A Student’s Growth Mindset

In my entire life, I’ve realized that I either really commit to the task or only give it half my effort. I have worked on hundreds of things in my life and the ones that stand out the most are the ones that I put lots of effort into.

I show lots of grit when I play sports on a team because I am a part of that team and therefore I must contribute to it. For a couple of years, I was probably one of the best players on my baseball team because I practiced 2 extra times a week and got better each time. Last year I got put on the wait list for a basketball league and never got in. Anyways, I played on the school team and played in my driveway every chance I got. During quarantine, baseball was cancelled so the only sport I was limited to only basketball and I really improved my skills. I continued to play all quarantine long, and now I am the best player I have been my entire life.

I can use these skills more in my life at school, in the community, and at home by sticking to the task. I could put put more effort into the work I do at school by adding extra info. At home, I could help out around the house more by making dinner or cleaning the house. In the community, I could get a job, volunteer at the rec centre or any help they need.

My understanding on intelligence has changed after spending some time learning more about it. There is no limit to your intelligence so even if you think you can’t do something (unless you physically cannot do it) you can do it if you put your mind to it. Expanding your intelligence means putting time aside, focus on your topic, and believing in yourself.

About 1 month ago, I started a nightmare. My video game account had logged itself out of the console so I had to create a new account and link it with my console. Epic games, the company that my account is made by, have a website that is usually used to resolve these problems except that it was broken and never fixed it. I then sent about 3 emails a day to their support team trying to get somewhere until one day they suggested to make the account for me and the nightmare was finally over.
Throughout the entire process, I didn’t have much support and I was getting stressed because of school assignments piling up, not properly being able to play online with my friends, and the issue I had with Epic games. In about the last week, my brother began to try to help me and kept me going so I didn’t give up and within a week, the problem was solved.

Achieving good grades in school has always been important to me because the better I got, the brighter future I had. When I entered high school, the grading system was different so I was adding more information into my assignments than needed that led to lower grades and longer feedback. Once my parents found out, they told my brother and I that as long as I understood the assignment, I was doing fine. After keeping this in my mind for a while, my grades improved and I started to hand assignments in a couple days early.

This year I am willing to fail math to learn from my mistakes. I was never great at math so I want to find a way so that I can understand the problem quickly. I think that if I practice and make techniques that will help me with math for a couple hours a week, I’ll be able to absorb information easier.

From experience, I think to properly “stick to the script” I need to complete some easy math equations to get me on a roll and build up some self confidence. Self confidence is HUGE when it comes to math, especially with me because if you don’t believe in yourself you won’t make it in life.
Setting up times to practice and study will be very important and the very key to improve my math. Other than printing out/ writing out questions on a sheet of paper, there are online websites that are made for online math classes.
Knowing how much time and effort I should be putting into math is also very important. Having breaks or shortening practice times if your not getting the questions or messing up is immensely important or else you’re most likely going to over do it and lose your temper. Knowing when to stop can be hard to do but it’s doable over time.

It’s not going to be easy to practice math on my own time but I can make it a priority throughout the week. Even if I fail I know I’ve got nothing to lose because I will try again and again until I get it done. Keeping an open mindset throughout this process is what will keep me going and if I lose it, I’ll just take a break, figure out what my next step is, and continue the process.