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Month: January 2026

Creating a Better Me – Atomic Habits

Creating a Better Me – Atomic Habits

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Social media has taken over our world. Almost everyone I know uses social media one way or another. The ones who don’t…major FOMO. This single activity was ruining my focus, my time, my attention span, my productivity, and my mental health. So, I took responsibility for my actions and used James Clear’s Atomic Habits theory to make a change.

The Project 

Habits are so important in shaping the kind of person you want to become. In this project, I selected a habit that I wanted to create or change. I read the book Atomic Habits, which taught me how to do that. I then put systems in place, which helped me reach my goal.

My Answer to the Driving Question

How can improving by just 1% each day help me take responsibility for my learning, strengthen my habits, and create balance and purpose in my future career and life?

Building habits is not an easy process. It takes a lot of effort and self-discipline. If you jump too far in too quickly, it is easy to get overwhelmed and quit. Taking it slow and improving bit by bit helps you build systems, which makes the habit a natural thing you don’t even have to think about. Having strong, lasting, and healthy habits is so important to be a successful person. Without them, you won’t progress as a person. You will waste time deciding what to do, and your life would turn to chaos with no structure. 

The Roadmap to Get There

Habit Mind Map

At the very beginning, I brainstormed all of the habits I had when I started the project, both good and bad. I then laid them all out on a mind map. This activity really helped me get real-life examples of what a habit is and gave me a better understanding of what habits were holding me back.

Atomic Habits

Atomic Habits by James Clear is the book that taught me all about why habits are so important and how to build them. This book had so many valuable points and information, the most impactful thing that I took away was the concept of habit stacking. I always want to create new habits, but when I actually try to, I always forget about them or can’t find the time to. Habit stacking is the idea of linking the habit you are trying to build to another habit that is already engraved in your life. For example, if I want to create the habit of writing in my journal every day, I could say “every day after I brush my teeth, I will sit down at my desk and write in my journal”. This book was very successful in changing the way I thought, and I don’t think this project would’ve had the effect it did have on me without it.

My New Habit – Limiting Screen Time

 “I will improve my bad screen time habits on my phone by 1% by decreasing the time I spend on social media by 5 minutes each day.” This is the habit I spent weeks working on trying to apply into my life. 

Social media is something that I spent several hours doomscrolling on a day. Not only did this make me feel lazy, unaccomplished, and awful about myself, but it declined my ability to focus by huge amounts. I went to social media as a way of procrastinating, when doing school work, I constantly switch between scrolling and doing work. This causes me to be very stressed about schoolwork and fall behind.

In order to build the habit of limiting my screen time, I made it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying; this helped me be more consistent and create systems that helped me be successful.

Watch the video to see not only the amazing things that came out of this experience, but also the challenges I faced:

Learning Intention

https://www.blog44.ca/tylerm/2025/11/03/atomic-habits-learning-intentions/

At the very beginning of this project, I created learning intentions. For this project, I said that I wanted to use my skills in listening and information processing while reading Atomic Habits and taking in the information it taught me. Also, in my Vision, Mission, and Values and then again in my learning intention post, I reflected that the habit most holding me back is my awful addiction to my phone/TikTok and how I would’ve loved to improve this habit, even if it was just by a little bit. I said it would make me become a more effective learner and present person.

How I Grew

Now that I have reached the end of the project, I can fully say I have grown so much both as a learner and a person. When reading Atomic Habits, I decided to listen to the audiobook rather than read it. I am not a visual learner, so reading books is very hard for me, however, listening to the book not only helped me process the information a lot easier but also made the process enjoyable. This whole project, I focused on my phone addiction, and now I can fully say that it has helped me grow in so many ways. This new habit has become a part of my lifestyle and will stay like that for a very long time.

How Will I Apply This in the Future?

Going forwards in my life, I have a new sense of knowledge. Now, I know how important habits are, and most importantly, I know how to fix my struggle. I will no longer feel helpless when I feel like I am doing something wrong with my life because I have the skills to help myself. This project helped me grow as a person and will continue to help me constantly progress as a successful person.

How Do We Remember??

How Do We Remember??

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What if everything you think you know about the past isn’t based on facts, but stories that have been carefully chosen to be told?

This project we looked deep into the driving question, how do stories, media, and propaganda shape how we remember WW2?, by learning about World War 2 in many different ways through many different perspectives, ultimately leading us to the finished product when we created a booth to go in the 2025 PLP winter exhibition.

My Answer to the Driving Question

During and after World War 2, stories, media, and propaganda play a huge role in shaping people’s knowledge and opinions. They can be carefully curated and shaped to portray certain countries and people as bad and good. Movies, the radio, newspapers, and articles often highlight bravery and sacrifice rather than the deeper truths. Over time, these ideas and select points of view are permanently engraved in history and become the way we view the past. As a result, the way we remember World War 2 isn’t based on solid facts, it is based on how the facts have been told.

The Roadmap to Get There

Movies

This project required me to know a lot about WW2, but going in, I knew almost nothing. In order to gain the knowledge to have a successful project, we watched several movies that taught me so much about the war from lots of different perspectives.  

