🌲How Can I be my Most Effective self?

🌲Hello and welcome back to the forest of learning! In this post, I will be reflecting on the process of the project “Believe In Good”. This project was dramatically different from any other project we have done in PLP, and has also been one of my personal favourites. This project centres around the book “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens” by Sean Covey. We read this book individually, and completed assignments to bring our understandings to life. I really enjoyed how much independence and creative freedom I was able to have in this project and I am really happy with most of the work I produced. If you would like to learn more about it, just keep reading!🌲

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So, as I mentioned earlier, this project centres around the “7 Habits” in the book  “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens” by Sean Covey. This book, as the title indicates, is about the seven core habits of being a good person:

Click to learn more about each Habit⬇️

Be Proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. Proactive people recognize that they are “response-able.” They don’t blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. They know they can choose their behavior. Reactive people, on the other hand, are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn’t, it affects their attitude and performance, and they blame the weather.
Begin With the End in Mind is based on imagination—the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint.
Put First Things First is the exercise of independent will toward becoming principle-centered. Habit 3 is the practical fulfillment of Habits 1 and 2. Habit 1 says, “You are the creator. You are in charge.” Habit 2 is the first mental creation, based on imagination, the ability to envision what you can become. Habit 3 is the second creation, the physical creation.
Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-win means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying. We both get to eat the pie, and it tastes pretty darn good!
Once you have mirrored to understand, it takes courage to be understood. Listening is the most important skill, what people have to say is valuable, and instead of trying to get your point across, you should be absorbing the individuals point. You must listen intently and understand before being understood.
To put it simply, synergy means “two heads are better than one.” Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation. It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems. But it doesn’t happen on its own. It’s a process, and through that process, people bring all their personal experience and expertise to the table.
Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have—you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual. As you renew yourself in each of the four areas, you create growth and change in your life. Sharpen the Saw keeps you fresh so you can continue to practice the other six habits. You increase your capacity to produce and handle the challenges around you.

🧠 If you would like to learn more about them through a visual representation, there is an awesome video by WISDOM FOR LIFE that does a wonderful job of summarizing each of the habits. (Click HERE for part 1, Click HERE for part 2) 🧠

These habits are put into three main categories: Habits 1, 2, & 3 are all a part of the “Private Victory”, Habits 4, 5, & 6 are a part of the “Public Victory”, and habit 7 is a part of “Renewal”.

Source

Before I get into it, I thought I would include a little review on the book itself:

As someone who considers themselves to read more than the average teen does, it was really interesting to read a (What I call) “Self Help Book”. I have to say that there were many good and bad things about this book. I genuinely think that this book can change lives. It is filled with messages that are true and are definitely good practices to incorporate into your life. My biggest problem with this book, and- for some it may not really matter- is the fact that it is pushing a very specific definition of being “Successful” which, I feel I do not necessarily resonate with. This book preaches the idea that, in order to be an effective person, you must be happy and healthy in every part of your life that you can control. When looking at the book’s “Perfect Routine” examples, all it represents is pushing towards your goals. To me, aimlessly going through life is perfectly fine! Maybe I am immature and don’t understand these type of things just yet, but I feel that these factors to not point to success for me. It is difficult to define success, since, success is completely dependant on the situation. These seven habits will definitely help you become a successful person in societies eyes, provide you with direction, and give you purpose, and overall, the book does what it’s supposed to; it makes you genuinely reflect on your own life and the decisions you make, and, in that sense want to make you change for the better. Would I recommend this book? Absolutely. Do I agree with everything that is in it? Not fully. 

 

 

This project had a pretty interesting timeline; we started early February and are now just ending in late April- which makes it one of the longer projects I have completed in PLP. Over our time in Loon Lake, we started really diving into what this project is really about: finding your areas for growth, and improving through incorporating system, principles, and, of course habits into your life. I would classify this project as a “side project” because of the unusual structure of it. “Believe In Good” almost never took up whole class periods but often just had little snipits of lessons in between DI, which, is fairly unusual. For our actual work in the project (other than completing the readings), for each part, we took notes, completed a workbook, and completed an Assessment Choice Board Activity.

📝If you would like to see the notes I took throughout the project, click HERE. 

