PGP Time Machine

I’m sure at this point your familiar with my PGP course. Since it’s almost June, it’s that time of the year to start wrapping up what we’ve learned. We’ve covered everything from goal setting to effective habits and productivity. Although all useful skills to know for the future, the most important thing I learned was “The world isn’t working against me, I’m working against myself”. I really didn’t consider this until we began learning about paradigms at the beginning of the year. I realized that my paradigm of myself does not benefit me at all. I spend almost all my time critiquing myself and focusing on all the things I do wrong. This creates a negative perception of myself and really lowers my self esteem. If I continue down this path I will never have enough confidence to take chances or accomplish goals I put my mind to.

“Paradigms are like glasses. When you have incomplete paradigms about yourself or life in general, it’s like wearing glasses with the wrong prescription. That lens affects how you see everything else.”

-Sean Covey

As always (since this is a project based course) I created an artifact to represent my learning. I tied in each aspect of what we’ve learned and the most valuable thing I will take away from this course all through a reflective painting. As I take you through my art piece, I will touch on each topic we have learned this year.

Take a look!

This painting was created by me! It took lots of effort and planning, overall I feel like the artistic side could have turned out better, but i’m really proud of the actual idea behind it! We begun this whole process with a pitch form, this way our ideas could be laid out and approved before we begun. My pitch form was actually a lot different than the way the piece turned out (which I didn’t plan). I felt like my old idea may have been more negative and thinking of the past, where as the painting now is more thinking of the future. That may not make any sense now, but I promise it will by the end.

My original ideas and pitch form!

So my overall idea of this painting was to create a girl looking for her future and goals using a pathway of the skills she had learnt. As you may have noticed, she is walking along the ocean. The sea has always been my home, so having my pathway of skills parallel with the ocean represented how my family have always been supportive of me. The girl is exploring who she wants to be in the outdoors, coming back to my thesis (the world isn’t against me, I’m against myself). This shows that the only thing stopping her from following the path to success is self doubt and a negative paradigm. Nothing has ever physically stopped me from achieving my goals, it's always been my self doubt. It may be hard to tell, but those binoculars actually have symbols of some goals I would like to achieve. I will go more in depth about those later.

This painting could have really helped me at the beginning of the year. It could have been a constant reminder to never doubt myself. Everytime I studied for a big test, handed in an assignment or got ready for a big soccer game it would have been a reminder of who I am. Since I am in grade 11, having the confidence to set more goals would have been really helpful. I would have explored more universities, programs and set my standards higher. Although I didn’t know this at the beginning of the year, I do know which means my grade 12 year is about to be a whole lot more successful! The great thing about the art piece is that I can now hang it in my room as a reminder every morning and night of my positive paradigm.  

Let’s get into the nitty gritty, starting with the binoculars. This portion of the art piece is all about goal setting, starting with mine. Each symbol represents something a more positive perception of myself can earn me. With grade 12 around the corner I am really worried about grades and the courses I am taking. I love chemistry but am worried I won’t be able to attain a high enough grade for it to count towards anything. This is a negative perception I would like to turn into a positive one by realizing that if I put my mind to something I can accomplish it. This is what the chemistry beaker, A+ sheet and science bubble represents. The Chinese symbol represents independence, something I lack at times. I sometimes don’t give enough credit to myself and always make excuses for why something was successful. I would like to flip that view and start gaining more independence in my achievements. Finally the airplane and UBC logo represent my future. At this moment, I am not sure what I want to do with my life which is something that I can sometimes view negatively. I would like to change that perception and focus on the things I love to do instead.

A dream board of some of my goals I created as an assignment at the beginning of this course.

The next two aspects are productivity and effective habits. These two topic were a large focus of PGP this year. This is represented by the application icons along the pathway to success. They are meant to show how much they help in my journey to achieving my goals. The Calendar icon is a symbol of time blocking. This is a very effective habit I have learned over time, and I still use to this day. It has helped me be more efficient, create better work and open up time for the things I love to do. The Things icon represents organization, and how we have learned to use it in our everyday life. Being able to have all my due dates, goals appointments and a To Do list in one spot has helped me so much in the long run. Having this application can organize my life, which means making more time to work towards my goals. Finally BaseCamp, something I use in my everyday life to retrieve information and learn. This represents an effective habit “sharpen your saw”. It’s meaning is to balance your knowledge and have a broad understanding of the world, while also being mentally stable, being healthy and having strong relationships.The habits essentially helps you become more balanced in your life. I thought basecamp would be the perfect icon because it’s where I get all my information for my classes and learn about how to have goals, effective habits and balancing my life.

Yet another piece I created in mind of Habit #7, Sharpen Your Saw.

The Overall this course I know will help me in the long run. Everything I’ve learned will help me achieve my goals, get into university and hopefully start a successful career. This course will most definitely help me in my journey to becoming my best self, and achieving the things I wish to see in my life. With all this in mind I would like to work towards switching my lens, and how I perceive myself. Now I know my strengths and weaknesses, both tools I can use to work towards my goals. Hopefully this experience, reflection and my art piece can help me gain more confidence and create a more positive paradigm of myself.

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