In the partner podcast project, each pair created a podcast about a challenge they did that explore ideas about technology usage. You can listen to my podcast on my previous post. This project just came to an end. I’m going to reflect on it.

Mental Toughness

Three quotes from this article:

” intelligence only accounts for 30% of your achievement — and that’s at the extreme upper end…..it was grit — the perseverance and passion to achieve long–term goals — that made the difference.”

“Mental toughness is built through small wins. It’s the individual choices that we make on a daily basis that build our “mental toughness muscle.” We all want mental strength, but you can’t think your way to it. It’s your physical actions that prove your mental fortitude.”

“Motivation is fickle. Willpower comes and goes.”

I think these quotes link with my experiences in the podcast project because the project is sometimes fun, sometimes annoying to me. If I just follow my “motivation”, then my work would not be consistent, and it would create extra difficulty for my partner too. It‘s only when random interest became responsibility, that our work can be consistent and has good quality. Luckily, most of the time I can fulfil my responsibility and my final product is good. Also, personally I am very bad at music, but a great portion of the podcast is music. By watching tutorials and listen to other podcasts, I did the best I can and the music is okay. So I think it’s very true that intelligence can only determine maximum 30% of final success, metal strength is more important. This article is useful for the last three months of the year because it encourages me to be more consistent and choose to challenge myself. By practicing mental toughness, I can better prepare myself for the future.

Partner Agreement

Our partner agreement audio

By doing the project, I discovered another key element to a successful collaboration: to have the same goal. This is not covered in the original partner agreement. I think it might be good to add that in next time. So during the process, I was blaming(not explicitly) Rhea for not doing a better job. Latter on I realise that her goal is a bit lower than mine, so it make sense for her to do less than me. It’s just part of the collaboration. Looking back, I should have encourage and help her from the start. I should tell her my goal and explain to her what I actually hope she to do. What do I need most from a partner during a project? I need my partner to discuss with me about, everything, so I can form my idea more easily and be more confident in what I am doing. I need my partner to trust me. I know this because I can only accomplish things when my partner trust me and have active discussion with me. If we just look at the instruction and split it in half, I’m not going to do well. My mind would mess up. I just could not decide and could not get going. My collaboration style is to discuss everything together with my partner. Comparing to that, work distribution or verbal encouragement is not that important to me.

Emotion Skills

Original article for this image

My sharpest part in this project is the magnifier for taking a closer look at myself. Because I descry a lot of things about myself due to the project. For example I prefer texting and I tend to do last minute work. I think I need to spend more time using the scissors for cutting out distractions, because I easily get distracted by literally anything. But I don’t know exactly know how I can cut out distractions. If I master this, I can have more control over myself and it will help me with meeting deadlines.