Assessment Choice Boards

Just before I get into the actual meat and potatoes of the project, I wanted to introduce the assignment that we completed in each phase of the project: Choice Boards. This assignment was created to be a way for you to have the freedom to express the understandings of the readings, and for you to creatively connect yourself to the topics in each part. We had a list of options, but you could also create anything you would like! There is no right or wrong way to express yourself, which is why I really enjoyed these.

 This was the basecamp card with options to choose from:

You could choose anything, but our teachers encouraged us to try something new each time. But- anyways, with that out of the way, let’s get into it!

1️⃣The Set Up

The first two big concepts this book reviewed were “Paradigms and Principles”. The Set Up is all about viewing yourself and the people around you as well as identifying the centre (s) of your life and potential bad habits you have implemented into your routine. Paradigms are the way you view something. Just by looking at someone, you don’t know their struggles, insecurities or weaknesses. We judge ourselves and others and it is something that we need to be aware of. A “Paradigm Shift” as the book says, is like looking at someone without glasses and then, after shifting, you can suddenly see them clearly. The second big concept, Principles, is the idea of possible centres that your life revolves around. The book suggests that, instead of revolving around something like school, you should base your life on principles such as “loyalty” or “honestly”.

To represent my understandings of these concepts, I completed this workbook as well a choice board activity. My first choice-board was a visual understanding of my learning through a collage filled with drawings, images, and graphics. In this photo collage, I focused on how paradigms and principles relate to me. I included a photo representing some struggles I face within myself that people around me may not see. I will never know how people truly view me, however, I am proud of all that I am regardless. I tried to express this through my positive statements and collage of photos that represent my co-centres and the principles I base my life around. I used the graphic I created representing the different ways people view the same individual before a paradigm shift. This assessment choice board activity is a bit hard for me to share since the struggles I have included within my collage are things that I really do have to deal with, and, putting it into art was difficult. It’s hard for me to be vulnerable sometimes so I am proud of myself for being honest with myself and others through this. Please be nice!

2️⃣The Private Victory

The second section was the “Private Victory”. The private victory is made up of three habits; Be Proactive, Put First Things First, and Think with the End in Mind. The Private victory is about what’s underneath. It’s the foundation of being productive and prepared. As a part of the private victory, which we focussed on during Loon Lake is the Personal Bank account:

Click here to see more!

The bank account is filled with deposits and withdrawals that are judged by your positive or negative actions in your day to day life. This activity was supposed to push us to being a better person, and being aware of your actions.

My Personal Mission Statement Table

In addition to the PBA, we also needed to create a “Personal Mission Statement Table”. This table connects to Habit 3. At our table, we needed to include our “End in Mind” goal, Personal Mission Statement, and around your table should be 5 – 10 people that will support you to reach your goal. For me, I included my sisters and their closest friends, since, they have always supported and inspired me in different ways. Each individual at my table supports me to be my best self, and my table is something that I am pretty proud of.

And, of course, just like every section of this book, we also needed to create a choiceboard activity and workbook (which, unfortunately is too large of a file to share, sorry!). This activity was actually one that I was really proud of- I created a physical object that represents my understanding really well! This visual representation of my understanding is intended to be an interactive sculpture that allows you to see the private victory from my own perspective as well as how it can apply to my own life. The surfaces of the cube have images that each represent different components of the private victory. Every time you turn the cube, a different image is shown allowing you to see that they are all individual but still come together as a single structure. The vocal point of the sculpture, the collage, represents me at the stage of the private victory and some of the knowledge I have gained from the 3 habits and the section of reading. I worked on this choiceboard over spring break so this was one of my more detailed choiceboard activities in this project.

Planning document

3️⃣The Public Victory

The next section is known as the “Public Victory”. The public victory is made up of three habits; Think Win-Win, Seek First to Understand and Then to be Understood, and Synergize. The public victory is about communication, collaboration and building relationships. As for each section, I completed a workbook (still too big of a file! Darn.). For this section, I feel that my assessment choice board activity summarizes most of what it is, so, if you would like to learn more about it, check out my choice board activity: 

For this choiceboard activity, I chose to create an amazon review of the Public Victory. This representation of my understanding of the Public Victory is intended to be an informative and fun Amazon review/product. This includes the “Product Description” as well as a written review by me. The review is written from my perspective, and the Product description is meant to explain the Public Victory in a concise manner- just like a product on Amazon. This visual metaphor is also meant to represent the fact that, in order to actually unlock the Public Victory, you must put effort into it. In this case, putting an effort into learning about the Public Victory is represented through your “Purchase”. Overall, this was a really fun way to represent my understanding of the Public Victory from the knowledge I gained in the readings and book!

