Sam Ng, Period 2, 10/17/22

Sam Ng
Period 2
10/17/22
Modern Mythology 2023

Atomic Habits & Growth

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

At this current point in time, I have set two main standards for myself. I want to improve self discipline and get to know more people. Self discipline is a broad term, but above all, self discipline means holding myself accountable and doing what is right, not what I want. To me, it means working on homework when I get home instead of watching YouTube. It means going for a run instead of loafing in bed. It means eating fruits and vegetables instead of junk food. It means sleeping early instead of depriving myself of sleep. It means working on myself even if I don’t feel like it at times. On to the second standard, getting to know more people means getting outside of my comfort zone. I want to try new things and meet new people but the major obstacle is mustering the courage to approach someone. I find that senior year is more threatening than freshman year even though I interacted with my classmates for 3 years now. It all boils down to fear: the fear of change, the fear of inferiority, the fear of embarrassment, etc. It seems that whenever I want to make a new friend, I tell myself that the person wouldn’t want to know me as a friend. That stops me from taking initiative, which in turn stops friendships from blossoming.


How and why did you come to craft these standards?

Looking back at my high school career, I came to the conclusion that I had the most self discipline during freshman year. I would finish my homework early and sleep at 9 PM. I used to get 9 hours of sleep consistently. Ever since the pandemic, my sleep schedule has deteriorated. Fast forward to today, I sleep past 12 every night. This has led to me getting, on average, 6 hours of sleep or less. I really want to change that this year. I have made a conscious effort to start doing homework early but because the workload is considerably larger than my workload from freshman year, it has been a challenge to make drastic changes. During the summer, I started working out, but ever since school started, I found myself slacking on exercise. I would tell myself that I’m tired and I should rest but I know that it’s not true. Deep down, I know that exercising will make me more energetic in the long run. With regards to socializing more, throughout the years, I realized that while friendships provide immense happiness and support, they are not permanent. Someone who you may think is a lifelong friend can slip away without you noticing until it’s too late. Throughout high school, I have made multiple friends but more often than not, we grew distant over time. I know it isn’t anyone’s fault. People get busy and one thing leads to another. However, with this knowledge in mind, I’d like to try making new friends and make a conscious effort to sustain the friendships. I don’t want a repeat of my past friendships.


How do you demonstrate resilience towards achieving these standards?

Recently, I began going to the library after school. I found this to be helpful for working on school assignments because when I’m in a place of study, I feel more inclined to study. I also began to walk more. I read in an article that walking is a good way to destress and get exercise. I try to walk at least 10,000 steps a day. I’ve achieved this goal by purposely walking more whether that be by walking longer to a bus stop or waking up early to run with a close friend. I found that running in the morning in the company of someone who I value deeply makes the goal a lot more achievable. Moving on to socializing, I’m trying to get to know friends of friends. I found that this strategy is pretty effective because I already have common ground with the person I’m trying to converse with. I try to provide my opinions on topics when I hear people discussing them. I make an effort to introduce myself to people I normally don’t talk with.


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

I believe that I am making progress to achieve my goals. While there are days in which I regress, I think that, overall, I have become a better person than I was before. Making adjustments with self discipline is easy to say, hard to do. I can easily tell myself to do some push-ups in the morning, but there are times when I wake up and can barely get myself out of bed. Adjustments, in my opinion, have to be small but meaningful. Something as simple as watching one less YouTube video or running an extra 5 minutes can make all the difference in my path to being better. I typically reflect once a week and try to implement changes throughout the next week. With socializing, my progress is much slower; I find that I have introduced myself to more people but I still have difficulty retaining friendships. I still fall into the habit of not reaching out and taking initiative. Moving forward, I’d like to focus on routinely interacting with people and not making it a one-time meet.