What is one example of small stuff that has gotten to you lately? One example of small stuff that got to me lately is not being able to see my friends. Because of the state of country and coronavirus, I currently can not spend time with my friends unless it's through a virtual platform. But in the grand scheme of things, not being able to see my friends is, "small stuff." I could have covid or be struggling with covid in my family. My parents could be struggling with the economy and be filing for bankruptcy. So in the grand scheme of things, not being able to physically be with my friends is not the worst thing in the world.
Chapter 2 Make Peace with Imperfection
How does your ego distract you? My ego distracts me by making me think about the past and what could have been. I always think about the past and what could have been when I shouldn't let that effect my present and future. I should be more focussed on what I can do in the present and future because that I can control. The past should not be stressed on as much because it cannot be changed.
Chapter 3 Let go of the Idea that Gentle, Relaxed people Can't be Superachievers
"When you have what you want(inner peace), you are less distracted by your wants, needs, desires, and concerns. It's thus easier to concentrate, focus, achieve your goals, and to give back to others." I believe that this statement means that once you have come into inner peace and happiness you will work better and be a better human all around. You will be happier and you will be not as stressed and therefore will achieve much more.
Chapter 4 Be aware of the Snowball Effect of your Thinking
Do you notice how your body and mind feel when your thinking is out of control? My mind and body feel very stressed and unrelaxed when my thinking is out of control. Often when you're thinking is out of control you are thinking too much over something. This can cause stress and a lower performance quality because while you could be focused on the task at hand your too busy worrying about something else. How overthinking affects my body is by making me feel exhausted from the stress. Have you ever had that feeling where you're tired from all of the stressing you've done? That is most of the time from overthinking. How overthinking affects my mind is by not letting me focus. Multitasking or "multi-thinking" is not something the brain is particularly good at. So when you're thinking about the test two months away and your math homework at the same time the results are not the best.
Chapter 5 Develop your Compassion
Can you recall a time when you made something "big" and dramatic when in reality it was "small" and not that big of a deal? I can recall many times where I made something dramatic that wasn't that big of a deal. Although I wouldn't consider myself a "drama queen," I do often worry myself about things that were not that big of a deal. One of the most common things that I worry myself about when it isn't that big of a deal is social encounters. Sometimes after I have a social encounter with someone immediately after I think about what I could've done better or said better. I worry sometimes about if one of my actions made someone think badly about me when he or she probably didn't think about it twice.
Chapter 6 Remind Yourself that When you Die, Your "In Basket" Won't be empty
What does your "in basket" look like? And will it be there tomorrow? My "in basket" right now has a lot of goals in it. A couple of my goals are to maintain my grades all year, to try to interact with my friends as much as possible without exposing myself to corona virus, to pursue leadership to the best of my abilities, to keep my stress as low as possible, and to train well for sports. Those are only a couple examples of what's in my "in basket" right now. The couple examples I said will all probably be in my "in basket" tomorrow because most of them are long term goals. The only goal that probably has a chance of not being there tomorrow is the goal of keeping reduced stress. The reason for that could be because I could get a ton of assignments assigned tomorrow and I am pursuing the goal of maintaining grades more than the goal of reducing stress.
Chapter 7 Don't interrupt others or finish their sentences
Do you believe you are a strong listener or could you use some work? I believe that I am a good listener but I also believe I'm not the best listener in the world. I am pretty good at not interrupting and can typically wait till the speaker is done. Especially now that the platform for learning is zoom where only one speaker can talk at a time I feel like I have been pretty good about not interrupting. I even can sometimes catch some of my friends in zoom interrupting people and help them stop. However, I still don't think I'm the best listener. I sometimes think I think more about what I am about to say more than what the speaker is talking about.
Chapter 8 Do something Nice for Someone Else - and Don't Tell Anyone About It
Recall a time you have given, did you expect acknowledgment? A time that I have given I didn't expect a lot of acknowledgment because that just make things a bigger deal then it really is. But I often do like a little recognition from my parents and peers because I feel like I would do the same for them. It also shows gratitude and the strength of a relationship when someone feels good when you feel good. However, acknowledgment is not needed because once you give something you typically aren't supposed to give something back.
