Goals

1. Develop a greater sense of self-awareness

In many ways, my self-awareness is a constant growth curve. My spiritual

practices lean toward cultivating a greater sense of self through detached self-observation. There are many areas of my self that I still don’t understand. And while I understand that I am lacking in some areas, I have little motivation to change them. One such area is time management and my terrible habit of procrastination. I have never grasped the ability to plan ahead and stay on top of things. By nature I have always been a procrastinator, but being aware of this fact has not afforded me the ability to change. Since this course addresses this very issue, at long last, I am going to make an effort to overcome my own terrible procrastination. It’s about time.

2. Develop of a greater sense of external awareness

I would consider myself a very open person, and I am often greatly aware of the things going on around me. There have been times in my life when I have felt very in tune with the world around me. But I am also aware that I have the tendency to limit this awareness to certain areas and even very specific realms. It is not that I altogether close myself off to these areas, but tend to ignore them most of the time because I don’t have an immediate or obvious connection with them. My goal is to further open myself up to the exploration of those areas that I find myself in avoidance or altogether unawareness of in my day to day life.

3. Discover my sense of place

This goal encompasses many facets. When I try to pinpoint what sense of place means to me, I find myself at a loss as to what it is that I am asking myself exactly. This is the first time in my life that I have sat down and thought about what it means to have a sense of place. I’ve often thought about my sense of self and what that means, but I hope to better understand what my sense of place means to me. For the first time in my five years here at UT, I am discovering that I am part of a great tradition that I had previously closed myself off to. I would like to continue to explore this new sense of place and hopefully find my place within it. But I know that my sense of place is not limited to this one aspect. I have always felt connected to nature and have found it as a source of inspiration at many points in my life. It’s very easy to find myself locked in front of a computer these days, trying to force inspiration to happen. Another facet of this goal would be to get outside and reconnect with nature where there has always been a natural flow of inspiration for me. I think that by extending my awareness of place on a small scale at first, I will eventually become more open to my sense of place on a larger scale. To this I would like to add, that in discovering my sense place, I would like to understand my surroundings so that I get a feel for why I get a certain sense of place. As I prepare to move once again this summer, this time out of the one place that has felt like home to me in many years, I want to be able to take my knowledge and understanding of sense of place to aid me in finding my new home. Especially since it will be the first permanent home I have had since living with my parents. My boyfriend, soon to be fiancé, and I will be buying a house, and I hope that the knowledge I have attained will be useful in choosing a house that will feel like home to me, and more importantly, to us.

4. Maximize my potential

Most classes that I have taken do not allow for much room to be creative or let alone help to cultivate creativity. I spent the last two years studying biology, for which there always seems to be a right or a wrong answer, and I became tired of looking at things in black and white. But now I find myself feeling blocked at times because my creative brain has been so long out of practice. I can appreciate the need to be a rich blend of creative as well as analytical. I hope that this class will help me to rediscover my creative self while continuing to exercise my analytical self. I hope to use this creativity to look further into myself and discover things about myself that perhaps I hadn’t been aware of or understood before.

5. Think for myself

I have gotten so used to being told what to do and how to do it in order to please my professors and get a good grade, that I come to rely on very specific instructions to understand what is being asked of me. It’s not that I don’t know how to think for myself, it’s just that it has become convenient not to. I am excited about the opportunity in this class to assert my own thoughts. Though it is somewhat uncomfortable I am going to get past the reliance on instruction and remember how to think for myself.

6. Discover my strengths and weaknesses

To date, I feel that I have a pretty good grasp of myself, including some of my strengths and weaknesses. But I don’t believe that I have come close to completely discovering them. I am constantly learning new things all the time. My goal would be to continue that exploration of myself into discovering strengths and weaknesses, cultivating my strengths and moving beyond my weaknesses. I have always known that I have a tendency toward extreme perfectionism. It seems to run in my family. There are times when it has been useful to me, but I’d venture to say that the majority of the time, it gets in the way of my being successful, especially in creative realms because it blocks the flow of raw thoughts and emotions. I know that I need to lighten up and let go of my need to be perfect all the time. I have also discovered that my reading skill has always left something to be desired because I have very poor concentration and a short attention span. Throw into the mix an equally poor memory and it’s sometimes amazes me that I have come this far. I’d like to discover new ways to cultivate that skill that I haven’t tried before in order to make myself a more comprehensive reader and, in turn, a better writer. I’ve also always had an intense fear of talking in front of people. When I get nervous, I fidget a lot, and I know it can be very distracting. I’d like to become more comfortable speaking in front of others.

7. To make an A in the course

This seems a rather silly goal to make, but I feel that by adding it to the list, my conviction and determination to achieve all these goals will not fail me in the end. But more than that, I would like to not just achieve the minimum required to get an A, but achieve above and beyond the expectation. The higher I set my sights from the beginning, the loftier goals I will be able to achieve in the end. Along with this is having faith in myself that I can achieve goals greater than my expectations. I f I set my mark low, I will achieve low, but if I set a goal higher than I would expect myself to achieve, then I will work harder to prove to myself that I can do it.