Week 8 Growth Mindset

I would say that one of the things on the list that I have experienced a lot of trouble with would be staying in my comfort zone versus being willing to try new things. I would definitely consider myself to be an introvert, so I tend to feel comfortable in less socially grand situations. Over time in college I've grown little by little whether it be with giving speeches, interviews, meetings, selling "my brand" to people, and meeting many new people on campus. I also feel like I am a very habit oriented person (a lot of people get this way), so I like to do certain things throughout the day when I study, eat, or workout and it's hard for me to get out of those routines. Not that having routines is a bad thing, but I should be open to trying new things even if those things interfere with my usual daily actions.

As I talked about in my first growth mindset post, I also had a tendency to focus on getting the grade in a class rather than learning the actual material and being able to apply it in an out of school scenario. With classes don't pertain to my major, I think it's easy for me to think, Oh, well let me just get an A and who cares if I remember the information. I won't need to use that later on. This class has really showed me how wrong that was. It could be easy for me to go through this class just trying to complete the assignments and then let everything go at the end of the semester. Thankfully, I have been introduced to so many different growth concepts and ideas in this class, I feel like I'm starting realize how I can grow and enjoy the information I'm being given as opposed to information that I look at in a negative manner. I don't want to go through school wishing it was over because then you are just spending your days trying to run out the clock. That isn't a life to live in my opinion. I am excited to see what else I can learn in this class because so far, I really have been exposed to stuff that will help me improve myself all around and in the long run.

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Week 8 Reflections

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I think I've made some good choices with my reading so far because I really have enjoyed them all. There may be one or two extra readings that I experimented with, which I usually wouldn't choose, but those were still good for me because they exposed me to styles that I don't usually read. At first, I had some trouble using my notes for my stories, but after trying it more and more, I've started to write with story ideas always in the back of my mind. Sometimes I'll just jot down random brainstormed notes ideas that I have so I don't forget them. When I go back to read them I have to decipher my notes to make sure I'm on the same page as my old self. Doing the reading notes has helped me speed up my writing process a lot though. The first few stories took me a lot longer to write than the recommended time, but now I am only a little over the two hour mark. Hopefully I will become better and better to where I can put out better content at a better pace. I just completed extra reading for week 7 and input some future reading ideas there. I am looking forward to reading Native American stories to learn more about some of the cultures. I think those would be neat to write about.

The most I've learned about myself as a writer stems from the different writing challenges that we do when revising out portfolio posts. I wouldn't say there is one thing in particular that I am so terrible at, but there is a broad scale of things that I have trouble with. So far, I've been trying to improve my grammar in quotes (something Dr. Gibbs has to help me with far too much) and imagery with words. I would love to paint pictures with words without even thinking about it, but right now that seems far out of reach.

I most admire some people innate ability to write stories that just flow perfectly. It seems like they can just think of a topic and write a story without even thinking much. That most likely isn't the case, but there are a few writers in our class who I can tell are on another level when it comes to storytelling and their posts overall. You know they write well when they make an introduction sound super intelligent! I may need to give people a little harsher feedback, but overall I think I have been pretty honest with my thoughts. I don't know if they actually take any of my thoughts into consideration, but hopefully they read them at the least!