iquest A. Willems

DETECTIVETIMELINE

IQUEST

01

iNTRO.

After I finished my minor and started working at my internship, I decided to make the iQUEST. By making this I indicated what challenges I faced during my minor and predicted what challenges I could maybe come to face during my internship. As an internationally oriented lifestyle professional I have tried to formulate these questions as concrete as possible, looking back at the experience I gained at my minor and how I could use this during my internship.

02

About me

I am Anne-Romé Willems, a 3rd year student at Fontys’ Trend research and Concept creation in Lifestyle, Currently I am interning at Bon Ton Toys in Amsterdam. A production house that creates sustainable lifestyle products. Here I am researching up and coming trends in sustainability and fashion and creating concepts from the ground up. Truly getting a feel about what the whole product development phase is about and how to think about solutions for certain problems that may arise during this phase. Before my internship I followed a minor at Fontys Eindhoven called Embrace TEC where I learned more about technology, entrepreneurship and creativity.

FO

03

What do I not (yet) dare to do in the professional context during my internship or minor, but also in relation to the school projects that I will be doing in the coming year and a half?

04

What do I not (yet) dare to do in the international/intercultural context during my internship or minor, but also in relation to the international (school) projects that I will be doing in the coming year and a half?

Asking questions when I do not fully understand something. For some reason I am scared that people would think that I am dumb or too lazy to learn something myself if I ask questions. Though I understand in the back of my head that asking questions, especially in a professional environment, is the best way to learn something because by asking questions you can understand something a lot quicker which leads to self improvement.

I always find it hard being in a leader role. Even though I am good at giving people tasks and dividing these equally I notice that it is hard for me to tell people when something is not good or when they do something wrong. I think this has to do with open communication which I am still learning to do well without for example offending the other person.

05

What have I never done before, but do I want to experience, because I know that I will need this in relation to my further development as an international lifestyle professional?

06

What do I want to dare in the future when it comes to my development as an international lifestyle professional?

During my minor I finally started networking. I always knew that networking was important and could come in handy when searching for a job or a project later on but I never really understood how you should network and how important it actually is. This year I finally made a new linkedin and started taking it seriously, showcasing my best and most important qualities and works on there. Because of this I gained a bigger network with students but also companies I am interested in. Furthermore I gained a bigger network during my minor because I did a project on body positivity and had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people important to this community who had a large following as well. Because I am very interested in this topic I feel like this could be very important for future projects I hopefully will be working on.

For me I think opening up to people is something I do not yet dare to do in a professional environment. While I can fairly easily open up to people in my personal life I do not yet dare to do this in the workspace. To me I would like to try being more open with someone I have to interview for example since effective communication and being open with one another leads everyone to be on the same page and move towards the same goals. Open communication also leads to more successful businesses since employees understand what their boss is trying to communicate (Doe, 2018, p. 1).

07

What can I do about this in (the rest of) my internship? What can I do about this in my minor? What can I do in the last year and a half of my bachelor in international lifestyle? What can I do in other contexts outside ILS?

08

What do I agree with myself, what do I want to do? And how will I make sure that I keep to this agreement? What am I going to ‘let go’ of in order to meet my challenges

During my minor I have tried to open up in a , for me, very big way. Since I decided to do a project about ‘body positivity’ something I have struggled with almost my whole life I really put myself and my pain out there with people I was talking to. Because of this I managed to write a beautiful poetry book describing not only how I felt but also how others feel within their body and how they deal with their self image. I am hoping to be able to open up as much with these personal matters in my internship and future projects as well since I truly think that showcasing your true self is something that is needed in times like these where you only show a certain perfect image of yourself to the outside world (Rice, 2020).

I need to let go of this thought that people may think less of me when I ask questions or open up. I need to strengthen my self love and not listen to intrusive thoughts but doing what I want to do and live carefree. I need to postpone judgments and remove biases and assumptions. I believe I am able to achieve this by surrounding myself with a caring network and by continuous self care. At this moment my mentality is holding me back from achieving greatness and if I am able to let go I truly think I could be a stepping stone in bettering parts of this world.

09

EXPLAIN IN CONCRETE AND STEP-BY-STEP TERMS HOW YOU ARE GOING TO ENSURE THAT YOU KEEP TO THIS AGREEMENT and How will you search for your personal boundaries in this? How am I going to deal with those?

10

By doing this iquest I noticed that a lot of my challenges are very personal and roted in insecurities that they have to do with me thinking people are not going to like me when I talk to them or me looking weird or dumb when I ask something. This is ofcourse not an easy thing to let go of and therefore also not really able to be placed in a step by step agreement. But what I want to try is to care for myself everyday and remember that I am good at what I am doing and my voice is valid. I truly think I have a direction I want to go in and that that direction is the right one for me and I will be able to help a lot of people. I hope that by remembering this it will be a lot easier for me to let go of intrusive thoughts.

sources

Doe, J. (2018). The Importance of Open Communication in the Workplace. The Palmer Group, 1. Retrieved from https://thepalmergroup.com/blog/the-importance-of-open-communication-in-the-workplace/ Rice, W. (2020). “Perfection” on Social Media Does Not Make You Perfect. Rice Psychology, 1. Retrieved from https://ricepsychology.com/behavior/perfection-on-social-media-does-not-make-you-perfect/