Chapter 9 Let Others Have the Glory
Have you experienced someone else 'stomping' on your story (glory)? How did it make you feel? I have experienced someone else "stomping" on my story and it does tend to anger me. When I'm telling a story about myself and someone tries to steal the conservation and center it on himself or herself it makes me angry because it's like interrupting someone. I feel like, "I was talking about myself, not you, can we get back to the subject?" But, I do believe chiming in that you have had a similar experience isn't the same thing as "stomping" on a story. If someone chimes into my story saying, "Yeah me too!" I wouldn't care because they just said that one thing, however when someone starts going off on their own story it is not the most pleasant thing.
Chapter 10 Learn to Live in the Present Moment
What are some ways you work to stay in the present moment? A method I use to stay in the present moment is spending time with family and friends. Spending time with family and friends helps me notice how good life is and helps me enjoy the moment. Overall, spending time with loved ones typically makes you happier and more enthusiastic. Another method I use is walking my dogs. Walking my dogs just gives me time to observe the environment and enjoy the moment. Taking a walk also makes me feel more alive and having a breath of fresh air can mean just that much more. And my final method is just sitting down and reflecting on my life for a minute. This often eliminates stress and lets me know it will be okay. It also helps me show gratitude to my life and appreciate my life.
Chapter 11 Imagine that Everyone is Enlightened Except You
Think of a time when you were frustrated, now look at it as a moment of being taught... what did you learn? A time that I was frustrated was actually not that long ago. It was a couple of days ago from the day October 12th, 2020. I had typed out two very well structured paragraphs on my website about my favorite quotes. I went to bed after that and woke up and found that my paragraphs did not save. It frustrated me incredibly and I was very upset about it. But, I can learn from this situation. I learned that on Weebly it does not autosave and you need to click publish every time you do something. I also learned that in times of frustration making big decisions is not the best idea.
Chapter 12 Let Others be “Right” Most of the Time
Challenge: The next time you are in a discussion/argument, let the other person be right and take notice on the initial feeling that transpires. When I let the other person be right I felt like I had more to say but I also felt like I was moving on. When I did this I didn’t dwell on the conversation too long and focused more on other things. However, I also felt like what I wanted to say more and I held my thoughts down. I feel like doing this inside too great or too bad. You move on better and the other person is satisfied but you also don’t get to say what you want to say.
Chapter 13 Become more patient
Do you ever have a reflective moment when you realize you are so very small in this vast world and really your ‘drama’ isn’t that big a deal? I do sometimes have reflective moments when I realize my drama isn’t that big a deal. Often these moments will come when I see on the news or some other resource the living conditions of others. Living in Ripon, and even the United States makes me appreciate how good my life is and what my opportunities are. Also, sometimes when I’m in a moment worrying about my own drama I try to take a step back and tell myself that it isn’t the end of the world. Because in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t. Things could be much worse.
Chapter 14 Create “Patience Practice Periods”
Do you have a ‘Mantra’, a statement, that you make to yourself daily or weekly? This question is one of the harder ones to answer. I do have a statement for myself daily or weekly but it’s most of the time a goal. I will make a goal for myself to finish a lot of my work on a particular day or workout on a particular day. But I don’t necessarily make a quote or statement to define my day. I have become more of a goal setter this year but I don’t necessarily have quotes for myself.
Chapter 15 Be the First One to Act Loving or Reach Out
Have you lost a relationship because something “small” created a “big” divide? I have never really been in a situation where a big divide was created from a “small” thing. I feel guilty saying but I believe this is because I don’t typically hold grudges or stay mad at people for a long period of time. This most likely is what preserved most of my relationships in my life. However, I do believe that not staying mad at people can also be a disadvantage. My reasoning for this is that people think they can manipulate and do whatever they want to me.
Chapter 16 Ask Yourself the Question “Will This Matter a Year from Now?”
What do you hope to do a year from now? I hope that a year from now that I am still trying to grow in character and that I am still enjoying the present. I hope I am still grateful for everything that I have and that maybe I’ll be enjoying myself even more because the pandemic will most likely be over. I also hope that I am making a good impact on everyone around me. I hope that I am building a good legacy for myself at RHS and being the best person I can be.
