Habits For Success

Habits for Success: Improving habits as we go Luis Pleitez California State University, Chico

Abstract Many people have strengths they do not realize they have within them, but they identify their skill through personal experiences. Once they discover their capabilities, they use it to their benefit towards the future. These skills one possesses can contain a wide range of traits. It can start from curiosity ranging to metacognition. They will attain many others like responsibility, creativity, openness, persistence and flexibility. These 8 habits are what lead us to success.

Curiosity Curiosity is a trait that is very mysterious; it can be good or bad. People believe curiosity is a habit we are born with. Some see curiosity as a gateway to danger, but it harnesses much more positive traits than that. Litman (2006) defines curiosity as the desire for new knowledge or experience. Curiosity is a skill, which lead us to greater knowledge. It helps us answer all the

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questions we cant answer. Curiosity helps us, like scientists, further our knowledge by helping us learn more of our universe. It is said,

Curiosity is something that can be nurtured and developed. With practice, we can harness the power of curiosity to transform everyday tasks into interesting and enjoyable experiences it is useful to us because we adapt from it (Kashdan, 2010).

Using curiosity can be a great experience because you gain great benefits of what you learn from them.

Responsibility Responsibility helps strive us to better futures. When one is able to learn this skill, procrastination is minimal. We all might think responsibility is like taking charge for a certain objective. It is not. Doty mentions, Authority refers to who is in charge, while responsibility refers to who is accountable (2012). Responsibility is the person, who takes, fault or credit for which he is assigned to. However, people see it as trait exactly connected to the word leadership. These two words are two different completely things. Leadership is when a character directs groups to do certain tasks, awhile responsibility sees they accomplish the demand by the time advised by the leader. Responsibility might be hard to understand, but it is one word we must learn to use in society.

Creativity

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Creativity is a vague trait. We can do good creativity and help develop something for the future. However, sometimes the positive creativity can be harmful to others. Moran (2012) states negative creativity is vague and does not mean it can range from risk to terrorism ideas. She believes there is no way to title creativity good or bad because sometimes they can be both. Creativity is a skill we can make of both. Creativity is a way of sharing a persons idea to the public. It can be beneficial as well as cause harm. Lpleitez.weebly.com mentions,

Moran uses another example mentioning slavery. When slavery was around it was deemed as a positive idea to agree on. However as time progressed, people saw it as a bad act, which lead to abolishing slavery (Moran, 2012)

Creativity is not one or the other but both. When people vision the pros of an idea, they should consider what cons come along with it. Aside from that, creativity is important to society because it increases productivity and helps make the world innovative. We have creativity to thank for creating Apple Inc., Coca-Cola, Pepsi Co., and others.

My Adaption to the 8 habits During my semester here in Chico State, Ive been able to improve those three habits as well as some others. For instance, I thought I knew well what curiosity was at the beginning of the semester, but I was wrong and my definition of the meaning was wrong and vague. I had started to understand well of the meaning. It was just a word, which meant expand and questioning your knowledge. In the Tree Guide I had gotten the Japanese Barberry and Portugal Laurel to

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research, but I had no idea what my trees were or looked like. The more I researched, however, the more information I had learned.

In Lpleitez.Weebly.com, I learned Japanese Barberry were invasive shrubs with simple wedged leaves, which turn red when there leaves are covered in shade (Pleitez, 2013). I as well learned Portugal Laurels were shrubs as well, which contained toxic seeds (Pleitez, 2013). I have now been able to succeed or at least improve in my researching now.

When my team was assigned to make a Sense of Place video, I felt I had a responsibility to get involved as much as I can. My group taught me to be more responsible with my work, and decrease my procrastination. We would do work and have meetings to discuss our work. We did not rush, but pace ourselves. I was glad to be put in this group because they helped me structure myself more and become more progressive. At times I had to be flexible for our meetings, because there were moments I had to finish other school work. However, work would not stop me or rain when it was raining. I knew even if I had obstacles, I had to find ways of adaption and go around them.

My creativity boosted this semester as well in my class. Our instructor gave us an assignment to build an office and write about why we had designed it the way we did. I learned offices are mostly grey, simple, and serious. I discovered I needed to be innovative and discover a new way to redesign offices and make them both fun and creative. I gave my office a look, which would make everybody comfortable. Walls were white to represent peace; trees, water, fish tanks, and

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the huge glass window were designed as well to comfort workers because water and nature sooth peoples minds (see design above, Pleitez, 2013).

Nate had shown us random pictures. We were to right of how we felt of these pictures. Some made us calm, some made us act negatively. When he showed us some pictures, which made us act negative, were within the other pictures of the positive ones, I was astonished and confused of what had happened. Learning more about nature had led me to become more open and glance at things in a different perspective. With it I have been able to recreate my office for the assignment and see nature more carefully.

Even though I have improved in a great amount of areas, I still got a whole lot to learn. For one I have not been able to be metacognitive. I have not had much time to reflect on myself or assignments. The only reflection I do is revising work, which is not an asset to metacognition. I dont know much about the word, but it sounds like I need to put more work into it. If I am able to improve in this area, it will be much simpler for me to use it in everyday life. Ways I can start is: doing more research and analyzing. Once Im done, I can do reflections on how I feel about the topic.

Conclusion These skills are a requirement for the future. It might be hard to learn all of these special traits, but it takes time to gain and specialize them. I thought I had acquired all the habits before I attended Chico State, but I found out I was just a rookie and far off from the point of each skill. However, as time progressed I was able to improve each trait throughout each assignment I was

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asked to do in English 132. I still have not reached all 8 habits yet, but Im sure in a few years I will improve greatly. When I do get better at the 8 habits, I know I will be lead too success.

References: Doty, J., Doty, C. (2012). Command responsibility and accountability. Military Review, 92, 3538. Kashdan, Todd. (2010). The Power of Curiousity. Experience Life. Retrieved 9 December 2013 from http://experiencelife.com/article/the-power-of-curiosity/ Moran, S. (2012). Review of 'The dark side of creativity'. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, And The Arts, 6(3), 295-296. doi:10.1037/a0023689 Pleitez, Luis. (2013). Japanese Barberry Shrub. Theedreamteam. Retrieved 9 December 2013 from http://theedreamteam.weebly.com/japanese-barberry-shrub.html Pleitez, Luis. (2013). Portugal Laurel. Theedreamteam. Retrieved 9 December 2013 from http://theedreamteam.weebly.com/portugal-laurel.html Silvia, J.P., Litman, J.A., (2006). The latent structure of trait curiosity: evidence for interest and Deprivation curiosity dimensions. Personality Assessment. 86. 318-328.