIF-related Experiences. For each of these prompts, we want you to identify one and only one specific and compelling event/incident/experience/moment and identify exactly how you grew personally and professionally through that moment.

Teamwork Experience

(and Lessons Learned)

 

 

  

 There are a lot of flaws I have when working in team settings. I get distracted easily especially now during remote learning because of the lack of social interactions I get with the Lehigh community anymore. I also need to start asking for help more when needed. 

 

 
Conflict Resolution Experience

(and Lessons Learned)

 Develop a plan before each meeting to ensure we are following a schedule for each meeting 

Updating the team every week about my failures, successes, concerns and questions. 
Leadership Experience

(and Lessons Learned)

 

 

 

 

 I tend to take the dominance over the group naturally due to the emphasis on the planning and accountability 
Dealing with Chaos, Ambiguity, and Uncertainty (and Lessons Learned) Embrace the failures. Be patient during the process of trial and error. Don’t force something due to its convenience. Organization and communication are key to ensure a productive team

 

 

 

 
Personally Challenging Experience (and Lessons Learned)

 

  

 Losing the “Why” during times of failure and confusion

Becoming distant during stressful times.  

 

 

 

 
Cross-cultural Experience (and Lessons Learned)

 

  

 Working with people from different ethnic and social backgrounds was a humbling experience and made me a better active listener so I could hear through every perspective.

 

 

 

 
An experience that helped you connect your GSIF work to your discipline / major.

 

 When we first joined the group, Professor Dunonova showed us some facebook posts filled with Almaty residents where they would voice their concerns. Many seemed helpless and forgotten. 

 
A moment that boosted your sense of agency and self-efficacy – you felt like you can speak for yourself, get stuff done, take on the world and make it better.

 

 I am confident that environmental work is my calling because of the constant presence of the primary motivation: Impact. I also was excited to surround myself with people who were similarly dedicated.
A moment where you felt like you truly have a strong sense of purpose and belonging in this dynamic, globalized interdependent world.

 

 It was a political moment where I gained this understanding. This past presidential election showed the fragmentation within just a nation alone so it made me wonder how split the whole world is when in effect we should be collaborating more than ever due to unprecedented global issues facing out way. 

 

| Image

Week 11

The immediate causes of the air pollution exposure is focused on the attitude of the Almaty residents. Why are Almaty residents not engaging in preventive health behaviors to decrease their exposure which could lead to a decrease in health risks? The pre-venture extant system depicted above explains the domino effect occurring amongst Almaty residents and the government. To begin, Almaty residents are experiencing a lack of overall control of the ability to decrease exposure through daily, individual decisions. When creating this system, I utilized a Health Psychology Behavioral Model: the Health Belief Model. This model explores what factors contribute to an individual’s decision to practice healthy behaviors considering an individual’s perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits, barriers, and self-efficacy. Many residents are not engaging in ways to decrease their risks to air pollution exposure due to the lack of urgency and lack of confidence which could possibly stem from a weak perceived susceptibility and severity among the residents. They feel as if they are unlikely to experience what statistics have proven in a countless amount of articles and journals that my team analyzed and added to our database consisting of over 100 synthesized literary pieces. The lack of confidence is connected to the self efficacy component of the model. They may feel as if they are lacking guidance on where to even begin with changing everyday behaviors all the way to their overall lifestyle to ensure they are implementing preventive behaviors. This could be overwhelming for an average person and seem quite impossible.

 

These attitudes could be implemented by the inadequate government action. People are aware of the issue but may not be prioritizing due to the people in power not paying much attention to it. This leads to an attitude of lacking power which is common when discussing environmental issues since most of the external costs are coming from corporations, power plants, etc.

 

Why is the government not acting?

Kazakhstan is a developing country with an aim to become as economically strong as possible. At the moment, much of their aim is focused on economic growth. The heavy industrialization working along with the power plants, coal burning furnaces, low quality grade gas, and even Almaty’s geographical location (Elevation wise) is just further intensifying the issue of poor air quality. It is hard for a compromise to be made. Kazakhstan is definitely not the only nation in this trap.

 

There are multiple levels of impact coming along with our venture ranging from individual to global. Our venture is having the most impact on an individual basis because of our app providing a sense of autonomy and self-efficacy which plays a crucial role in determining whether residents will follow preventive health behaviors according to the health belief model. The individual impact leads to governmental impact since this will provide people with the motivation and feeling of control to demand what should be a basic right: healthy air. Then, this could lead to the government realizing their need to address these concerns and issues. There is economic impact that could eventually come once Kazakhstan views environmental progression as a way to grow the green economy that tends to be overlooked. There could be an increase in their market for both environmentally and/or health conscious products like nostril strips and alternatives to one use products that reduce the inhaling of pollutants and more. Almaty will realize that this demand for change is not necessarily a threat. Instead, they should view it is a way to shift their economy to become more eco-friendly and now leading to global impact–> becoming a role model to the rest of the world.