Chapter 17 Surrender to the Fact that Life Isn’t Fair
Is life meant to be fair? What does that even mean? What it means when it says “Is life meant to be fair?” is that is life meant to be equal and happy. Life is not meant to be fair because it’s meant to be challenging and laboring. Life isn’t meant to be fair because it makes you work to have happiness. If life was fair then no one would have to work or put any effort into being happy. Overall life is not fair and never will be because life is made to push us and challenge us.
Chapter 18 Allow Yourself to be Bored
Do you take the time to be bored? I believe that I used to take the time to be bored but not so much anymore. I used to have a lot of time on my hands and would be bored in some of that time. However, ever since I started high school there has been not nearly as much time to be bored as there used to be. I find myself doing something all the time most days. However, I would not say I am bad at being bored. When I was young as punishment for being bad at times my parents would send me to my room where I could do nothing but be bored for a good amount of time. I believe that this made it easier for me to allow myself to be bored in the present.
Chapter 19 Lower Your Tolerance to Stress
Have you been taught to believe high stress is a positive thing? I have come to believe that high stress is a positive thing. The reason is that stress is a part of life and how you handle it. If you have a lot of stress then it shows how strong of a person you are for being able to handle it. When someone says they go through a lot of stress I gain respect for them. Therefore, I believe that high stress is a positive thing in many ways.
Chapter 20 Once a Week, Write a Heartfelt Letter
When is the last time you sat down and wrote a letter to someone with gratitude? The last time I sat down and wrote a letter of gratitude to someone was when I wrote an email to my 7th grade teacher that had a big impact on my life. I was writing this email to thank her for her impact on my education and the way I looked at life. Aside from emails, I do write cards full of gratitude often for people’s birthdays but that doesn’t really count because of the context. It feels good to appreciate someone and anytime I do something out of gratitude, it feels great.
Chapter 21 Imagine Yourself at your own Funeral
If you could change anything right now about your life, what would it be? If I could change something about my life right now I wouldn't change anything. This is due to the fact that anything I would change would have a ripple effect on my whole life and would change aspects of my life that I wouldn't want to change. It could change things like my family which I wouldn't change for the world. I also realize that my life is great and I wouldn't change anything. For example, if I were to make myself naturally one of the best track athletes in the country I could lose my good work ethic and not do well at the higher level. Things like this you must think about and I love my life and God and I wouldn't want to change his will.
Chapter 22 Repeat to yourself, "Life isn't an Emergency"
Describe a time or moments in your life when you turn something into an emergency A time when I turned a normal situation into an emergency was in my first finals week. I put way too much stress on my plate when I should've just created myself a schedule and followed it throughout the week. Planning is key to success and must always be valued when doing anything. I didn't procrastinate but I got into my own head and overall my mental health was not the best that week. This really shows how powerful the mind is on yourself. I didn't bounce back properly from my mistakes and I learned from that situation on how to calm myself in high pressure situations.
Chapter 23 Experiment with your back burner
Analyze: "It puts our quieter, softer, and sometimes most intelligent source of thinking to work for us on issues that we have no immediate answer for." What this quote means is that the backbones of our brain can be the most important and hard-working aspect of our brain. It is trying to get through to us that our brain is working on our problems when we cannot focus on them at the moment. The backbone also interprets things at a different level than we would when we are focusing on a particular aspect. If we are focusing on something we are unlikely to think out of the box, our backbone does that for us. Our backbone can relate the conversations and exchanges that we have outside of our topic to our topic. For example, if you're trying to figure out what to do for a class poster and can't think of anything you'll put it aside for a little. Then while you're talking with your friend about some of the memories of that class your backbone has generated some ideas for the poster. Overall the backbone can be the most important and hard-working aspect of our brain.
Chapter 24 Spend a Moment Every Day Thinking of Someone to Thank
Who is one person you would thank in this moment and why? I challenge you to communicate this gratitude with this person. I typically struggle with these types of questions because it is difficult to pick just one person to thank. At this moment I am thankful for all of my guardians, in particular my parents and grandparents. I am grateful for them in my life because they are putting me in such a great position to succeed and have a great future. They are very adaptable to my academic and athletic demands and I know with all of them at my side that I will be successful in life. And in particular, at this moment I have so many things on my plate and I know I would never be able to persevere like I am without them. I contacted my grandmother expressing my gratitude for her and she thanked me for sending the message and also expressed her gratitude for me.
