Week 1 - Growth Mindset

I’ll start this blog with a hard truth – I’m a terrible journal keeper. I have started one multiple times throughout my life and have rarely made it past the first week of entries.  So, my first goal this semester is to reframe the way I look at journaling. Instead of approaching it as a task I must complete, I want to start looking at a personal journal as a way to invest in myself. As we learned this week, a journal is a tool – a way to keep track of questions, lessons, and goals that also provides a space for self-reflection and growth. And, as a 45-year-old college freshman, personal development is the name of the game!

I'm not entirely sure what I expected the focus of this course to be, but I found myself pleasantly surprised at the intended purpose that was outlined in this week's introduction. Setting the expectation that this semester will be focused on the "startup of you" is exciting to me! After 18 years of setting aside my needs for those of the people I love most, I have recently found myself committed to my own self-development and growth. And although this new path finds me feeling a bit selfish and a lot vulnerable, I know that as I improve myself, I am better equipped to best serve those around me. I'm working to embrace the challenges and setbacks I encounter as steppingstones rather than stumbling blocks. A growth mindset is critical to my success.

The most effective way that I have found to develop a growth mindset is to remind myself that struggle is a very important part of the process. Challenges in our life provide us with crucial opportunities for self-reflection and redirection. Without these experiences, we would remain stagnant. Growth cannot come without struggle – in the tough times we learn most about who we are and what we are capable of. And when we attach humility to the process, we allow space for God to help us navigate the way through. In Ether 12:27 we read, ““…for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” We can be strengthened in our trials through our willingness to grow and change for the better.

 

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