Something I learned after reading Chapter 1 was how creativity is one of the most desired skills/attributes that companies are after. This went even further and said they have the ability to measure one's creativity and score them based on that assessment. This actually surprised me that creativity had the capacity to be measured and it is actually done to ensure employees are coming into a business and going to be a valuable asset to the team.
I personally need to work on my ability to think outside the box and be confident in my own ideas. I currently am not very confident in my creative thinking and at the first sign that I may fail or mess up, I tend to shut down and stop trying. I do this to save myself from failing and having an excuse that I didn't try and that's why it was not good. This mindset is stopping me from building my creativity and is something that I would first focus on to build on my creativity skills. Another action I can take to help build my creativity is to not only change my mindset but challenge myself. As I tend to give up early on, if I challenge myself and attempt more things that I am more likely to fail at, I am slowly changing my mindset. This would also slow-launch me into the idea of having failure and that it can be a learning moment for me and not embarrassing.
Some ways to boost my creative thoughts and actions through the introduction of stimuli are, as mentioned above, to add more challenges to my life. I could make these challenges entertaining and more like puzzle apps and brain teasers. Introducing these into my everyday life will give me a challenge and force me to think outside of the box and ensure I have to think creatively more than I normally would.
I would like to add that this is directly seen in my A0 assignment where I shut down and do not take the risk. I was worried that the interview style introduction would not be efficient and gave up, taking the easy way out.
For the creative introduction, I did not let my creativity shine and could have done a better approach. Another approach I could have taken to this introduction would be a Vouge Interview or MTV Welcome To My Crib style interview. This would have been a more entertaining approach than the slideshow and would have better encapsulated my creativity. Some of the obstacles that stopped me from doing this originally were I was short on time when I started and did not have anyone to record. After meeting people and putting myself out there, I gained some recorders and interviewers. Here is an updated video to show a more creative approach to the introduction!
Something I learned in chapter two about curiosity is that everyone is born curious. Curisousty being something that everyone has and constantly uses since they are born was something I never thought about, but now that I have makes total sense. All children are curious and the annoying questions they ask are to grasp the idea of what is around them. It was also interesting to me how easily that curiosity is lost as we gain more information. By late elementary school, I felt most curiosity was lost and began to be locked inside one. This happened to me specifically and leads me to point two that I need to work on my curiosity in interests and areas that I might not particularly like.
I hate trying new things if I do not get a benefit from doing so. This led me to not be as curious as I could be to ensure I didn't experience something I regret and did not want to do. This is most prominent in food items and learning. Food items/subjects that I do not think I would like or am worried about trying will never be attempted by me to save myself from the discomfort of not liking it. A step that I can take to combat this is to try something in a safe environment so that if I do not like it or the experience, I will not be ashamed of saying so and be able to fully try and explore it. For example, when curious about certain learnings, I can research them in my own time instead of with someone else who may be interested so that if I do not like the subject as much as them, I do not have to worry about hurting their feelings.
I can use my curiosity to reach a future goal as an intended law school student to help me better understand my studies. In the future, I will have to conduct my own research, and having a more curious attitude and ability will allow me to better understand and master my studies. This mastery due to creativity will allow me to stand out against someone else who might not have been as curious and only did what was asked.
The process and start of this project were a little difficult. Some of my first questions were just random like "Why does it rain but not clouds are in the sky" and others were not very personal. As I thought more about what I wanted to know, I started to question my major, my pursuit of law, just my future as a whole. This led me to ask my first question "Is business economics a good major for pre-law"? It was a little challenging to be able to question something that I am currently doing, something that will set up my whole life.
I instantly knew that this question was going to be one that would lead me down the right path of curiosity. It would also be a question that as I research more, I am not only researching the subject but myself as well. I started off researching the initial question which led me to many open-ended responses. This led me to do research upon research all giving me various answers. Since the answer was not definitive, I thought that researching adding not only business economics, but another major might be a solution. This led me to research about co-majors and talk to my academic advisor about what a co-major is. In my discussion with my advisor, I was surprised to find that she does not recommend me to do a co-major. This was not something I expected and she helped me to find a better solution of a double major instead.