Chapter 25 Smile at Strangers, Look into Their Eyes, and Say Hello
When you read this chapter, regarding eye contact and connect, what are your initial thoughts? My first thoughts when reading this chapter are that I am just like the people they describe. I shy away from making eye contact with strangers and because I run so often I often find myself doing it. But I don’t necessarily feel completely comfortable always being outgoing towards strangers. If a stranger smiles at me and maybe even gives a greeting I will do the same to them but I get particularly nervous when being the person to have to initiate it. I’m not necessarily an introvert but I don’t think I am an extrovert either. I’m in the middle. I am friendly with quite a lot of people but I don’t have a ton of people I consider my friends. I like to have a tight circle of friends rather than millions. So that’s why I think when I am on a run or walk that when I see a stranger my first response is to not be outgoing. I also have had a couple of situations where I have been nice and a stranger has blown me off for doing so. But I guess I can learn something from this chapter because a lot of the time if I bring positive energy towards someone, they will try to reflect it.
Chapter 26 Set Aside Quiet Time, Every Day
When do you find a quiet moment in your day, every day, just to be present and quiet? Do you? Or perhaps you don’t… explain. Working out and running are the quiet moments in my day to be present and quiet. Especially with me getting out of school at sunset now it is very peaceful and good for my mind when I run after school. It gives me time to enjoy the sunset while doing what I’m passionate about and very much clears my mind while I’m listening to music. I forget all of my worries and am present. With working out I am present and quiet by just getting all of my stress out of my system by pushing my muscles. I am so focused on my muscles and getting in a good lift that I forgot everything else that’s going on and am present. It also has an effect on my attitude after as does running. I am mentally much happier and less stressed than I was before and my body feels good for the rest of the day. All of these reasons are why running and working out are my quiet moments.
Chapter 27 Imagine the People in Your Life as Tiny Infants and as 100 Year Old Adults
Describe a time when you have been frustrated with someone, but you “let go” of the situation and moved forward with your life. How did that make you feel? The first time that I think of when I was frustrated with someone but “let go” of the situation and moved forward with my life I felt like a burden was taken off my shoulders. I could focus on myself much easier and I was happier because I wasn’t upset with the person. I didn’t really just “let go” of the situation though. Although I still think what the person did to me was very wrong and they should have never done it I also saw their perspective and saw how it wasn’t completely their fault. It was actually someone else’s fault and I didn’t feel like getting frustrated with that person because I was tired of being frustrated. And I overall moved on and am onto bigger things and am of the mindset that the person was a waste of my time and I shouldn’t be dwelling on people like that.
Chapter 28 Seek First to Understand
Describe a situation where you didn’t seek to understand first. Was there resolution with this conflict? A time when I didn’t seem to understand first was after the Halloween dance. I’m not going to say any names but I was upset with someone because they decided to ditch the dance to go with a bunch of friends. The details aren’t extremely important but I didn’t seek to understand first and I blew up at the person over the phone. The first mistake I made was doing it over text. I become much more hostile over text because I can’t pick up tones and I was much angrier than I would be if it was in person. My second mistake was doing it while I was angry. I should’ve waited 24 hours when I was in a calm mindset to address the situation. All of this causes me to not seek to understand and therefore led to me becoming the bad guy in the situation. Thankfully my apologies were accepted and the situation was moved past very well.
Chapter 29 Become a Better Listener
Who is someone you can genuinely talk to, that you know will listen to you. Describe this relationship. Someone I can genuinely talk to and they’ll just listen to me is Kylee Brown. There’s been so many times where I have been upset about something and I have gone to her and she has just listened to me say what I need to say. I’m very grateful for her and our relationship is very good.
