Self Reflection
My self reflection lately has been focusing on what makes me thrive. I have taken it upon myself to think of the situations where I am able to complete everything I put my mind to, as well as, the situations where I fail to meet my and other’s expectations. In this self reflection I’ve come to the realization that I thrive in completing challenges.
Challenges
I use this term in the sense of challenging myself to ship something, put my skills to the test and complete a task. Although there are other challenges: Work, personal, long-term difficulties, I am using a challenge as setting your mind on something and getting it done.
Lately I’ve been completing challenges, The $100 MBA challenge, blogging for 30 days, #getHaPy challenge, and others in both personal and professional settings. It feels great to accomplish things I set my mind to, but that’s only the start. Since I’ve set my mind in a challenge completing mindset, I’ve started using it as a way to complete another task.
Short-Term Focus
A key ingredient to my challenges is they’re short term. The nature of quick challenges enforces you to focus on getting something done within a limited time-frame. It also enforces just-in-time learning as opposed to typical college-setting learning, where you study for a test because that’s what the professor tells you to do. Challenges are about having a real world obstacle and discovering what is necessary to get over the obstacle.
Challenge Mindset
Today I helped some of my friends move. They had a ton of stuff to move and the scope of the move seemed almost insurmountable. However, looking at moving as a challenge, I was quickly able to define the critical portions to start with, and set my mind to completing one task at a time. Eventually we got everything moved, and although I’m exhausted, it was a great learning experience. Once you develop the habits and abilities to complete challenges, other challenges become easier. And once seemingly big obstacles become smaller. Completing challenges has helped me determine what’s important, what’s not important, how to be resourceful, the necessity of shipping, and how strong just-in-time learning truly is.
So, if you’re reading this I challenge you to ship something. Whether it be a blog post, a quora answer, an email to a possible mentor or any other challenge you’ve been putting off. You never know where it might lead you and maybe you’ll also develop new ways of thinking from the challenge mindset.