Habits. They're the things we do everyday whether we realize it or not. They're incorporated in our routines and act like clockwork. Some we've gained from our parents at a very early age and some we develop later on in life. Scientists say that a task starts to form into a habit after being done for 30 days straight, but for term 2's project, we wanted to see if it could be done in 14; thus, the 14-day challenge was born.
The 14-day challenge served as our term 2 AEP project. It started on the 15th of February and lasted all the way up to the 28th. The main purpose of this challenge was to unlock our inner organization skills and increase our productivity levels. I encountered a many number of struggles during this project, but also quite a number of accomplishments- ones that I didn’t think I could achieve. Below is my usual pre-challenge preparation list:
PRE-CHALLENGE PREP:
1. Goal/Outlook for the day:
2. Exercise snack times: 10:15 a.m., 12:25 p.m., 2:05 p.m.
3. Watch less YouTube and put a time limit (1 hour).
4. I will be switching out pink lemonade with water.
5. Sleep hours:
6. Act of kindness:
7. Task:
Each day I would fill it out in the morning, which was designated to be at 7 a.m. Then, at the end of the day, usually before I go to sleep, I fill out some of the blank parts like the day’s “act of kindness” and verify with check marks whether I accomplished certain things or not. Now that the details have been laid out, let’s move on to the struggles I had with this project.
My struggles in this project were minor ones that I later on soon solved or adjusted to. I mainly had 3: remembering to fill out the challenge every day, getting up a little earlier in the morning, and finding a daily act of kindness.
Starting with the first one, I normally remember to do school work, but I guess since there’s no “Google Classroom” announcement to ping me every morning, I forgot this project easily. Nonetheless, I managed to not miss a single day of filling out the list. I believe this is thanks to the habit of starting to put my phone on the table before breakfast starts so that I remember. That, and the fact that my friends also ask if I did it. This struggle taught me to not always rely on "Google Classroom" and, like Miss Disa said, that sometimes when we're building habits, we need to stick them to old habits so that we remember.
Another problem I encountered was waking up at 7 a.m. I usually wake up for school at around 7:15 a.m., so I do admit that adjusting to this new sleeping schedule was a bit tough. I remember being very cranky in the morning because those 15 minutes can really make a difference in my mood (especially on the weekends)! Haha!
The last problem that I faced was finding a daily act of kindness. Although I assumed that this would be easy at first, I found that it was actually harder to think of one act daily. I had thought that it would just come naturally, but when the day would end, I would always find myself wondering what kind thing I did that day while drawing a blank. This project made me realize that there’s a fine line between being kind and helpful and I found that I’m the latter of the two. Even though the two may seem similar or overlap, they actually have many differences. For example, it's different when you let someone copy your notes versus holding open the door for someone. This struggle made me learn that I need to work on being kind more often.
Moving on to my achievements and things that really shocked me, I have two: my watching YouTube hours and switching out pink lemonade to water.
Starting off with the YouTube hours, I was quite surprised to find that I actually managed to pull it off. I think this is due to all the school work I had, which occupied most of my time. Nonetheless, this is still an achievement I shocked myself in doing since I remember watching YouTube for hours upon hours, especially on the weekends. And even now, after the challenge, I actually don’t watch YouTube as much anymore- at least not over an hour, so I think that this challenge was definitely a good habit to develop.
Moving forward, this is the one that shocked me the most because I'm still using it today. I’ve always drunk pink lemonade in school ever since I was in elementary and that habit never changed up until this project popped up. It’s honestly very surprising because I never thought I’d be able to give it up, but I did! To be honest though, it wasn't the easiest thing. I did have some cravings for it and the taste of water felt bland on my tongue for some reason, but those feelings slowly died as I neared the end of the project. I'm very happy with how this challenge changed this one bad habit of mine into a good one and I think this may be my favorite.
To sum up my experience in this 14-day challenge, I can say that I'm pretty proud of the results. This project was more fun than most projects I've been assigned and I'd say that some parts of it have definitely become part of my daily schedule now. Although the changes in my schedule may appear small, I think it's a good 1st step in the right direction in building healthier habits. I enjoyed how it only took 5-10 minutes of our day and wasn't too much a hassle to pull off. To me, it was no surprise that my struggles in this project didn't actually have to do with my productivity levels but rather with some of my organization skills, taking breaks sometimes, and being more positive. We're all still learning to navigate our way through life and this project has taught me a very important lesson: that it's okay to fail and to appreciate our small wins and successes because, when you add them up, they're actually pretty big.
No comments:
Post a Comment