Chapter 30 Choose your Battles Wisely
Describe a time when you “lost your Shhhhhh” and in reality it wasn’t worth the energy. How did you feel after the confrontation? Could it have gone differently if you didn’t sweat the small stuff? Me being a confrontational person, I’ve been in a couple situations where I lost my “Shhhh” and it wasn’t worth the energy. And most of the times were just because I should’ve waited until I was out of an emotional mind and into a calm mind. I would always feel regretful if I made the confrontation in an emotional way because I could’ve dealt with it much better if I was calm. It definitely could’ve saved a lot of energy and time if I just didn’t sweat the small stuff.
Chapter 31 Become Aware of Your Moods and Don’t Allow Yourself to be Fooled by the Low Ones
Explain a time when you were in a bad mood and how is shaped your day. Vise Versa, explain a time when you were in a great mood and discuss the day you had. One time when I was in a bad mood was when I was doing a leadership assignment my freshman year. I was doing this assignment on my weebly website and it was getting late, so I decided to go to bed and finish it the next day. But when I went to bed I forgot to hit the publish button. When I woke up the next day, all of my work hadn't been saved and I realized I had to start completely over. This largely made my mood plummet even though in the grand scheme of things it was definitely “small stuff.” I wasn’t able to really enjoy things throughout the day until I worked out and that seemed to make me feel better. A time when I was in a good mood was when I performed well in a meet. In everything I did, it was with a good attitude and this persisted until something bothered me.
Chapter 32 Life is a Test. It is only a test
“As an experiment, see if you can apply this idea to something you are forced to deal with” right now. Explain your emotions and logic behind this situation. Can you rise above it? Something that I am forced to deal with right now is balancing attempting to be an elite athlete and an excellent student at the same time. This has overall been a battle for me all of my sophomore year and it doesn’t get any easier, I just learn more throughout it and manage my time. I feel I am being tested on my ability to manage many contributions and involvements at the same time and this is largely preparing me for the future. I also am tested on things like how much I am willing to sacrifice and how to push through the pain. Overall this brings me a lot of emotions, sometimes good, sometimes bad. But I rise through it by continually improving my time management skills.
Chapter 33 Praise and Blame Are All the Same
You will not please everyone…how does this statement sit with you and why do we tend to focus on the negative rather than the positive? This statement doesn’t have a large effect on me either way because I feel I don’t care about pleasing others but at the same time, I always try to be a happy and kind person to the people I interact with. I feel like because of this most people are typically pleased by me and I barely ever have enemies or people that I don’t like. I’m not entirely positive because again I feel like there aren’t many who aren’t cool with me but for the most part, I feel like I don’t really care about pleasing others and I know my best is enough. I also feel we tend to focus more on the negative than the positive because we find negativity and problems interesting as opposed to positive things.
Chapter 34 Practice Random Acts of Kindness
Describe a time when you complete RAK and how did it make you feel? I time when I complete RAK could be when I assist my friends in their math because they don’t understand it the way their teachers teach it. They would show me their problems and their confusion and I would describe them to them through my understanding the best that I can. Overall, this makes me feel good to give a helping hand. I’m never annoyed when my friends ask and frankly, it is fun for me.
Chapter 35 Looking Beyond Behavior
In your own words, describe the meaning of loving-kindness. The meaning of loving-kindness is to be affectionate with good intentions. To be affectionate of someone and to want them to feel as good as possible is to be lovingly kind. I’d like to think of this as what good friends see each other with and of course relatives. A good friend should have a sort of loving, kind attitude towards their other friends.
Chapter 36 See the Innocence
What occurs when we practice compassion toward others and let go of “their” story, rather than be caught up in the drama of a situation? What occurs when compassion is practiced and we let go of the past is what we call living in the present. Bring caught up in the drama of a situation causes us to not move on with our lives and be stationary within the past. When we let go of these situations we live life one step at a time and we have a better overall enjoyment of life. We must always remember to practice compassion as it will also improve our own mental well being.
Chapter 37 Choose Being Kind Over Being Right
Define equanimity. Do you practice this in your life? Look to your ego first before you answer… I do not practice equanimity in my life as much as I should. I have definitely improved over time and especially throughout high school in how I approach difficult situations but I still could work more on my ego and ignore it more often. I feel ego can sometimes blind us of reality and block out our views of different perspectives as well. To improve in the future I feel I need to ignore my ego more often to deplete it.
