The Journey to Being Better – The 7 Habits and Me

This project is unlike many others, especially conventional projects where you usually produce a product. The reason for this is that in Believe in Good, we worked on ourselves and our personal habits with very little actual work, and the work usually being highly reflective and looking at our future growth.

I found the ideas prevalent in this project to be quite interesting and I want to enact many of them into my daily life. As I reflect on my work ethic, I realize that it is inadequate. In order for me to enact a work ethic that I am satisfied with, I must first act out the 7 habits and change my mindset towards work.

With this, I want to dedicate my time to productive activities such as schoolwork or exercise. I feel like when I get frustrated or bored, I look at my phone instead of using more constructive methods by which I would get back to my work faster. Instead of looking at my phone, I have begun trials on methods such as quick, high intensity exercises with which I can clear my mind and start anew with a more refreshed and dedicated mindset.

Although the intended outcome and product of this project was much more mental and difficult to define, we did have to create physical products with which we could show and define our work and learning. The three products we created would each represent a stage of our learning and growth, with each being physically different with one being audial, one being visual, and one being kinaesthetic.

We will start with the audial show of my learning. This one was the most direct, with it being a conversation between me and my friend about the habits we tried to set in motion in order to improve and develop our communication, teamwork, and leadership skills.

I think that by listening to the conversation itself, you can tell that me and Jonathan have both learned a lot about the 7 habits in the book and how we may set them into practice in our daily lives.

The second representation of my learning was the visual. For the visual I decided to draw the sunrise. This drawing represented my thinking and how I could achieve my personal victory. Although I messed up the dimensions on my first and second drafts, by moving to a smaller paper, I managed to create a drawing which showed the view of the sunrise over the cove.

I think that I have made great personal gains in my Proactivity and putting first things first. With putting first things first, I put myself first and really tried to think of the outcomes of my actions. When I started really putting this into action, I started spending much less time looking at social media because I was able to implement a higher state of control over myself. With this, I also started to take more notes in places where I usually wouldn’t take them. With this, I could learn much more efficiently because I let myself focus much better on a single task.

The third and final representation of my learning was kinaesthetic. The kinaesthetic item represents my personal renewal and sharpening the saw. You cannot work efficiently or effectively if you are stressed out and concerned with other things. This is why taking time for yourself is so important.

What I did for the kinaesthetic may be a bit cheap but I find the presence of a nice flower in a very nice bottle as the vase to be quite charming. I think that the fact that I use and see what I created on a day to day basis is a good achievement as opposed to the dolls and other functionally useless items that many of my classmates created.

In terms of the whole project, and my personal growth, I have much which I still need to accomplish and enact. I think that I will really start to work on this when I will have my mind truly clear in the summer. With my travels this summer encompassing many foreign nations which I have yet to visit, I think that it will be the perfect time to grow.