Dunkirk

The first film we watched was the movie Dunkirk. Watching Dunkirk was an intense and emotional experience. The movie is full of blood, suspense, and an excruciating amount of death, making it such a hard watch. I found myself constantly closing my eyes, holding my breath, and flinching. It was heartbreaking to even fathom someone had experienced this in real life with their own eyes. The film showed me how much loss that occurred at Dunkirk. The soldiers were constantly so vulnerable and helpless, which stirred up heavy feelings of fear and dread. This battle was devastating and full of so much suffering, and seeing that made me so grateful for all of the brave and selfless soldiers who fought for the world we live in today.

Jojo Rabbit

The next movie we watched was Jojo Rabbit. This movie is set in Nazi Germany during the final years of World War 2. During this time, Germany was heavily controlled and influenced by the fascist leader Hitler, who brainwashed his people through propaganda and fear. Children were a huge target during this time, they grew up in the Nazi worldview and were taught to worship Hitler. Little boys were trained to be soldiers who saw Jewish people as monsters. The Holocaust made a very dangerous world for Jews, so many of them went into hiding, putting both themselves and the harbourers in grave danger. The movie also shows the end of the war, a time filled with bombings, food shortages, and the crumbling of the German army, where they let anyone go out and fight, including children. Watching Jojo Rabbit was a big eye-opener, it was made from a German boy’s perspective, giving me a different view on the Holocaust, it really showed me how easy it was to get brainwashed by hitlers claims and helped me understand just how awful Nazi beliefs were. 

Jewish Conservation Camps Film

The last movie we watched was one about the Jewish concentration camps. This movie was the most impactful for me, it opened my eyes wide about how badly Jewish people were treated. It followed American soldiers as they discovered the camps and laid eyes on the heartbreaking condition the Germans left the Jewish people in. After watching this, I was left shocked and heartbroken, I couldn’t fathom how a human could do that to another. 

Exhibition

After learning all about the war, we had to share our findings in the 2025 PLP Winter exhibition. This year, the exhibition was avatar-themed. My group and I got assigned the task of creating posters and museum-like statues to show the similarities of WW2 and avatar culture, identity, and belonging. 

Artifacts

This is the poster we made where we found similarities between the culture, identity, and belonging of avatars versus World War 2.

We then picked what we believed were the most impactful topics and created two visual displays to share our information and findings.

Destruction – Burning Jewish Tree

This display shows Pandora’s tree of souls blended with a Jewish family tree, burning. The Jewish family tree represents the deep cultural history and identity that was attacked during the Holocaust. The tree of souls represents connection and the spiritual culture of the Navi. The fire symbolizes how both white humans, the Nazis, and humans in Avatar destroyed culture, identity, and connections in pursuit of what they wanted.

Desire – German Mineral Boy

Our German Mineral Boy represents Hitlers vision of the perfect race, a world full of blonde, blue-eyed Germans, as he expanded his power across the world. The minerals represent the rare resource the humans in Avatar wanted to dig up from Pandora. By combining our two ideas, our display shows how both the Nazis and humans wanted something so badly that they were willing to destroy entire cultures to get it.

White Saviour Poster

Something I noticed while watching Avatar was how offside it was. Throughout the whole plot there are many things that are implying  white saviour-ship. They are dehumanizing the original First Nations to Pandora’s Land and making them seem helpless and in need of saving.

What Brings Cultures Together

In order to tie in the idea of culture, identity, and belonging, we created this poster which shows the similarities in what brand the Jewish people together and what brought the Navi people together.

Exhibition Day

I was not able to go to Exhibition Day because I was on the trip of a lifetime to French Polynesia. However, after talking to my group, I have heard that it went very well. They both knew what they were talking about and did a great job in making our booth engaging and interactive by creating an interesting booth and putting on an interactive Avatar Just Dance.

F.A.I.L (First Attempts in Learning)

If I were to do anything differently in this project, I would change the way my group members and I communicated with the grade 12s in charge of our exhibition room. During this project, we were asked to talk with the grade 12s organizing the room we set up our booth in to discuss the theme and aesthetics of the room. We did not communicate as well as we should have, which left our booth looking out of place and off-theme with the rest of the room. Next time, I will be sure to make communicating with the grade 12s way more important and be sure to talk and meet up with them beforehand to discuss their ideas and vision.

Learning Intention

https://www.blog44.ca/tylerm/2025/10/20/world-war-2-learning-intentions/

At the beginning of this project, I strived to use my skills in creativity and self-directed learning. I wanted to gain skills in communication and collaboration, which would both help me gain a deeper understanding of WW2, not just the events but also the role it still plays in our society today.

How I Grew

Since making my learning intention, I have spent a lot of time learning and working, and I believe not only has my knowledge of World War 2 grown, but I have also grown as a person. In my vision, mission, values, and then again in my learning intention post, I made it a goal to work on my communication and collaboration skills by stepping out of my comfort zone and putting trust in my peers. This has been a long-time goal of mine, and this project was the best I have done at it yet. My group and I worked so well together; we all did a very equal amount of work and gave each other roles that played off of each other’s strengths. I did the information aspect because I have a passion for the thing we were learning about. Lianne made the statues because she loves and is amazing at art, and Julia helped with the organizing and ideas because she is a very creative and organized person. Having successful collaboration helped us create a successful project. I will be taking the skills we learned and applying them to future group projects.

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