Chapter 38 Tell Three People(Today) How Much You Love Them
In picking 3 people, who would you choose and why them? If I had to choose three people to tell how much I love them I would pick my parents and my grandma. I would choose my parents because they are the best parents a son could ask for and they help me and make me feel loved in every aspect of my life and showing them love always makes me happy. I will never stop appreciating them for everything they do for me. I would choose my grandma because there are lots of times where I can feel myself getting more and more scared of the day when I don’t have her anymore. I can only imagine the grief I would be in as she does so much for me and everybody she knows and she is just truly an all around great person. I want to appreciate her as much as possible for the time I have left with her.
Chapter 39 Practice Humility
Describe a time when you saw an individual or a group lack humility. How did that make your feel about said individual/group? A time when I saw an individual lack humility was when a particular individual was asking others how they did on a test just so they could tell them how well they did. I’ve seen people do this a lot when they try to be sly by asking how someone else did just to kind of push themselves up. They also may complain when they did extremely well to get compliments. I know this isn’t a good way to be but I honestly feel kind of scornful towards these people when they do this type of stuff because at that point I’m not happy for them. You're only using your accomplishments to walk on others which is just not right. Everybody is probably a victim of this at one point but we really need to catch ourselves and stop.
Chapter 40 When in Doubt about Whose Turn It Is to Take out the Trash, Go Ahead and Take it Out
What is your perspective/opinion of this article? Valid, or a waste of time? I believe that this article doesn’t really validate its argument. While it does show that not keeping track of things will take up less mental capacity and how it could be beneficial to one’s mental health it does not give a valid solution to the aspect of being taken advantage of. If you live with this mindset while you may be more mentally free, everyone will take advantage of you. Because you do everything and don’t put your foot down people will constantly take advantage of you and you won’t ever get respected the way you should. The article needs to address this aspect.
Chapter 41 Avoid Weatherproofing
Do you weatherproof? Explain One of my goals lately, largely relates to this topic. I lately have been trying to do whatever I can to see people for the positive in them rather than the negative. I feel that I used to be very positive-minded in the way I looked at people and saw them for the good in themselves and while it is a good attribute to have it could sometimes lead me into bad situations where I could get hurt. Over this past year of 2022, I feel I’ve been more cautious about people and how I perceive them as I don’t myself to get hurt like I have in the past. And while this may be a little selfish I think it’s necessary to a certain extent. However, I feel I used to have more love for the world and the people in it back then and I miss that I think I need to start looking more for the positives in people and not be so cautious necessarily. I feel that I must find a balance however because each side has its pros and cons.
Chapter 42 Spend a Moment, Every Day, Thinking of Someone to Love
Who do you choose to send love to in this moment? I choose to send love to the homeless during the holidays. I send love to them as they do not have a roof over their heads to keep them warm during the holidays and to have a joyous time during the holidays. Instead, they have to sit out in the cold. I wish that they get through whatever difficulties they are having and that they find the help that they need to get through the time of the holidays. I hope that they can find a loving home in which they are nurtured and can live a mentally healthy life.
Chapter 43 Become an Anthropologist
Reflect on the following: “judging others takes a great deal of energy and, without exception, pulls you away from where you want to be.” The following quote is quite true but still has some holes in it. Judging does take a lot of energy if you are invested in the judging process but on the other hand, judging is natural. Humans when analyzing something have to judge it. I, for example, have to judge whether someone would be a good close friend to me to decide whether I should get closer to them or not. Some things require judgment. You have to judge whether a scenario is safe or not and whether you should put yourself in it. However, you must put limits on this judgment and significant limits as judgment need to be very little and used in only certain situations.
Chapter 44 Understand Separate Realities
Why is it important to see the differences amongst one another in our small intimate circle of cultures around the world? It is important to see the differences amongst one another in our small intimate circles to cultures around the world as we must allow ourselves to allow others to act the way they want even though it is on a smaller, less visible scale, those differences are very large and significant. We must allow ourselves to be open with our small circle but at the same time have a mindset where we are accepting of their openness. Everybody is going to come into certain scenarios with bias and we have to keep that in mind everybody has different perspectives. We can also change our perspectives to be more open to differences and therefore be more comfortable with our circle.
