Leo Yoonsmith, Period 6, 11/14/22

Leo Yoonsmith, Period 6, 11/14/22

• 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?

I stretch, take a cold shower, work out, and posture check myself every 30 minutes. I always put in a large amount of work to get seven hours of sleep every night, and I push myself to learn new good habits that I can work on. There was a time where I felt that everything would come with a natural flow of life. It was a time of neutral emotions; life was a blur, and I had no long term goals in mind. I felt at the time that I was truly in the present, with no fear of anything else, and my life seemed to be going great. Occasionally, I would feel empty or unfulfilled, but usually, I would simply not think about it. 

This reality was amazing for a while, until I realized: the place I was in was temporary. I would be thrust into the world, or at least college, and there were a lot of holes within myself that I felt had to be filled before I could consider myself a independent, mature person who was ready to hike myself to new peaks within my self reliance and studies. Ignoring my mental shortcomings, I had many skills I needed to learn, and a work ethic that was in shambles, a combination that wouldn’t serve me well in my future. I decided that this wouldn’t stand. I was going to put more effort into the things I do, and, by giving everything that I do my all, I would find passions that I could pursue in my future. I still am working on developing good habits, but I had a plan, and that was a starting point that I was very appreciative of. 

I would attach a positive to a good habit I wanted to develop, and a more immediate consequence for developing bad habits. I assess myself monthly, as I mark each time that I miss something. For exercising, I measured myself in weights and repetitions that I was able to achieve. For sleep, I simply marked the time that I went to bed each night. For diligence and academic ability, I didn’t measure participation or engagement, but I could measure diligence through homework grades. I, of course, find myself slipping occasionally. The theory is that if I catch myself and am mindful of what distraction I am doing at the time, and steer myself away from it, I eventually will eliminate it from my routine. I will always strive to be the best person I can be, mentally and physically, because I wouldn’t feel comfortable trying to be anything else.