Eric Chen, Period 6, 9/19/22

Modern Mythology 2023

• Atomic Habits & Growth

• At this current point in time, what specific standards have you set for yourself?

• How and why did you come to craft these standards? 

• How do you demonstrate resilience towards achieving these standards?

• How do you assess yourself?  What adjustments do you make? How often?

   There are always things we can and should be able to do better. We should always strive for improvement. That has been my philosophy for many things in my life. To me a standard should be set when you first do something. I always try to make sure I achieve that standard at the very least, but most of the time I always strive to improve to do better. As I get better at something I set a new standard for myself as I am constantly expecting more from myself. These standards are the reason why I tried to pick classes for senior year that have a higher workload compared to other classes. Another standard I set is with assessments as I am trying to improve my studying skills as they're not I believe should be the standard. Lastly, even though it seems minor, I want to improve my handwriting. When I have something I know I can improve in I think I'll expect myself to improve in those areas. Despite my handwriting not being terrible, I know there are aspects I feel I could improve on and that becomes my drive to do better. 

    These standards are not something I just crafted or came up with. Because of the way I was brought up where I was always expected to do better I've grown to just embrace trying to do better. I remember in elementary school where my mom told me that a 96% average was low and that I shouldn't compare myself to anyone who got a lower score. While I still don't agree with that philosophy(because it's stupid and it did horrible things for my mental health), the effects from being told that constantly has put the mindset of always striving to do better in my mind. In fact, one of the biggest factors with these standards ultimately is what I expect out of myself. When I can't meet my standards or if I'm struggling with something, it plagues my mind so much that there are times that it keeps me up at night. There have been multiple nights I have not been able to sleep until around 3AM because I am worrying about formatting my college essay. 

    To me there is not a specific way to assess myself as these standards are just arbitrary goalposts I set for myself which I believe I should reach. However my way of making adjustments is always making changes I believe would be better. However most of the time it's not something I can adjust at will so I usually make a mental note where I make sure to never make a mistake again. These mental notes usually linger in the back of my mind and I'm reminded of the mistakes I've made if I'm ever put in a similar situation again.