4️⃣ Renewal

Renewal is the final part of the book. Renewal is made up of one habit; Sharpen the Saw. Renewal is all about, well, renewing yourself! Renewing yourself is, in my opinion, the most important as it is the foundation of every other habit and thing in your life. It is extremely important that you are renewed and ready to accomplish tasks and have energy to live your life as an effective person. This part is the part in which I think I need to work on the most, and at the same time I am best at; let me explain: I feel that I am good at understanding when I need to take care of myself but I don’t always listen to my instincts and ignore them. I won’t go into depth but, I think that renewal is extremely important so, even if I am hypocrite, don’t be like me! Remember to take care of yourself. 

For my choiceboard activity, I created a  Keynote animation. This animation features how I view myself when it comes to renewing myself in my own life. I view myself like a plant, tree, or any other organism that needs certain conditions to remain healthy. The sun represents the things in life that aren’t necessarily bad, but still cause you to loose energy. For me, this is something like hanging out with my friends- it’s fun, but my social battery becomes low. Because of the sun, your flower’s (mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual) health slowly starts to wilt. The flower represents indications to understanding when you might need that watering can to renew you. For me, I know my flower is wilting when I have a quick temper or lose focus easily. Finally, the watering can represents the ways that you can renew yourself. The water (activities/methods) help renew each aspect of yourself and allow you to regenerate yourself again. 

🏆Final Products

The final part of the project was creating our final products. These three final products each connect to a core competency question as well as the habits that you feel could be used to connect and answer each question for them. To start, we created a project pitch which looks like this:

We had one week to create each of these products, so, although they were a bit rushed, I still feel they did well at taking my project pitch and bringing it to life! At least- most of it. For my Kinesthetic choice in Personal and Social, I ended up scrapping my original plan and instead going with something else that I was much more excited about. Below you can find my three final products that were created with the intent to answer each driving question!

🗣Communication: 🌲How do I use the 7 Habits to communicate and collaborate, and develop habits to support my growth as a learner?🌲 

My Podcast Episode:

  • Habit 4: Think Win-Win
  • Habit 6: Synergize

🧠Thinking:🌲How do I use the 7 Habits to think creatively, critically, and reflectively to support my growth as a learner?🌲

My Keynote Animation:

  • Habit 1: Be Proactive
  • Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind
  • Habit 3: Put First Things First

🫂Personal and Social:🌲How do I use the 7 Habits to develop personal and social awareness and responsibility and positive personal and cultural identity to support my growth as a learner?🌲

My Sculpture:

  • Habit 5: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
  • Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw

🌲Overall, I really enjoyed this project! I found that I was really able to reflect on myself in areas other than school, which, is not what I am used to. Since this was a side project, the work that I produced was impacted by how busy I was in other courses and classes. I enjoyed reading the book and taking it slow in the beginning  however by the end, this project just felt very rushed and stressful and made me feel less proud of the work I produced because I spent less time on it. Regardless, I still feel that this project was one that has allowed me to be self aware and become a better person. Each habit taught me important skills that I will carry on throughout my entire life. So, How can I be my most effective self? Well, I can use each habit to support myself as I go. I especially feel that, in order to be my most effective self, I must work on incorporating “Sharpen the Saw” more often. This project has allowed me to understand myself and the way that I treat myself and others. I learned that every single habit is valuable to me and will continue to only increase in value as I grow and expand my understandings. I feel that I am doing well at already incorporating most of these habits in my life, however I still need to learn to take care of myself. I really enjoyed using technology to construct and enhance my knowledge as well! Having the freedom to use various apps and mediums to creatively communicate was something I really enjoyed. I learned so much about myself in this project and I genuinely feel that this was one of the most impactful and important projects I have completed in PLP. I am proud of what I accomplished, and, as always, I hope you enjoyed watching me grow in the forest of 🌲 

🌲learning🌲