Zhu Liang Yan, Period 6, 3/22/2023

      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?
  
  

I dislike setting precise standards and expectations for myself because I believe that they are inherently toxic to oneself. Though, holding yourself accountable and realizing the fact that you’re entirely in control of your decisions, actions, reactions, and so forth is a value that I aim to live by. Regarding standards and goals, I focus on getting rid of my terrible habits (such as valuing moments of pleasure over sleep) and exposing myself to fears (such as public speaking and investing time in new people) to achieve growth. Commonly, when I used to set goals that are expecting of me to attain a certain degree of success or anything measurable, I realized that it often had the opposite effect of reaching that success. Inherently, we always place a higher expectation on ourselves than what we can achieve, leading us to fail that “goal” or “criteria.” Additionally, it makes me feel terrible, and overall shame and guilts causes me to lose motivation to reach higher. Hence, mindsets are often the most important part of the process of improving yourself. You have to see it first before you can attain it.

I’m still trying to formulate my personal philosophy through trials and errors, fears, and interests. And I believe this is what I’ll be doing for all my life; however, I wish to develop a concrete foundation of values that I wish to abide by at this point of my life, such as setting my fears as opposed to setting expectations. I introspect and find parts of myself that I find unfulfilling and work backward instead of constantly trying to find new things to fill that unfulfillment. I believe that I’ll always constantly strive to want something more; although it is important to appreciate the things you have at the moment when you’re in a rut, I find it more important to work toward something that you look forward to. Personally, I’m still trying to figure out what it truly is; however, Psychology and creative pursuits such as music and writing are very meaningful to me. Especially in creative pursuits, I find the idea of a lack of limitation in creativity fascinating and meaningful. It adds colors to the already-defined colors. It gives words to the unnamed.

To summarize, the current loose standards I set for myself are to find, contribute and realize my personal morals and the way I want to utilize my time by eliminating bad, time-consuming habits and mindsets that do not align with who I define myself as. Many of these things are subconscious, and it would be difficult for me to realize them. However, I wish to introspect more often, and as Carl Jung puts it, “Until you make the subconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you’ll call it fate.”