What it do gonzo crew G.O.N. GONZO CREW STAND UP! Welcome back to other blog post. Before we get into this post I would like to take some time to say that the title has no connection to the drug opium but instead is a connection to popular trap artist Playboi Carti. Playboi Cartis rap label “opium*”consists of multiple underground trap/rage artists consisting of “Ken Carson”, “Destroy Lonely”, and “Homixide Gang”. I would also like to say that I do not do the drug known as opium but I do love the artists under that label.
now with opium out of the way welcome to the REAL blog. This project was all about positive brain training and growing as a person to better yourself through habits. This project was kinda like a part 2 to our project last year connecting directly to the 7 habits of highly effective people which is a boom we read (I tried) to read last year. The book we read this year was similar in sense but boy did it change my ways. This book was called… Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results, by James Clear.
Before we really got started into this project we first had to do a few things just like every other plp project. We started off by watching a TED talk titled “the happiness advantage” by Shawn Achor. This TED talk talks about how a positive mindset can lead to improvement in the work force, school or really any aspect of your life. We ended up watching this same video around 4-5 times. At the start it was pretty good and had some good jokes and was enjoyable you could say. By the 3 time i was already bored and by the 5 time I wanted to grab a chair and smash the projector. Each time we watch the video we were told to TAKE notes, not make notes. With these notes we where then assigned a group and where tasked with finding the big idea of a summarizing statement. I definitely didn’t want to watch that video that many times but at least because of that I remember most of the video which is probably for the better anyway.
in the video Shawn talks about how there are 5 things we can do to gain a positive mindset those being 1. Exercise 2. Journaling 3. Gratitude 4. Meditation and 5 random acts of kindness. Our next task was actually applying all of these tools to our self’s in our everyday things to the point where it just becomes a habit. Each day we spent a bit of time at the start of the class focusing on 1 of the 5 things, different day different practice. We did this for around 3 weeks before we took flight to Orlando. For example on one of the gratitude days our job was to send a love letter to someone (didn’t have to be in a romantic way) i decided to write a love letter to one of my best friends Sepaus just to thank him for being my friend for all these years and that I’m grateful for him
(I sent him a text as well)
Another thing we did at the start of each class was dedications. At the start of the classes someone in the class would dedicate our learning to a certain person who we admired and could and could use their teachings in out classroom. Personally I think the best example of this was when I dedicated the class to the most talented artist to ever grace this earth, sweet sweet Jordan Carter. (Playboi Carti) my reasoning for this was because he is very inspirational and also Incredibly handsome which lead to the best thing in my school career, Ms. Willemse putting a picture of Carti on the projector for the whole class.
Finally we started to actually read the book. I rarely read so when we first started reading it I was kinda bored and having trouble staying on top of my reading. To help me stay on task I put a goal in my Things to read 5 pages a day, sometimes more if I was feeling it, which I feel like really helped me. Overtime I did get kinda bored and tired of reading it but still understood and recognized the message and value of the book. For the remainder of this post I will be talking about the most important topic of the book, The 4 Laws of Behaviour Change.
1. Make it obvious 2. Make it Attractive 3. Make it easy and 4. Make it satisfying. These are the 4 laws of building good habits. I really am a fan of these laws becuase their simple, easy to do and rememberable.
Now you may be thinking “where is the big ending?” But nope this is it. The end goal for this project was just a blog post. Even though the end product isn’t that big there still is a driving question that needs to be answered which is: how does balance in my life create opportunities?
Using the methods and teachings in atomic habits you can build and create habits to manage different parts, situations and everyday things in your life. You can build habits to make you more efficient in your days but remember that you can also accidentally create bad habits as well in your everyday life too. Practicing good habits can remove excess stress which can cause poor mental health and wasted time. These benifets can lead to better performances at your job, relationships, and growing as a person.
Overall I feel like this book and “mini project” really did help me more than I thought it would and has taught me good ways to improve pre existing habits, grow new ones and break bad ones. While at times it was kind of a struggle to keep up with the reading I’m really glad I did power through and finish the book as I definitely took away some very good things.
SLATT 💚
Landon