“The Path to Personal Growth – A Reflection From Loon Lake 2023

This past Week I had the amazing opportunity to go to Loon Lake with all of PLP grade 9. The learning objective of this trip was how do our future paths reflect the personal, community, and educational choices we make. We worked with pinnacle pursuits, a team of people that helped us learn more about ourselves and our goals and how we can accomplish them. This retreat brought all of PLP 9 closer together and helped rebuild a feeling of trust and reliability. If I’m being completely honest I was quite hesitant to go on this trip.  In the end I thought that it was quite helpful and I had a lot more fun than I thought I would. 

                 

Each day we would take part in 3 workshops teaching us about various things like emotional intelligence, self awareness, and leadership. We kept track of each lesson in our books, and completed each session with our our instructor Johnathan. He helped us figure out about ourselves and how we can develop into better people. I learned about my strengths and my weaknesses. I learned about how to collaborate and communicate effectively through different activities. Using teamwork I discovered what qualities I bring to a team and how I can really utilize those skills. It turns out that I am a good listener and good at following instructions. I used my creative and critical thinking skills a lot during the activities. I feel that I was able to build on many skills throughout this trip and develop new ones. 

             

One of my favourite workshops was near the end of the trip. In this workshop we did trust falls. This tested everyone’s trust and confidence. We started off just on the ground doing regular trust falls. As everyone got more comfortable we all progressed to a taller  drop. We set up a chair on a table and everyone took turns falling. This activity was quite challenging for people, it is a lot scarier than it looks and it takes a lot of trust. I found it scary for about 2 seconds, but after realizing that I would be caught I wasn’t as stressed. Everyone in my group was able to complete this exercise, and I feel that this was really helpful to build a sense of trust between one and other. 

One of things I brought home with me was my transfer goal. I came up with an intention in Loon Lake that I wanted to accomplish in school. As soon as I heard about a goal I knew exactly what it was going to be. My intention is to be more positive towards new projects and school in general. I want to work on having a positive mindset and being more open to new ideas in PLP. To accomplish this goal I will focus on surrounding myself with more positive people, and practicing more positive self talk. 

The driving question for this trip was How do the choices we make set our future path? Throughout the week I learned that everything you do defines you as a person. The good decisions the bad decisions, and everything in between shape you as a person. The way you treat yourself and others has a big impact on how you feel and how others feel about you. Overall, I think that the Loon Lake trip was very beneficial for so many reasons. I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot more about myself. I cant wait to continue to grow as a learner and a person.