Three Quotes that Link to our Challenge Experiences

“How many workouts have you missed because your mind, not your body, told you you were tired? How many reps have you missed out on because your mind said, “Nine reps is enough. Don’t worry about the tenth…” Choose to do the tenth rep when it would be easier to just do nine.”

This quote relates to the challenge since I could’ve easily skipped a video or two, forged a recording, and said that I didn’t have enough time to do it, but I didn’t and made myself watch all the videos as scheduled. This is important to keep in mind going forward because this is a good approach to have and is an approach that generally brings people success.

“Mentally tough people develop systems that help them focus on the important stuff regardless of how many obstacles life puts in front of them. It’s their habits that form the foundation of their mental beliefs and ultimately set them apart.”

This quote pertains to the challenge since I had to develop a system to make sure I was completing the challenge every day, which was setting calendar reminders. There was one day in particular where I had a bucketload of work to do, but I organized myself in such a way that I was able to get the challenge done, along with the majority of the work. This is another mindset to keep in mind going forward, since it worked for me.

“In every area of life — from your education to your work to your health — it is your amount of grit, mental toughness, and perseverance predicts your level of success more than any other factor we can find.”

This quote relates to the challenge since I found that it was my perseverance to complete it that got me over the line in the end. I also found that in some of the debates I watched as part of the challenge, the most effective and compelling debaters weren’t the most well-spoken or the most factual ones; they were the ones who were the most mentally tough and the ones that stood by their beliefs and spoke with passion and determination.

Partner Agreement Reflection

In terms of collaboration, I think we should have thought more about our day-to-day communication that specifically regarded the challenge. Though we were technically doing this challenge as a pair, we didn’t really talk about it to each other and instead found ourselves doing it at our own paces. If we’d done it more collaboratively, I think we’d have been more involved and engrossed in the challenge. Concerning this, we could’ve thought more about the advice regarding conversational competence and the importance of meaningful day-to-day interactions. Thinking about this more would have lead to us talking about the challenge more often and making more useful observations/connections, which would have made our end-of-day reflections more substantial. Now that I’ve worked with two different partners, I know that I need my partners not to be afraid to ask questions, responsive and easy to approach, and independent in their individual work. I know this because when my partners embodied these traits, I was most content with them and did my best work then.

The Tool

The tool that was sharpest for me in this project was the tool for unbottling my real feelings. This is because the project revolved around watching debates regarding contentious and issues, my perspectives on these were bound to be tested through the process. At the end of the debate, I found myself rethinking my real feelings on some of the issues after hearing what some of the people had to say. This was even tougher considering how problematic and morally-challenging some of the issues debated about were, which made me really have to think hard and question my stance, even making me alter my stance slightly in a few cases. The tool I need to spend more time using is the tool for cutting out distractions, since I feel that in some instances, I could’ve been more efficient with my time had I not been distracted by something else. This would’ve given me more time to think, to do other work, and more free time in general.