Chapter 45 Develop Your Own Helping Rituals What Are Some Ways That You Can Help the Spread of Kindness Toward Others?
Some ways that you can help the spread of kindness towards others is by doing simple acts of compassion and friendliness. This could be anything as simple as smiling and saying hello to your neighbor while you are walking your dog. You don’t need to do much or put much effort forth to be kind to others. Another way we can is just by being caring of life. If you care about how kind you are or how you affect others then you will put more effort into these things and we should all do this.
Chapter 46 Every Day, Tell at Least One Person Something You Like, Admire or Appreciate About Them Give someone a compliment via text message or DM. Who did you choose and how did it make you feel to support another person?
I chose to give Ewan West a compliment just appreciating how good of a human being he is. This made me feel really good about myself as I made someone feel good about themselves. It seems in this scenario whatever I am putting into this person I get out of this person. The effort goes both ways if this is continuous depending on who it is and can lead to more compliments of yourself which largely help self confidence.
Chapter 47 Argue For Your Limitations, and They’re Yours Discuss a time when you had self doubt and set limitations on yourself. How did you or how can you change this behavior?
A time when I had self doubt and set limitations on myself was during my whole freshman year. My whole freshman year I really had very little self confidence when it came to much and I was still trying to find my personality. I was trying to find my good purposes life and just overall didn’t truly know myself. During the summer after freshman year I began to start living the life I dreamed for myself. Was running track as I loved and was doing the things I wanted while still working hard. I really just started expressing myself to do this.
Chapter 49 Resist the Urge to Criticize What is your perspective on one who is critical, talking poorly about another person, lies to feed their Ego? Look inward...are you guilty?
One who is critical, talking poorly about another person or lies to feed their ego is one who looks at life negatively and is therefore very critical of themselves and is not a very happy individual. Criticism is needed in life but should be constructive when it is given if it is to take a positive effect. The goal of criticism should be to help in growth and development not to bring people down and should be given in such a way that does this. You also have to build the skill of being receptive to criticism to be able to improve yourself and grow. I feel personally that I have grown a lot based off the criticism that I have received throughout my life and without criticism you’re not going to be able to grow.
Chapter 50 Write Down Your Five Most Stubborn Positions and See if you can Soften Them Where do you Find Stubborness in Yourself? Describe in Detail
I feel like if I looked I could find a lot of stubbornness in myself because I am often told that I am a stubborn person. However, I don’t really look for that in myself because I don’t feel I have a negative outlook on life and realistically that’s being negative if you are focussing on those things. However, I am aware it is there and if it ever becomes an issue I will make sure to address it. I feel like you need to be somewhat concrete in order to nurture your confidence and make sure you have pride in yourself but you should try to stay away from stubborness and unwillingness to change because then you cannot grow. I feel there is an area that you need to be in to achieve that.
Chapter 51 Just for Fun, Agree with Criticism Directed Toward You (Then Watch it Go Away) Describe a time when someone criticized you and discuss the emotions felt behind these comments. What do you think about the author’s idea to accept the criticism?
A time when someone criticized me and discussed the emotions felt behind these comments is when a particular someone told me that I was too blunt and honest. They said I was so honest that my honesty could be perceived as harshness. I will say I feel like I am one who is more open to criticism. This was honestly the first time I had heard someone say that “you can be too honest”. I always thought of honesty as doing right by someone as I wasn’t holding back what I truly feel, but after this comment I was able to take this and reflect on myself in order to improve myself. I now know that I should bite my tongue in certain situations.
Chapter 52 Search for the Grain of Truth in Other Opinions Describe a moment when someone shared their opinion that you didn’t agree with, but was willing to listen and hear a different perspective. How did the overall conversations go?
A moment when someone shared their opinion that I didn’t necessarily agree with was when my dad shared an opinion that Brock Purdy was the problem and that he wouldn’t have his job by the end of the season. I didn’t agree with this opinion but my dad was willing to hear my opinion as well. This made the conversation constructive and a lot more enjoyable than it would have been if he wasn’t open to any other perspective but his own. This allows for change of opinion and a growth mindset, not a fixed one.