The idea of a double major was a substitute for a co-major but allows me to be more open and have more options. This new freedom and ease of mind was reassuring. I even was told by my advisor that I could not register for a double major yet and to take my time to think about what interests me and to choose a double major in that. I originally thought that researching this question was going to stress me out, did not help to relieve some stress and show me that I have so many more options to choose from. This solution of a double major is something that I didn’t expect but allows me to get peace of mind about being a business economics major on a pre-law track.
Creative confidence to me is the idea that one is comfortable and more likely to be able to express new ideas and content. It is being able to own up to one's ideas, as well as knowing that there may be consequences and that you are ready to learn from them. The value of creative confidence is something crucial for an individual due to the effects of confidence alone, but also the mindset that mistakes can help one progress and learn. If one is able to get this mindset with creative confidence, their progress and results may skyrocket.
I learned about my own creative confidence that I tend to lack the mindset that a mistake can help me learn. I am afraid of failing and showing others I did not do it perfectly. This lack of mindset was opened up to me during the reading and is something I know I now need to work on.
An indicator of someone who has a high level of creative confidence is someone who has a growth mindset. They believe that they can learn and grow from their mistakes. They would view their creativity as a skill that are able to hone and increase instead of a talent that someone is born with.
A strategy I can use to increase my creative confidence is to change my mindset and use mistakes and failures as a stepping stone to get to a new level of creative confidence. This can be done by standing strong in a challenge and not giving up at the first sign of failure. This different mindset would allow me to boost my creative confidence by introducing situations that challenge my confidence and cause me to become more confident if I want to succeed.
As I acted like a red and completed certain activities, I learned that red definitely is my lowest score and I need to be conscious of that. I completed various activities like meeting new people and connecting with them, but some of the hardest for me was reaching out to close friends to see how they were. This is something I normally don't do and being the one to initiate the conversation really surprised a lot of my friends. I could see how happy they were I reached out to them first and it showed me I need to be aware of that. Reaching out more is definitely one of my biggest takeaways from this assignment and something I know I need to do more.
I also learned that being a red isn't far from what I naturally do. I am a naturally outgoing person and talk to a lot of people, but what I was missing before was the emotional connection. I would say that I would talk to talk, but acting like a red showed me that I need to talk AND listen to understand. This mindset is something that may be a challenge at first, but something I definitely want to implement into my lifestyle.
The most important thing from the chapter, Be Resilliant, is the idea of the growth mindset. This is important to me because the idea of a growth mindset is something I need to focus on and introduce into my life. The self-compassion that introduces itself with the growth mindset is something that I lack and this idea is something that can benefit me. This idea of self-compassion also can coincide with the other skills we learned previously like creativity and confidence. Using resilience and these other ideas of entrepreneurship, I can become stronger in my own ideas and benefit from taking risks, even if it's learning from a mistake.
I need to build resilience in my own thinking instead of trying to conform to an answer. I personally tend to conform and do the idea or answer that I think the teacher or professor would want. This limits my creativity and doesn't allow me to truly show how I think, and instead shows I can think how the teacher or professor wants me to think. If it were to build my resilience, I would be able to express myself and my thinking and even if I am wrong, I can still learn from the situation. This is the growth mindset I mentioned earlier and something that would drastically help me personally if I could introduce it into my life.
I can use my resilience to get to a goal in my future utilizing the ability to learn from mistakes. As anyone who is trying to reach a goal, they will most likely not be able to succeed on the first try. Using their resilience however, the mistakes they make along the way are able to be turned into a lurking experience. This allows them to propel themselves to the goal they had set for their future.
The GooseChase assignment was extremely fun and something I am happy I went to experience. I was actually a little upset last week when other classes had a similar assignment and we did not yet. While doing the assignment, I was constantly pushing boundaries and doing these silly and funny challenges, which was a lot of fun. My favorite one was asking for food that a restaurant didn't have. Doing this assignment, I had to do about 3 takes because every time I completed the assignment, the video got deleted. I actually had people approach me later that day asking if I was the kid at Starbucks asking about hamburgers. A challenge I had was trying to teach someone how to break dance. Every time I asked, the person would decline or have to go and couldn't stop. When I finally found someone, it took about 5 minutes of convincing, but he reluctantly agreed. This experience was something that I really enjoyed doing. It pushed me out of a comfort area and forced me to reach out and embrace being rejected.