Being successful professionally in life requires dedication, commitment and the awareness that as a professional you must constantly strive to grow. In this article I will try to document my strengths, challenges, and steps to overcome those challenges. I will also try to discuss my strategies for maintaining good physical and mental health. My Strengths Throughout my professional career to date, I have realized that I have multiple strengths that I can be proud of. Some of these I have had throughout my life, others have grown as my time in the workforce has grown. The first strength I possess is my innate ability to interface easily with people. This helps in many aspects of my career plan as it helps in client-to-client interaction, inter-office cooperation, and the ability to lead a group or team. Having the ability to be a nice person makes me approachable, trustworthy, and easy to converse with. A second strength I have is my ability to communicate effectively. This is a skill I learned in school, however it has become a strength as I have practiced and honed it throughout my professional career. Being an effective communicator allows you to convey a particular point or emotion with ease, often allowing others to understand more easily. It facilitates electronic discussion and discourse and allows the ability to easily share information. The third strength I have is what I would call integrity. I often think of integrity as a broader term used to describe the ability to be honest, trustworthy and open. My belief is that integrity is also an integral part of being a “people-oriented” person. If a person feels like they can trust you and that you have integrity, that's more... middle of the paper... which I feel like I have a strong understanding of at the moment. In order to maintain mental health I have developed many outlets for various aspects of life. Creativity is addressed through the use of music and singing. I can often find relief from stress by visiting nature in all its different aspects, although I tend to prefer ocean beaches. As with physical health, the key to mental health is moderation, as well as balance. If I maintain a moderate lifestyle and balance my social, physical, emotional and professional life, I find my mental health quite easy to maintain. When things become unbalanced by placing too much weight on one aspect over another, I find that the stress becomes overwhelming, which can lead to mental health damage. The main strategy for maintaining mental health, for me, is to maintain control over my life and keep things as balanced as possible.