1) This past semester I struggled with completing the assignments with my original problem. For the sake of the assignments, it was just too broad and ambitious and not feasible (at least for me). While its a subject I care about, I just didn't know enough about to pitch a plan to target a specific part of the problem. For a while I continued doing the assignments, but I could see the quality of my work decreasing and I'm don't think I ever fully recovered from that. Another bad habit of mine that often times leads to failure is procrastination. I let myself leave assignments until the last moment and even though most of the time I'm able to turn in the assignments on time, they're not as good as far as quality.
2) Shortly after I realized that I was really struggling with the assignments, I emailed Dr. Pryor asking if I could change my idea and he responded saying I could. In that email I wrote that I didn't dedicate the time, thought, or effort that I should've into each of the assignments and that is why I found myself struggling halfway through the semester. I learned that you cannot do things halfway, and there are consequences if you do (In this case that would be my final grade). After this, I strove to dedicate enough time to finish the assignments.
3) Failure is a learning process. The hardest thing about failure is getting back up. Just like you can't know true happiness without experiencing sadness, I think you can't know true success without failure. Someone once told me that if you're experiencing failure you have to trace the problem to the root of the cause if you want to a permanent solution instead of a temporary fix. Essentially, you need to look at the big picture. While I say this, I struggle with applying this to myself. When I experience failure, I feel embarrassment and I feel like an idiot because most of the time when I fail it's due to my own shortcomings. Afterwards, I usually let myself wallow in self-pity for a bit before letting myself try again. This class has made me a bit more open to taking risk. I know that a lot of times people say that the things they regret the most are the actions that they didn't take. Of course saying it and thinking it are different from actually doing it. I just hope that when the opportunities present themselves that I'll be able to follow through.
Hello Katia,
ReplyDeleteI think it's great you realized the potential you can hold in your assignments. I agree, some of the assignments were quite difficult in regards to thinking outside of the box for our products and services. However, if one struggles, it's okay! I think that is a great sign that the experience is becoming a learning process instead of thinking it as a failure.
I also dealt with some indecision about the assignments in this course because what starts off as an abstract group of assignments turns into a much more developed and organized web of ideas for an actual product. I commend you for turning it around and beginning to change your outlook on failure from a negative to a positive and finding ways to contextualize it that make you much more satisfied with taking risk which is what being an entrepreneur is all about.
ReplyDelete