Emily You, Period 2, 11/9/2022

Atomic Habits & Growth

• How and why did you come to craft these standards?
• At this current point in time, what specific standards have you set for yourself?
• How do you demonstrate resilience towards achieving these standards?
• How do you assess yourself? What adjustments do you make? How often?

Throughout my high school life, I learned that I had to improve myself to do well in school and life. I realized that school was meant to help us prepare for work life, for example, we worked on skills like time management, organization, and communication skills for projects or homework. In the future, we would likely need these abilities at our workplaces and I did not have very good time management or communication skills. I set goals to stop procrastinating and to learn to express myself and my ideas.

At first, I started rough but when I got the hang of it, I pushed myself further toward more collaborative work. It was hard when quarantine hit, I had more time to do what I needed to and I had no one to talk to. It was inevitable that my standards of myself would decrease after going through a year of lockdown. Although it was a hard change, when I got out of quarantine I made sure to get myself together so I wouldn’t fall behind. In the end, I was able to be more timely with my assignments and I continuously socialized with others as much as possible so I would better my communication skills.

It wasn’t a magical change that happened naturally, and not as fast or noticeable of a change as It might’ve sounded in my last two paragraphs. I struggled to try to speak with others when I came out of quarantine, it took a few weeks before I could even readjust to school again. It felt like I didn’t even have time to try to communicate with others, so I stuck to my comfort zone again to speak with just my friends and family. It did help me work on conveying my thoughts and ideas to others however, I had a lack of communication with those I partnered or grouped with if they were not my friends. I knew it wouldn’t work out if I continued to stay in a bubble I created so I took small steps toward the standard I created for myself. To connect with others more often, in other words, be more social and be timely with my assignments. I also struggled with having less time to get things done in time after quarantine, I couldn’t bring myself to work on assignments until the last minute but after several close calls, I gave myself ultimatums to work on assignments earlier rather than rushing at the last minute.

Recently, I became more active in participating and I was able to speak with new people without having to be approached first. It made me aware of how much I changed since the beginning of high school. While the issue of procrastination has not been resolved completely, I have still placed great efforts into starting and submitting the assignments earlier so I would have time to start other works that I needed to complete without being bombarded with too much last-minute work. Readjustment of my standards is dependent on how long it takes for me to get used to my previous standard. It could be once a day to once a month but it completely depends on how high of a standard I set for myself.