I’ve officially finished my first week of Praxis and it’s been a fantastic experience! I’m already seeing improvement in my mindset and writing because of the exercises Praxis has created for their participants. In my previous post I identified my top three skills and now I’ll pinpoint which five traits I would like to gain or enhance.
Time Management
I’ve talked to a few other Praxis participants in my class about their goals and the one thing that we all had in common was learning how to manage our time better. My peers and I also discussed what our plan of action would be to get things done and not procrastinate.
Despite this being a common problem throughout my life as a student, I’ve found ways to improve and start implementing tools to help me focus and stop wasting time.
The first step to improvement is being more disciplined. After joining Praxis I have more deadlines to meet and creative work to post. I also asked my new network what apps could help me be disciplined and they suggested using Trello to create schedules and Pomotodo for focusing on one task at a time.
I’ve also reduced the amount of distractions in my life like only allowing social media and email checking when I take breaks, rather than randomly checking it throughout the day unless I’m expecting something important.
Indispensable Skill
I was listened to an episode of the Forward Tilt podcast about making yourself more valuable and indispensable, basically make it so that your employers will want to work with you. Give them reasons for choosing you over someone else.
So how do I become more indispensable? Pick a skill that is versatile across different areas and fields. I decided to learn two languages at once, Mandarin and Spanish. Learning another language will open doors and if you network with native speakers it will create even more opportunities. I landed my first sales job at Brooks Brothers because I know some Mandarin, even though I had no prior experience selling anything.
Communicate More Positively
During one of the Praxis Wednesdays skills workshop, Johnny Roccia (the guest speaker for that Wednesday) helped me improve on my interviewing skills during a mock interview. He was impressed by how well I did but in the last question I discovered something that needed improvement; learn to communicate positively.
Overall I’d say I have a positive attitude but sometimes my inner Negative Nancy takes over. I was surprised when Mr. Roccia pointed out that I should focus more on a positive message when marketing myself because it didn’t even occur to me that my mindset had changed so much.
The reason why my attitude had changed so drastically was because of events that were out of my control. Eight months ago I was in a terrible car accident and I almost lost my life. I haven’t been the same since because I developed anxiety and permanent lower back pain, but I found ways to heal.
I reached out to close friends and traveled to conferences even though my anxiety wanted me to stay cooped up in my room like a hermit. I’m glad I pushed myself to get out there and surround myself with motivated businesspeople, insightful economists, and other amazing people. Everyone I met and reached out to helped me heal whether or not they realized it and for that I’m thankful to have made such wonderful, beautiful friends.
Sometimes you need to step back and listen to yourself speak. Are you communicating positively or negatively? Other times it’s the people you surround yourself with. Resist the urge to isolate yourself because it only makes your anxiety worse. Your friends and family are there waiting to help you and best of all it’s free counseling!
Wake Up Early
Benjamin Franklin once said “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” One of the traits of highly successful people is waking up early to tackle the day.
Being a morning person leaves me with more time to work and pursue hobbies and new interests. Ever since I graduated high school I dreaded waking up at the crack of dawn because I was waking up for the state government’s one-size fits all education, not for the artistic hobbies I wanted to pursue.
I still struggle to wake up early (I’m a night owl and prefer working late) but setting new goals to achieve makes me motivated to rise early in the morning. I’ve decided to start waking up at 8am everyday and start going to the gym at the beginning of my day rather than night. In the morning I’ve noticed the gym is less crowded and I’ll be able to get my workout done faster.
Another perk to waking up is listening to the birds sing and smelling the fresh morning air. I like to spend time in my parents’ garden, it helps me relax and it’s full of little surprises like watching the bees pollinate or see new flowers pop up.
Work Faster
I’ve always been a perfectionist but it came at the cost of slowing down my productivity. I’ve learned to let go of the little things that most people wouldn’t even notice or make a big deal out of, like constantly checking my emails or worrying about how my hair looks.
One thing that slows down my productivity is writer’s block. I’ve struggled with this since junior year of high school and it wasn’t because I didn’t want to write but rather I couldn’t relate to the things I wrote. I think the solution to help me write faster is writing a rough draft of whatever comes to mind even if it’s incomplete, abrupt thoughts. I’ve also found that digesting information from different sources like books, podcasts, and museums helps create ideas.