A celebration is always a key to any successful reflection. I want to highlight my areas of potential improvement but I would also like to put a focus on my successes as well. I set out this year with some fine-tuned focuses for each individual subject and some more universal themes to work on. Through this half year, I have had opportunities to develop and perform these competencies in various different scenarios.
“The moment you give into your excuses you have already lost”
Commitment
Humanities is a subject where I felt I have had my most meaningful growth in the past year. I have felt I have been able to hit my creative stride. However, in the most recent project, I struggled with one of my major commitments for the year. I struggled with committing to the driving question in numerous chances I had to do so. The first example was the essay that we wrote in which I took the assignment in direction of my choosing rather than sticking to a laser-focused driving question. This theme of not being willing to commit continued through the following 2 assignments in the cray cray unit.
An inability to commit to the driving question once again reared its head during the Seattle trip. Once again I wasn’t completely committed and finding a storyline in a topic in which you are uncommitted can be difficult and turned out to be.
To close out our cray cray unit we had a twist a very familiar event and I was rather disappointed in my presentation looking back at it. I never seemed to dive into the question and my presentation felt really faked and I felt it affected the final product a lot.
My second example of commitment lies in my work in math. I have felt I have really pushed myself in math this year and it has lead to much more engagement, ultimately more commitment to the challenges I have to overcome. This year I have been taking multiple math courses and it has allowed me to find purpose in my work at many times. When I want to work on understanding the concepts of math I can work on my math 11 course, while I can work on my math 10 when I am looking for more of an application of this math.
I have noticed that I am much more passionate about my work with my math 11 course and the relationship between commitment and success becomes very clear. When I have been able to bring a lot of the concepts of math I have been able to succeed the most. An example of this would be in the algebra tiles project. I was able to apply some of the work I had been already completing creating a project that I was proud of.
Application
In previous SLC’s I always remained inside the realm of school projects and not talked about how I am bringing the lessons I have learned to my outside life. Accepting feedback has always been an essential part of the reason for my success in both golf and baseball for me. When I practice in both sports I make sure that I always willing to accept feedback in all its forms. In the culture of sport, feedback is rather unattractive because of its nature in calling your weaknesses out. Feedback thrives in an environment of acceptance and humility. Applying that in my sports has been a challenge but even in the past year, I have been able to understand the value of failure and humility. However, I am still years upon years away from being able to confident in my ability to accept feedback in sports.
Balance
My busiest time of year is around the corner so that leaves me until then to be able to find the “balance.” When I speak of balance I am speaking about finding correct school, sports balance and finding when and how I do my best work. I have begun to work on finding this balance with the tools given with PGP. Through my first few weeks of working with time blocking, I have found a number of different things that work and things that don’t.
When time blocking I have noticed a few drawbacks of the time blocking system in terms of my specific life. I have found through the years that I am most productive when I can see the path or direction in which I am going. It is my plan over the next few weeks to brainstorm ideas for each assignment in my things so I can refer to them. I am also getting “things” for my phone and I believe this will be a very important motivational tool.
How can I remain committed to my many priorities while finding a balence that works for my life?
